Rant 1037 / Paraffin Wax Is Softer Than I Thought.

The allergy test, otherwise known as "Skin prick test - Basic and Counselling" cost S$64.20 inclusive of tax. The doctor's consultation fee, charged separately, was $80.25.

Paying by VISA gave me cashback of... S$0.43.

At least I got this booklet and pamphlet to remind me of what the counselling was about. Mainly I recall her putting a lot of emphasis on washing everything with water that's at 60 degrees Celsius because that's the lowest necessary to kill dust mites.

The booklet also reminded me something that made me facepalm - air filters need True Hepa filters to work, ie the crappy $20 thing that's about to arrive tonight won't work. Well, theoretically it could since it uses water to filter the air. I'll just have to change the water daily.

Still, it's probably too small for my room anyway.

Regardless, I've already bought it, so I might as well use it.

Otherwise, I could also invest in a hospital-grade air purifier that was recommended by the nurse. She did note that it was not necessary to buy anything if simple housekeeping could do the trick, so I'll just keep it in mind.

Another thing I could do is to double my housekeeping sessions like my mum did at one point in the past.

But that's expensive, possibly more expensive than getting that hospital-grade air filter.

I'll need to find out how much that costs, because the housekeeping option will cost $320 a month. Even if the filter's $500 and requires a change of carbon and air filters every few years, that's still a lot cheaper.

But first, let's see if the cheap air filter I ordered works. From what I've read from the nurse's allergy guide after buying the air purifier, the dust filtration property of its ionizer is rated at "Very Poor". Clearly it has an effect, but just a minimal one. On the other hand, it does have a "Fair" rating for its bioaerosol (airborne living organisms like bacteria and mould) filtration effect.

Next, I found a study report showing significant effect of the ionizer on dust mites, but it takes hours, more than half a day even, for it to happen. In the meantime, the conclusion also mentioned that the ozone produced as a side effect during this period of time can also be harmful to humans, so I guess I should only turn it on for 24 hours once in a while when I'm not around and with the room sealed as much as possible.

Other than when I'm overseas, how do I do that?

As for the surgery, I'm really undecided. The cheapest option is to simply shrink the swollen parts of my sinus and that costs several hundred dollars. Doing that and straightening my septum costs $4000. The cheaper option doesn't solve the issue of my crooked septum but the problem is I don't know how bad that is by itself.