Control your asthma at work

Some jobs involve exposure to substances known to trigger or even induce asthma. Occupational Asthma can be a serious problem. More than 200 substances have been reported as triggers for occupational asthma. In the western world, it is thought than 200,000 people suffer from occupational asthma, and a further 500,000 have asthma that may be made worse by their job. Occupational asthma is a common cause of work-related illness.

Allergy or Sensitivity?

The potential for a true allergic reaction is present after your body has been exposed to an allergen and has produced IgE antibodies. These have contact with the mast cells in your body. When the allergen re-enters your body, your mast cells respond by releasing histamine, which triggers an attack.

If you experience symptoms because of exposure to triggers in your occupation, it is not necessarily true that you are allergic to those substances. Your reaction may instead be the result of sensitivity to an irritant, which is not an IgE-related or allergic response. Many strong odors can irritate the twitchy airways of an asthmatic and provoke symptoms. Whether an allergy or irritation causes your reactions, you can try to identify and avoid the offending substance.

The fact that you have developed asthma while at a particular occupation does not necessarily mean that these triggers have actually caused your asthma; it may simply mean that these irritants provoke asthma symptoms. However, it is also possible that airborne substances inhaled while working can actually start asthma in someone who previously did not have it. These substances are known as respiratory sensitisers. If you have been exposed to respiratory sensitisers during the course of your job, your airways may have become sensitised. As a result you have become prone to asthma symptoms.

Respiratory Sensitisers

Isocyanates - used for making plastics, foam, synthetic inks, paints and adhesives.
Platinum salts - used in platinum refining workshops and some laboratories
Crustaceans, fish or their products - involved in food processing
Reactive Dies - used in the textile industry
Fumes - from stainless steel welding
Soya bean - involved in food processing
Tea and coffee dust - food processing
Epoxy Resin curing and hardening agents. These include phytalic anhydride, tetrachlorophtalic anhydride, trimellitic anhydride or triethylenetretramine which are all used in paint manufacturing
Colophony fumes arising from the use of rosin as a soldering flux used in the electronics industry
Proteolytic enzymes used in the detergent industry, as well as the baking, brewing, fish, silk and leather industries
Dust from barley, oats, rye, wheat or maizes, or flour made from such grains - may be found in the baking or flour milling industries. Farmers may also be exposed to these dusts.
Wood dust such as cedar and mahogany. Carpenters, joiners, paper mill and sawmill workers would be exposed to it.
Isphagula dust - This is a component of bulk laxatives and workers employed in the manufacture and administration may be exposed to it.
Castor bean dust - seaman, laboratory workers and felt makers
Ipecacuanha - used in the the preparation of Ipecacuanha tablets
Persulphate salts and henna - used in hairdressing
Animals insects, larvae etc may affect laboratory workers, pest controllers.
Glutaraldehyde used as a disinfectant in hospitals, leather tanning and cooling towers