is dust mite allergy common

Dust mite allergy can be a very serious and annoying issue if you score high on this allergy. Dust mite symptoms can lead to isolation by avoiding certain public places or households from your friends and family. Luckily, there are several options for dust mite allergy treatment. You don’t need to accept your symptoms! There are good treatments for you available! I have struggled with dust mite allergy since childhood. In this blog I share with you my best practices and how I deal with dust mite allergy and treatment for dust mite allergy.

What is dust mite allergy?

Let me first start with explaining what a dust mite allergy is. It is an allergic reaction to the feces from the dust mite. Dust mites are tiny little bugs related to ticks and spiders. You can’t see them without a microscope. Dust mites eat skin cells from people and they are mostly seen in warm and humid environments. In your house you can find them in your mattress, blankets, sheets, pillows, carpets, wool, fabric curtains, clothing and upholstered furniture. If you have a dust mite allergy, the immune system sees the feces from the dust mite as an intruder and overreacts. This results in the symptoms I cover below. Like I mentioned before, the good news is that there is developed dust mite allergy treatment.

What are dust mite allergy symptoms?

There are several dust mite allergy symptoms. My symptoms were all of the symptoms I mention below. I also developed asthma due to untreated and not-acknowledged allergy.

This dust mite allergy reaction can easily be mistaken for hay fever like sneezing and a runny nose. You might experience:

• Red or watery eyes
• Headache
• Cough
• Sneezing
• Itchy nose and itching in mouth or throat
• Pressure in your forehead and nasal cavity
• Swelling under your eyes
• Always wanting to rub your nose
• Nasal congestion

Allergy and asthma

If you also have asthma you might experience below dust mite symptoms:

• Wheezing that can become worse if you have a cold or the flu
• Heavy breathing
• Wheezing sound when you are exhaling
• Pain on your chest
• Sleeping issues due to lack of breath, wheezing and coughing

The dust mite symptoms can vary from mild to severe. Mild symptoms are watery eyes, runny nose and sneezing if you are exposed to areas where dust mites thrive.

Chronic symptoms

If you have severe symptoms the symptoms become chronic. Symptoms in this case are continually sneezing, coughing, feeling pressure in your face, eczema or asthma attack. I developed asthma as well because my symptoms firstly were not seen as an allergy. The doctor thought it was hay fever and it would go away by itself. If the doctor would have run blood tests in an earlier stage and acknowledged the symptoms, my asthma would not be developed as such. I also had difficulty breathing all the time and had symptoms like you are having a cold or the flu 24/7.

So first it started with bronchitis. Again I didn’t got proper medication because of this old-fashioned doctor who thought I just needed to grow over it. And guess what? I didn’t grew over it and the breathing issues and allergy symptoms became more severe. What ‘saved’ me was a new doctor who examined me, took blood tests and started treatment right away.

I would highly recommend to see a doctor if you can find yourself in the symptoms above. If you indeed have this allergy, with the right treatment you can avoid more severe allergy symptoms and even asthma. Below you see my inhalation Powder I use for the asthma.

When do you have higher risk of developing dust mite allergy?

• Allergy runs in the family. If more family members are having allergies, you are at higher risk of developing a dust mite allergy.
• High exposure to dust mites. There is a higher risk if you were exposed to high levels of dust mites, especially in your childhood.
• Being a child or young adult. During childhood or as young adult you may develop more easily this allergy.

In my case I met all 3 criteria. My allergy began in my childhood. Both of my grandparents and parents were having mild symptoms. My parents also had mild symptoms. In our household it was a ‘dust mite paradise’ thanks to the woolen carpets, curtains, a lot of stuff and furniture. Therefore, it is not exactly a surprise that I inherited this allergy.

Can dust mite allergy go away?

No. It is not possible to be cured entirely of this allergy. There will always be dust mites even though you minimize the exposure to dust mites. If your environment contains a minimum of dust mites, your allergic reactions will be less severe. It depends on how much you remain in a dust mite friendly environment.

Dust mite allergy treatment

Blood test results

If you have a lot of the symptoms I mentioned earlier, than I would advise you to go the doctor. You can ask to run a few blood tests to know if you have dust mite allergy. Once you receive the blood test results, you can start with the first precautions. You can check my blood test results below. It is written in Dutch. “Huisstofmijt’ means dust mite. I score the highest level ( klasse: 4) on dust mite as you can see.

Tip: There are different blood tests for allergies (at least here in the Netherlands). At the doctor’s practice I didn’t get an extensive blood test like this one from this image. This means you don’t get so many substances tested. Therefore, I asked for a test where they test more substances. I needed to go the nearest hospital for this blood test. As you can see they test is not only dust mite but allergies for animals and food as well.

This blood test results dates from 2018. Because of the treatment I started, I needed to have recent blood tests results. Of course there were taken tests in my childhood as well eventually so I already knew that I was highly allergic to dust mites.

