Dust Mites
They hide in your bed and breed on your face. They’re smaller than the period at the end of this sentence - Rob Dunn
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image by: Delta Carpet Cleaning, Inc
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Who Should Worry About Dust Mites (and Who Shouldn’t)
Many of us believe that bed linens, pillows and mattresses must be replaced regularly to prevent them from becoming home to vast colonies of these nasty creatures, lest their feces spread and cause allergic reactions in family members.
According to most experts, the truth is a bit more prosaic. People who have allergies to dust mites should indeed take measures to protect themselves. But everyone else can skip the expensive trips to Linens “R” Us. The trouble is, it’s not always clear whether you have a mite allergy. And even when you know you are allergic, there’s a lot of confusion about which strategies really work..
Resources
Dirt, dead skin, 10m dust mites: maybe it’s time you cleaned your mattress – here’s how
Worried about asthma or eczema? It could be time to break out the baking soda and vacuum cleaner.
I tracked dust mites through 300 homes
Can Western allergy kits diagnose patients in Pakistan? To find out, Rubaba Hamid visited hundreds of homes to collect their dust—and dust mites.
Mighty Mites
They hide in your bed and breed on your face. They’re smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
Meet Your Mites
Did you know that there are microscopic mites living on YOUR body?! Demodex mites live out their entire lives in the pores of humans and other mammals. We carry them with us throughout our day, throughout our lives, and across generations as we move around the world. Yet, even though we host thousands, maybe millions, of these mites at any given time, we know very little about them.
Dust Mites in Your Bed? Allergens in Your Home? We Have Solutions!
According to the Mayo Clinic, the average bed is home to 100,000 to 10 million dust mites (and you thought a snoring mate was a problem!). Along with their favorite food, our skin particles, mites thrive on warmth, moisture and darkness.
Dust mites: Biggest threat to allergy sufferers is not bed but life
Asthmatics and allergy sufferers could be wasting time and money trying to free bedrooms from dust mites, says a top Australian allergy expert whose new research challenges 40 years of conventional beliefs.
How to Get Rid of Dust Mites
Dust mites are gross. They’re nasty little jerks. And they’re everywhere. Oh, yeah. You’ve got a ton of ’em crawling all over your body and your clothes at this very moment. You’re probably sitting on a bunch of ’em, too.
Human Demodex Mite: The Versatile Mite of Dermatological Importance
Demodex, a genus of tiny parasitic mites that live in or near hair follicles of mammals, are among the smallest of arthropods with two species Demodex folliculorum and Demodex brevis typically found on humans.
Mites that Bug People
Mites are not insects; they are more closely related to ticks and spiders. Most mites are visible to the unaided eye and usually measure 1/8" or less in length. Their life cycle has four basic stages: egg, larva, nymph and adult.
The Invisible Itch Mite Will Make You Nostalgic for Mosquitoes
Itch mites, as many as 300,000 a day, fall from oak trees; ‘you can’t see them’
Airing the Evidence on Dust Mites
Keeping relative humidity low in the home does help fight irritating dust mites, studies have found, but a British study, widely reported as having concluded that leaving the bed unmade could do the trick, suggested only that it might do so. Actual scientific comparisons of made and unmade beds were not done.
Fact or Fiction: Mattresses Doubling in Weight From Dust Mites
I think I told you guys about my dust-mite-freak-out when I was a kid. After my allergist showed me a blown up photo of one, I refused to sleep in my bed. OK, so we've all heard the one about our mattresses doubling in size over the course of 10 years due to dust mite debris and skin cells, right? But is it true? I have an answer...
How Gross Is Your Mattress?
“After 8 years, an old mattress becomes a heavy weight, from pounds of dead skin, gallons of sweat, and millions of dust mites that accumulate inside it!” So claims an ad for the concerned Mattress Firm—your salvation is, of course, to purchase a fresh, unsoiled mattress from them. But is this true? Do our mattresses really suck up pounds and pounds of ick over the years?
How Often Do You Really Need to Wash Your Comforter?
Don’t worry—the answer isn’t as gross as it seems!—but what I learned definitely opened my eyes to some very relevant truths. (Hint: I’m terribly allergic to dust mites.)
