Can Cats Be Allergic to Humans?

Of course, human allergy isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you see your cat wheezing and sneezing.

Feline owners are more likely to suspect an allergy to dust, pollen, or new food. The rarity of human allergy makes it hard to diagnose and can lead to complications due to a lack of timely treatment.

The good news is that any allergy can be taken under control by administering proper treatment and minimizing contact with the allergen.

What Causes Allergy To Humans?

Although such cases are rare, some cats are indeed allergic to humans. Well, technically, cats aren’t allergic to humans as species.

Instead, they can have an allergic reaction to human dander, specific fabrics, perfume, and other allergens humans happen to carry.

Overall, cat allergies can be divided into three categories: food allergies, flea bite allergies, and environmental allergies.

Environmental allergies refer to outdoor allergens such as pollen or grass and indoor allergens such as mold or dust.

Allergy to humans falls into the third category. Like animals, humans shed hair and dander throughout the day, and a cat exposed to such organic matters may develop respiratory or topical symptoms.

The good news is that since cats aren’t allergic to humans as species, the problem can usually be resolved by eliminating the allergen. The tricky part is to determine which matters cause the allergic reaction.

Now, you may wonder why cases of humans allergic to cats are much more common than cats allergic to humans. One may explain it by the lack of fluffy fur on humans, but it isn’t that simple.

Humans aren’t allergic to cats because of fur but rather proteins in cat saliva, sweat, and urine. When cats groom themselves, they leave the saliva proteins on their fur, leaving large amounts of allergen behind.

Cat dander also remains on their coat. Every time we touch a cat, dander and dried saliva proteins burst into the air.

In contrast, people don’t shed as much, don’t have fur for allergens to stick to, and bathe more frequently, washing allergens away.

Data shows that about 30% of people in the U.S. are allergic to cats or dogs. However, we don’t know for sure what percentage of cats are allergic to humans – perhaps, the figure is insignificant.

Allergy Symptoms

If you suspect that your cat may be allergic to humans, you should know the most common symptoms of allergy in cats. Unfortunately, the symptoms don’t differ depending on the allergen.

In other words, you won’t be able to identify whether you’re the root of the problem by the symptoms. However, you can at least make sure that your cat indeed suffers from an allergy and not a different medical condition.

You can recognize an allergic reaction in your cat by sneezing, wheezing, coughing, runny nose, watery eyes, congestion, itchy skin, hives on the skin, and ear irritation. If your cat also has digestion issues, it likely suffers from a food allergy.

Between one and five percent of cats have asthma caused by inhaling allergens that stimulate a cat’s immune system.

An array of immune cells then cascade into the cat’s airways, sometimes triggering the production of substances causing inflammation.

That’s a simplified explanation of how asthma occurs in cats, but it can help to understand the clinical signs of allergic feline asthma. Cats with asthma may wheeze, cough intensively, vomit and have difficulty breathing.

During an asthma attack, a cat may hunch low to the ground and extend its neck forward. Many asthmatic cats breathe with an open mouth, trying to get more air. Asthma attacks in cats can vary from mild to life-threatening.

How To Make Sure You’re The Reason (And Not Something Else)

Suppose your cat is experiencing allergy symptoms – next, you should learn how to test a cat for allergy to determine the root of the issue.

You can either make your cat a RAST (Radioallergosorbent) test, IDST (Intradermal Testing) test, or perform a home trial.

Naturally, a lab test is the easiest, quickest, and most accurate way to diagnose your cat with an allergy and determine what causes it. RAST is used to diagnose environmental allergies by measuring lgE levels in the cat’s blood.

LgE is an antibody type that responds to specific environmental allergens such as dust, pollen, and chemicals.

The main drawback of RAST allergy testing for cats is that the technology was created for humans and can produce a false-positive result in animals.

Furthermore, RAST isn’t effective in diagnosing contact allergies. Assume your cat is allergic to human dander.

