Saturday 1 March 2008

Dust Mites

Our new Leather furniture has just arrived. This is great news as it means the old ones can go and we will no longer need throws to cover them. The throws are bad for me because of the dust mites they contain. Eczema is often triggered by Dust mites in your home. The Dust mite is the number one eczema trigger. About ten percent of the general population develops an allergy due to dust mites. An allergic reaction to dust mites is characterized by eyes that are itchy and watery, sneezing, a runny nose, nasal congestion, ears that are blocked, chronic respiratory problems such as head colds and post nasal drip and asthma. The most common form of eczema, atopic dermatitis, develops next.
Dust mites are not visible to the human naked eye. When viewed under a microscope, they are extremely small. Dust mites are shaped like an oval, have eight legs and are cream in colour. Dust mites have sticky pads on their feet that enable them to burrow into almost any kind of fiber in your home. They are most often found living and breathing in your furniture and carpeting. It is only the particles of dead dust mites that can efficiently be cleaned up with a vacuum cleaner.
Dust mites thrive on consuming the shed skin ( there is lots of that in my house ) of people as well as human fingernails and hair. They also eat animal fur, bacteria, fungi and pollen. Dust mites thrive in environments where the humidity is anywhere in the area of seventy to eighty percent. They also require temperatures anywhere between seventy-five and eighty degrees. A humidity level of below forty will not allow dust mites to live or thrive for very long. Thus, if you stay in fairly humid environments, you should keep dust mites out of your home as much as possible to avoid eczema flare-ups. As such, it is best to avoid having carpets in your home. I have laminate flooring in the majority of my home and I am now looking to start replacing all curtains with blinds

2 comments:

buzzworm said...

Hi, I stumbled upon this post and read with great interest because my facial problems are very similar to yours. I tested positive to dust mite allergy but didn't believe it to be the cause of my eczema because I didn't have any respiratory symptoms. Did dust mite control help your problems?

thanks

robyo12121 said...

hey. I also suffer from eczema but it is nowhere near as bad as yours was. I am starting a blog where people follow me as i discover the cause and find the treatment for it. Have a look!!

thanks.

http://freefromeczema.blogspot.com