MIAMI -- Over the past 15 years, the number of American women diagnosed with asthma has skyrocketed, health officials say.

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Women Getting Sick From Cleaning

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The disease now strikes women at a much higher rate than men, say experts, and more and more experts and patients are asking if something as mundane as regular housecleaning could be a reason.

In fact, some experts say scrubbing sinks, toiling over toilets and hunting down dust bunnies could be making a lot of American women sick.

"Cleaning products, bad dust, all those kind of things absolutely set me off," said asthma sufferer Pam Winnefeld.

Winnefeld's doctor diagnosed household cleaners as a major culprit in her almost daily bout with asthma.

Asthma experts and doctors like Jill Ohar say women over 30 are prime targets for the disease.

"Women still do the primary care giving and cleaning of the household, are exposed to house dust mites more, exposed to chemical irritants in the form of cleaning solvents more than men," Ohar said.

While health officials have long suspected hormones play a role in female asthma, household cleaners are just beginning to get attention.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Dr. Stephen Redd illustrated the dramatic increase. "The rates have gone up 105 percent for females over the past 15 or so compared to about a 41 percent increase for males," Redd said.

Not only do women get asthma more often than men, they also have more severe, sudden attacks, experts say, and they are hospitalized and die more often from the disease than men.

"I have been in intensive care units. I've almost had to have a breathing tube in," said asthma sufferer Gerry Rivers, who said spring cleaning was the culprit in at least one severe attack that sent her to the emergency room.

"It was from some all-purpose cleaners and some floor cleaners. I ended up coughing. It progressed to chest tightness," Rivers said.

What ingredients most often trigger attacks?

Ohar says it's easy to tell. Just use your nose.

"Typical things are ammonia-containing compounds, chlorine-containing compounds," Ohar said. "All of those have that kind of noxious smell. When you put your nose to the bottle and ... you know them when you see them."

The key when using any product is proper ventilation. Rivers said she has had to rethink how she cleans. She asks for help with vacuuming, avoids aerosols and gets back to basics.

"What my mom and my grandma used, using vinegar or using baking soda," Rivers said.

Winnefeld says no matter what the trigger, asthma is nothing to fool with.

"It's very scary. It's even more scary now that I'm a mom," she said.

Redd urges women to ask their doctors how to avoid asthma triggers and to use their medication correctly to continue breathing easy.

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