Does Icing Sugar Make Anyone Else Wheezy?
Decorating By JaneK Updated 18 Dec 2006 , 12:49am by JaneK
Anyone else bothered by icing sugar in this way or is it just me??? 
I know this sounds sort of weird and I am very healthy...not even 1 cold/year...
I have a constant wheezy cough whenever I do anything with icing sugar...have been monitoring it for a bit now..I even cover the KA now with a tea towel so the dust won't be kicked up.
I am concerned and think I will have to wear a mask when measuring it or pouring it into the bowl...
Between times, I am fine...the week I did 4 cakes, all I did was cough and wheeze horribly (lungs feel sort "itchy")..it takes a few days to go away...
Jane
I don't feel that way at all. I would definitely take precautions if I were you!
Maybe you have an allergy to it. I get that way around sheetrock dust. When we redid the walls in my livingroom I felt the same way. There are certain dusts that will make you that way. They irritate your broncile tubes as if you were allergic to them. Definitly wear a mask or but a cloth over your mouth and nose when working with it, it should help.
yup!!! I worked in a bakery and was around it so much I ended up having the same problem in fact I ended up with pneumonia and never had it before just went to my lungs. In small amts I am fine. Sorry to say but you are going to have to wear a mask but it will have to be a good one so the small particles won't get through. You should check with your Dr and see if you can get a puffer. I use Advair.
I'm not bothered by the clouds of xxx sugar; I attribute that to the layers of pet hair coating my lungs acting as a filter....
If I were sensitive, I'd get a supply of those little paper masks to keep the dust from tickling my nose 
However, I have used a towel (want to try a pillow case) to keep those Kansas dustbowl sized clouds of xxx from covering everything in a 2' radius of my KA!
Thanks...I will wet the towel and go to Home depot and get a mask that they would use for sanding drywall..similar I think...
...I will call my thing.. Baker's lung.... 
seriously, what a pain but at least seems to be sensitivity to the powder...nothing happens when I am mixing up flour..only icing sugar.
Jane
My husband gets "high" off the powdered sugar lmfao when he makes the icing, he inhales so much "dust" from sifting it that he is up until about 4 or 5 am until the sugar high wears off lmao.
He's a carpenter by day so he brought home some dust masks and wears one every time he makes icing now. It's helped alot!!! It's hard on those late nights when he'd normally be wired off the "fumes" of the sugar and not tired at all, to go to the way he is now, falling asleep mixing it up lol poor thing but he makes the icing soooooooooo well! lol 
But yes a dust mask/drywall mask/painters mask/hospital mask will do the job for you and sometimes you can even get them at the dollar tree stores Heck I say go to the hospital for your Baker's Lung and nab some outta there lol I mean heck they charge an arm, leg, lung, first born just for a simple cold they owe ya lol
One thing that I've learned to do is keep my mixer right next my stove. What I do is turn on my exhaust fan when I am mixing up frosting and that pulls the dust up and out of the way. I finally decided to buy a pouring shield (after reading mixed reviews on them) for my KA, I am very glad that I did. Flour does stick to it a little bit, but that's because it's plastic and I'm sure there is a little static keeping some flour to it. But all you have to do is take a rubber spatula to scrape it off and then your good to go. I used it for the first time when I made my secret family recipe for Cheese Torte, it was a breeze not spilling stuff onto the counter from pouring ingredients into the mixer while it is still running.
Anyone else bothered by icing sugar in this way or is it just me???
I'm sooooo glad you asked that! I just didn't have the courage...thought I must have some issue with it because I had childhood asthma. For me, it's at least partly my fault as I'm so new to this and didn't realize throwing all the sugar in and starting up the the mixer was a bad idea 
I also don't own a KA or any kind of expensive stand mixer ( but I got one from DH for Christmas 
) so things were complicated as it was....learned RI + Hand Mixer = Smoke and Sore Muscles!!
I too get like a burning feeling and coughing and wheezing. My DH picks on me about it and we call it "white lung" or "bakers lung" too! I guess I never thought about a mask but right now I don't do a lot of cakes as I'm in the process of getting leagal but I will have to try that on my next cake!
Thanks so much!!
Constant exposure to baking ingredients, flour, sugar, powdered sugar, then resulting in respiratory problems, is called White Lung.
This is a medically documented condition, as is black lung (mining) and brown lung (textile/sewing).
Left untreated, it can kill you.
Get the mask and take the precautions now. Apparently you are very sensitive to exposure to powdered sugar.
Theresa
[quote]Left untreated, it can kill you
I wore a tea towel when I did my cookie icing and I covered the KA...it helped because I am not wheezing today.Thanks sooo much for the info....I thought it was just an annoyance not life threatening...
Jane
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