Tips on Dust Mites. Wet heat kills dust mites. That's why allergists tell their mite-allergic patients to wash their sheets and blankets in hot water. Here's another tip if you're in the market for a new washing machine: many new machines come with a "sanitary" cycle. This cycle lets the machine fill up with hot water, but then it heats the water up to 140 degrees Farenheit before starting the wash cycle. That should be more effective in removing live mites from bedding. Other tips, such as encasing the pillow and mattress in dust-mite impermeable covers require purchasing special covers. They are sold at various stores, from Wal-Mart to Bed Bath & Beyond to internet sites, like Mission Allergy . Basically, you get what you pay for. But, even if money is no object, top notch mattress and pillow covers have failed to demonstrate a statistically significant difference in patients' symptoms. In 2003, two disappointing studies were published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluding that the use of allergen-impermeable bed covers as a single intervention for the avoidance of mite allergen had no clinical benefit for either allergic rhinitis or asthma.
I drew a different conclusion: If you're not going to replace the garbage dump (i.e., wall to wall carpeting) with a hard, washable surface, then don't bother with environment control for dust mite allergy. The studies that showed that environment control was effective had patients remove the carpeting. Time after time, including the 2003 articles, studies that failed to demonstrate clinical benefit did not insist upon patients removing their carpeting. What was particularly disturbing to me was that the New England Journal of Medicine's editor wrote, "The use of mattress and pillow covers that are impervious to house-dust mites need not be included in allergen-control measures." The editor's summary, like the article's abstract, is often the only bit of the journal that gets read by busy practitioners. It would be more appropriate to have said, "The use of mattress and pillow covers that are impervious to house-dust mites is ineffective unless combined with more intensive allergen avoidance techniques;
specifically removal of bedroom carpeting." Dr. Platts-Mills, a pioneer in dust mite research from the University of Virginia, said in an editorial: As Woodcock and his colleagues take great care to point out, their study does not show or imply that allergen avoidance should not be recommended for patients with asthma who are allergic to dust mites. What their study shows very clearly is that distributing or recommending allergen-proof covers in a family-practice setting is unlikely to be effective as a single measure in the absence of a comprehensive avoidance strategy. The obvious implication of these studies is that mattress covers as a routine part of the treatment of asthma are not worth the price. However, according to other studies, the correct conclusion is that treatment by means of allergen avoidance requires the definition of what patients are allergic to, additional measures beyond the use of mattress covers, and education. The following information is courtesy of Mission Allergy:
Dust mites are microscopic creatures that live in pillows, mattresses, blankets, carpets, and other soft materials. They are often thought of as insects, but are actually tiny arachnids, relatives of spiders and ticks. They do not live on people, but live near them. Their food is the dead skin scales that we all shed every day. Dust mites avoid the light, and require at least 50% relative humidity to survive. They are therefore plentiful in soft materials, such as pillows, mattresses, and blankets, where they can burrow into the fabric to get away from the light. Beds provide the warmth, darkness, high humidity, and shed skin scales that mites crave, and they are the source of the biggest mite exposure for most of us. A mattress may contain over a million dust mites. A female mite lays about 60 eggs in her lifetime. Each mite lives for about 80 days, during which time it produces one thousand allergy-causing waste particles. Live mites themselves are not inhaled. Rather, it is the waste particles that they have produced, and the body fragments of dead dust mites, that become airborne, are inhaled and cause allergy symptoms.
This is because mites do not live in the air, but are burrowed in soft materials. Mite waste particles become briefly airborne when one walks on a carpet, sits on an upholstered chair, places one's face on a pillow, makes a bed, or otherwise disturbs the soft materials where the dust mites are living. If you shop at Mission Allergy, here's how to save a little money: Mention Code: "DM5" before ordering. You'll get a 15% discount on Premium Microfiber encasings, or a 10% discount on Barrier Fabric II. The Allergy & Asthma Foundation of America (AAFA)has certified the CleanRest brand of pillow and mattress encasings to be "Asthma Friendly". This brand is sold at Bed Bath & Beyond. If you go, be sure to bring your 20% off coupon that they send in the mail every few weeks. If your coupon is expired, bring it anyway---they always honor them. Note: Information contained in this article should not be considered a substitute for consultation with a board-certified allergist to address individual medical needs.
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