IN FEBRUARY, I went to Charleston, S.C., to explore its happening food scene and frozen-in-amber 19th-century architecture, but I couldn’t tell you much about either: I barely got out of bed. The billowy mattress, silky-smooth sheets, puffy down comforter and mountain of pillows at the Vendue, an inn in the city’s historic district, were positively narcotic. My husband had to pry me out. The bed even made up for the hotel’s spotty service. On the first day of our two-night vacation, the housekeeper didn’t get to our... Mount Etna Eruption: Skiers Chase Smoldering Boulder Land Rover Performs ‘The Hatch Trick’ The Web of Russia Investigations Uber CEO Caught on Video Berating Company Driver Drowning in Charging Cables? NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Based on two dozen clinical trials, U.S. researchers find that expensive mattress covers make no difference in reducing dust mite allergies or their symptoms.Up to 40 percent of the world population has allergies, and dust mites are thought to be one of the most common causes.
Doctors often tell patients to buy special mattress and pillow covers despite a lack of evidence they relieve the problem, the authors say."Based on this analysis which combines data from many different studies, there doesn't seem to be any benefit to using dust mite covers to prevent allergic disease or to prevent symptoms," lead author Whitney Arroyave told Reuters Health.Arroyave, a researcher with the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, and her colleagues combined results from 24 trials of methods to reduce dust mite exposure and prevent allergy signs and symptomsThe study team found that use of the mattress covers had a large effect in reducing exposure to house mite dust levels - about 20 percent - but this reduction had no statistically significant impact on house dust mite sensitization, or symptoms such as wheezing, asthma, runny nose or dermatitis.The results are published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.Arroyave said it isn't clear why dust mite covers don't seem to be effective in relieving allergies, but it's possible they don't lower mite levels enough to improve symptoms, or maybe beds aren't the main source of exposure for the dust mites.
"Or maybe it's not the dust mite at all - maybe they're not causing the problems," she said.Arroyave said that dust mite covers cost around $100, which is a burden, particularly for very low-income people."It's expensive to ask them to pay for this," she said.She added that other researchers have done bigger studies, looking not just at dust mite covers, but all kinds of dust mite prevention measures. "They didn't find any results either," Arroyave said, "so I think we're just saying, you know, look at this again - maybe we need to revisit the recommendations." Dr. Samuel Friedlander, an allergist with University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, said he doesn't plan on giving up recommending dust mite mattress covers."What's important to understand is that avoidance measures are very important for allergy controls, and one of the three ways we treat allergies by avoiding your allergies, medication and immunotherapy or allergy shots," said Friedlander, who was not involved in the new study."
This article is helpful to show a single measure to control allergies is not always effective - we have to use multiple measures," he said. "So the take home message for me is that dust mite covers are still very important, but they should be part of a comprehensive treatment plan," he said.Researchers try to modify one thing at a time, to show a cause and effect, but in real life, allergists make multiple recommendations necessary to resolve patients' symptoms, Friedlander said."If you do a single thing like dust mite covers, but you're still exposed to dust from other sources in your house or work, or if you have other allergies like pets or pollens, then of course a single measure like dust mite covers is not going to be effective," he said.Friedlander said he doesn't want people to think that dust mite covers are not important."I think the point is that we need to make multiple recommendations to relieve multiple allergies that our patients are allergic to," he said. "Dust mite covers are very important, but they have to be part of a comprehensive treatment plan."
It's important to see an allergist to determine what your allergies are, Friedlander added, so the allergist can make a treatment plan to take care of all of your allergies.SOURCE: bit.ly/1dtFL1U Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, online January 30, 2014. I was not specific & choosy about mattresses till the time I came across Spring Air. Now I make sure I buy the same everytime., After whole day of rush, All you need is a good night sleep and nothing can be as good as a soft bed from Spring Air Mattress One Of the Best medicine to any pain is a good sound sleep and for that I trust Spring AirWant a good laugh, cry or hug? We deliver all 3 every day! Sign up for the YourTango newsletterThe last time I bought a mattress for myself was about 11 years ago. I bought a fairly new full-sized one off a coworker. Four moves and a decade later, we’ve decided it’s time to replace it with an adult (and sometimes an extra toddler)-sized bed. When we started looking, I was shocked at the prices.