How to Get Rid of Dust Mites in a Mattress
Dust mites are everywhere in our homes, but they are found in the highest concentrations on surfaces that trap dust, like mattresses, curtains, and carpeting that can't be washed regularly. Unfortunately, that's also where we spend most of our time—bedrooms and living areas.
Immunotherapy Tablets For Dust Mite Allergy Reduce Asthma Risk
Immunotherapy tablets are starting to edge out shots as a treatment for allergies. And it looks like the pills can help reduce the frequency of asthma attacks, too. Scientists reported Tuesday that immunotherapy tablets for dust mite allergy reduced the risk of an attack in people with moderate to severe asthma. The results were published in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association.
The Disgusting Reason You Should Stop Making Your Bed in the Morning
If you're taking the time to make your bed in the morning, you should probably roll over and hit snooze one more time. It turns out a made bed—with the sheets pulled tight to block the light and retain any heat and moisture from your body—is the perfect breeding ground for dust mites.
Understanding Dust Mite Allergy
Dust mite allergy can lead to year-round sniffles and sneezes. Here’s how to find relief.
Weapons Against Dust Mites May Not Be Worth the Cost
But while dust and dust-mite control has emerged as the newest hot spot of consumer marketing, many scientists and allergy doctors say that's really all it is -- marketing.
Your Pillow is Full of Bugs, Dead Skin, Dust Mites and Their Feces
Pillows are gross, science confirms. How gross, you ask? Well, according to a new study by British health care provider Barts and the London NHS Trust, "up to a third of the weight of your pillow could be made up of bugs, dead skin and house dust mites and their feces." Yeah, that gross.
Who Should Worry About Dust Mites (and Who Shouldn’t)
According to most experts, the truth is a bit more prosaic. People who have allergies to dust mites should indeed take measures to protect themselves. But everyone else can skip the expensive trips to Linens “R” Us.
MiteTreatments.com
Planet Earth is home to more than 48,000 species of mites. A very limited number of them tend to bite or infest humans, live within skin, transmit disease or breed within homes.
Stop Skin Mites
I developed the protocol found on this site from trial and error and experimenting on myself at great expense and suffering. I am greatly rewarded when a fellow victim tells me they are well or improving daily. It makes it all somehow worth the effort I made for myself to save others too. The happy ending to this story is that after 2-1/2 years of struggle I found my way out of the hell and have a normal life again. I even wear the same clothes for a week at a time just to celebrate that I can now do that. I never thought there would be so much joy in such a strange thing as using a towel for a week and changing sheets no more than once a week.
Bohart Museum of Entomology
A variety of mites are known to bite humans and cause irritation, itchy papules and rashes. Most of these mites are actually parasites of other animals not humans, but will bite humans when their normal hosts are not present. They are mostly nest parasites of birds, rodents and other animals. Nest parasitic mites blood-feed on their normal hosts and then return to the host's nest. Most species do not remain on the animal or human that they feed on. However, a few mites, such as the dog mite (Cheyletiella species) and scabies mites, remain on the host. Chigger mites only blood feed in the nymph stage (the stage that hatches from the egg) and is predatory the rest of their lives.
GrowYouthful.com
Humans are commonly infected with three different types of mites: 1. Demodex mites 2. Scabies mites which live predominantly on animals, can also infect humans. They don't normally complete their life cycle in humans, but can make for intensely itchy nights, for up to ten days. 3. Bird mites causing the sensation of crawling on the skin, especially at night. They are also virtually impossible to get rid of without tackling their source.
Dust Mite Allergy
Dust mites may be the most common trigger of year-round allergies and asthma. They are on every continent except Antarctica. It may not be possible to rid your home entirely of these creatures. But there are ways in which you can lessen your allergic reactions to them.
American Lung Association
Dust mites are very small, insect-like pests that feed on dead human skin cells and thrive in warm, humid settings. Dust mites are too small for us to see. They are not parasites that bite, sting or burrow into our bodies. Instead, people who are allergic to dust or dust mites are reacting to inhaling proteins in dust that comes from dust mite feces, urine or decaying bodies.
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