RAST will only reveal the allergy if it’s caused by inhaling dander, but not if it’s caused by human dander contact with the cat’s skin.

IDST allergy testing for cats involves injecting insignificant amounts of allergens under the cat’s skin and monitoring the response. In other words, it’s a sped-up trial method. IDST gives instant results, whereas RAST lab testing may take weeks.

Assuming your cat’s allergic reaction is mild, you may try to identify the allergen at home. Note when your cat’s symptoms manifest – maybe it begins sneezing when you use a specific shower gel or wear a particular T-shirt.

Or, maybe your cat’s skin starts itching in the areas you rub. Unfortunately, the home trial method isn’t as effective for environmental allergies as for food allergies because you can’t exclude other allergens from the cat’s surroundings entirely.

Simply put, you can’t be sure that your cat sneezes because of human dander and not dust or pollen. Furthermore, most cats with environmental allergies react to multiple allergens.

Untreated allergies can get more severe over time and lead to complications, including atopic dermatitis and asthma.

The faster you identify the allergen, the less your cat will suffer from unpleasant symptoms, so veterinarians advise lab testing instead of home trials for environmental allergies.

How to Keep Allergy Under Control

Dealing with your pet’s food allergies is easy – all you need to do is change your cat’s diet, and the symptoms will be gone. But how do you deal with environmental allergies in cats, especially if the allergen is the owner?

After all, you can’t eliminate yourself from the house, and you can’t stop shedding dander entirely. However, you can reduce dander exposure by washing the bedding and clothes, vacuuming, and taking a shower more often.

Reconsider using carpets and rugs in your interior because they can trap allergens. If your cat is allergic to specific fabrics or chemicals, you may have to say goodbye to your favorite clothes or fragrant cosmetics.

But since preventing the cat’s contact with environmental allergens is nearly impossible, you may need to administer your pet corticosteroids or antihistamines.

Corticosteroids come in the form of pills, drops, and injections and are meant to block an allergic reaction, but they aren’t suitable for all cats.

Antihistamines in combination with fatty acids are effective for most cats, but they don’t work instantly – most take about a week to show results. Therefore, antihistamines aren’t a solution for sudden allergic episodes.

Furthermore, antihistamines only reduce respiratory symptoms like sneezing and runny nose but not skin reactions like eczema. The good news is that you can apply topicals for cat allergy locally on irritated skin.

Cats with atopic dermatitis can be prescribed immunosuppressive drugs such as cyclosporine that target immune cells responsible for the skin’s reaction to allergens, reducing hypersensitivity. The treatment typically takes about a month to show results.

Lastly, cats with chronic inhalant allergies (i.e., allergies caused by inhaling human dander or another allergen rather than touching it) can be treated with antigen injections. Antigen injections against allergy in cats work similarly to IDST testing.

A small amount of allergen is injected into the cat’s body every week, causing the immune system to reprogram and change its response to the allergen. Simply put, it’s like a mini-vaccine against an allergen.

Unfortunately, the method isn’t equally effective for all cats. Sometimes, antigen injections resolve the problem entirely, and in other cases, the improvement is minimal.

However, antigen shots are still worth trying out on your cat. According to veterinarians, this is the only way to cure a cat of an allergy – other methods are essentially temporary band-aids.

Reduce Cat Contact

Since antigen injections are the only way to cure human allergy in cats, and it isn’t always effective, you may have to learn to live with the problem. Giving your cat medications daily throughout its lifetime isn’t a reasonable solution.

Your main goal should be minimizing allergen exposure. If the allergen is you, reduce contact with your cat as much as possible. We get it; petting, hugging, and kissing your cat may be tempting.

Furthermore, your cat will seek attention and may be upset if you don’t touch it since it doesn’t understand you’re causing the allergy.

However, you should reduce contact for your pet’s good. Wash your hands before touching your cat, or wear gloves.

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