$3000 for a mattress? What the heck are these things made of? Knowing very little, we went shopping for a mattress and other things on a Saturday morning. The first place, we stopped, Sleepy’s, seemed nice enough. We laid on a few and honed in on the one that we both felt most comfortable in. Meanwhile, Audrey discovered the fun of letting herself fall backwards onto mattresses and did it all over the store. She was giggling and the whole store couldn’t help but look and smile at her. Unfortunately, we soon stopped smiling. When we found something we liked, the seemingly helpful salesman started to get more aggressive. He asked how much we were looking at paying and I made up a number on the spot, something way below the listed price on the bed. The said he would “talk with his manager” and see if he could get us that price. Then he started asking us if we could commit and have it delivered tomorrow. Anne had walked outside to give Audrey a break by that point, so I said I had to go out and talk with her about it.
We talked about it for a bit, then decided we didn’t like the high-pressure sales pitch, so we got ready to leave. I had the car started up when the salesman came out and approached the car window. He then said that he had “talked to his manager” and he could give us the price we wanted AND a free “platinum package”. I said we would talk about it and let him know. We again decided this was sketchy, but to make good on my promise, I went in and gave him my phone number and left. Later that day we went to Jordan’s Furniture, generally known to be a reputable place with reasonable places. The salespeople there were nice and NOT high-pressure. Prices were generally lower, but strangely, we couldn’t find the mattress we found at Sleepy’s. They had Sertas, but not the one we liked. Being indecisive, we left with a couple new names of ones we liked. Later, we went to Mattress Discounters. The woman there was not pushy and told us about the BBB complaints that Sleepy’s (a 700-store chain) had gotten.
We decided to think some more and head home. At home, I did some research online and I found something strange – I couldn’t find much of anything on the mattresses we saw that we liked. I found some mattresses, many of the same brand, but not the same models. I later came to find out that this was completely intentional. The mattress industry is one big scam. There is no way to make an objective decision on a mattress using actual facts. Here’s a few things that the mattress industry does to get you: 1. They mark up their prices 100% to 200%!! No wonder the first guy was able to get his “manager” to give me such a steep discount. They were probably still going to make hundreds of dollars of profits on it. 2. They give the same mattresses different names in different stores or they set up exclusivity agreements by mattress line in certain stores. This makes it impossible to comparison shop because… 3. They make it really had to get actual facts about the mattresses.
Stuff like coil counts, materials, overall construction are shrouded in secrecy. But that doesn’t really matter because… 4. There’s no objective measure of mattress quality. Consumer Reports won’t rate them because they can’t get the data and there’s no testing that actually says higher coil counts are better or the number of wires in the coils makes a difference in any way. You’re left to deciding how much you believe the marketing. Is a pillow top made of alpaca hair any better than one made of cotton? Your guess is as good as mine. 5. There’s very little online reviews of mattresses, probably because the model names are so fractured. The ones I did find looked more like content-free sites designed to attract referral credits. With some more research, I found out that it was somewhat possible to compare mattresses models from different places. It turns out that they really only make one hardness variation in each line. So you can assume that a Plush Firm mattress in the “Classic” line, is the same as another Plush Firm in the Classic line, even if they have different names.
was very helpful in figuring this out. We were able to understand which mattresses we saw and how they related to each other. For example, the mattress we liked at Jordan’s was a product line better than the one we saw at Mattress Discounters, even though they came out to the same price! Clearly Jordan’s had the better deal, but US-Mattress had an even better deal. So I did something I never thought I could do, buy a mattress over the internet. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one we saw in the store and the free delivery and frame were a good deal. I’m sure that even if I’m getting it at half the price I saw it listed at elsewhere, they’re still making a decent profit on it. Anne and I agree that buying a mattress is worse than buying a car. While both have sketchy salespeople, when you buy a car, you can compare them on MPG, size, features, etc. Multiple dealers have the same models so you can compare prices and make an informed decision based on their invoice prices.