Dust mite allergy home treatment

Once it was clear that I had dust mite allergy my parents got instructions how to treat this allergy at home. The goal of this home treatment is to reduce the amount of dust mites. I will write down the remedies at home below. These precautions are important to improve your health and prevention of more severe symptoms.

Dust mite allergy bedding

• Replacing of bed linen: this is really important. Anti-allergic and dust mite bed linen is key to a good night sleep. This means a new anti- allergic pillow cover and mattress cover.

Tip: if you have a health care insurance you may ask if they can re-reimburse the amount you pay for the pillow and mattress cover. I got these special anti- allergic mattress and pillow cover paid by my health care insurance. The pillow and the blanket were partially re-imbursed by the health care insurance.You can also try to claim these expenses from the Tax authority if you don’t have healthcare insurance or it isn’t covered by your insurance. In the Netherlands you may claim expenses for allergy bedding every year if not covered by your insurance.

Sanitize: reduce or avoid exposure to allergens

Removing of carpets and curtains in the house

One of dust mites favorite environment. We had a lot of woolen carpets and curtains. We removed everything. Under the carpets we had old wooden floors and this was also not ideal at that time but back then it was the best alternative. You can replace the carpets for example by hard flooring like laminate, parquet flooring or tiles. The most important is you remove every fabric which contains a lot of dust mites.

Removing and replacing of curtains

Our curtains were replaced by cotton washable curtains. For curtains it is important to avoid wool, silk or fabric blends. Best to choose for cotton, linen or fabric or synthetic blended fabric. Ideal is to vacuum clean the curtains twice a month and wash the curtains every 3 months.

Buy or get furniture with a smooth surface

Dust the furniture every week with a wet towel. If you have furniture that contains fabric, make sure to vacuum clean it every month.

Vacuum clean regularly

If you vacuum clean on a regular base you can remove a lot of dust mites. I would recommend a vacuum cleaner with HEPA filter (High-efficiency particulate arrestance filter). You can buy one on Amazon and in the Netherlands on dogs we vacuum cleaned every day. I know every doctor would say to get rid of animals in the house if you are allergic but to me they were like my kids so I managed.

Remove not necessary home decor and accessories

If you like your rooms to be full of stuff I have bad news for you. All these home decorations are dust catchers and will not improve your allergy symptoms. In my case we bought several closed cupboards and removed a lot of home decorations. Books were stored in a closed cupboard and nice table ware were put in a display cabinet. This was the perfect start to de-clutter. I think Replace air filters in your house

Do you have air filters in your house due to an air renewal system? Make sure to replace these filters once in a while. In my case I know exactly if I am in a hotel with poor maintenance of these air filters in the building. I remember I was in a perfectly renovated hotel with new anti-allergic curtains, allergy friendly floor and bed linen. I was looking forward to sleep like a baby in this hotel. However, thanks to the air renewal system with poor maintenance of the air filters, I didn’t sleep at all. I was sneezing all night, had difficulty with breathing and had a headache.

Ventilation

To ventilate your house is very important. Dust mites don’t like cold and breezy places. In the bed room I ventilate every day. Every morning when I get up I open the windows and let in ventilate for half an hour to an hour. If I am home because of a day-off I sometimes leave the windows a bit open for several hours. I also open the door from the kitchen and window from the living-room each morning to ventilate.

Air out the bedding

Every morning I put the blanket aside in order to air out the mattress and blanket. The dust mites that thrived with you during the night don’t like this. It is also good for the quality of your mattress if you remove the blankets from the mattress every day for several hours. Okay, I get it: it doesn’t look fancy not making your bed if you get up. However, if you go to work no one will see your bedding anyway. Once you are back from work you can make up your bed if you can’t stand the thought of the looks of the bed without nice bedding.

Clean the furniture and home decorations always with a wet towel

Wash your bed linen every 2 weeks on 60 degrees Celsius of higher

Wash your duvets, blankets, pillows and cuddly toys every 6 weeks on 60 degrees Celsius

Dry your laundry outside the house if the weather is good

Dust mite allergy medication

There are different medication you can use to treat dust mite allergy. I will write down the options for you so you know what to expect. Some medications are used to treat only the symptoms. These medications are suppressing the allergic reaction and this is only temporary. Other medication like immunotherapy can be used as a permanent cure to treat the cause of the allergy.

I would highly recommend immunotherapy if you score high on dust mite allergy and your symptoms can’t be controlled by nasal spray and pills. Or you just don’t like taking medication every day.

How your allergy is treated depends on many factors, including the severity and duration of symptoms, the impact on your daily life and your overall health.

Nasal shower

A nasal shower is a non-medication treatment. You can rinse your nose with salt water. This will relieve the symptoms. You don’t only flush the dust mite out or your nose, but you remove also the snot so you can breathe more freely again. I use this nasal shower frequently because I like the fact that it is a very natural way of treating the symptoms. You can order it here on Amazon or on the Dutch online store