Dust Mites: A Household Health Hazard by Dr. Rallie McAllister on Creators.com

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Dust Mites: A Household Health Hazard

You can't see them, but there's a good chance you're sharing your home with millions of microscopic vermin known as dust mites. For people with asthma and allergies, these pesky little creatures can make sniffling, sneezing and wheezing a way of life.

The dust mite is a major contributor to asthma and allergy symptoms, but most folks aren't allergic to the mites themselves — it's their droppings that cause the problem. The average mite takes up to 20 potty breaks a day, making dust mite feces one of the most common allergens worldwide.

The dust mites themselves are eight-legged creatures with tiny, transparent bodies. Their diet consists largely of shed human skin cells and other debris typically found in house dust.

If you're not taking special precautions to eradicate them, it's highly likely that your home is occupied by millions of dust mites. They burrow their way into your bedding, curtains, carpets and wall coverings.

The bedroom is a popular hangout for dust mites. They love mattresses and pillows, fluffy comforters, and fuzzy stuffed animals.

Some experts speculate that after just a few years of use, a typical mattress may be inhabited by as many as 100,000 to 10 million dust mites. Since most of us spend a lot of time in the bedroom, it's probably the best place to begin waging the war on mites.

Start with a vigorous spring cleaning. Bedrooms and closets should be thoroughly cleaned and vacuumed once a week to remove dust.

Dust mites and their waste materials are so tiny that they can pass right through standard vacuum cleaner bags and return to the air. Fitting your vacuum cleaner with a double-layered micro-filter bag or a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter is an excellent investment.

If exposure to dust mite dung makes you cough, sneeze or wheeze, it's a good idea to wear a mask while you clean. If you're highly allergic, you'll need to invest in an airtight bubble suit or try to persuade someone else to do your chores for you.

Since most mattresses and pillows can harbor millions of mites, it's wise to cover them with specially designed mattress covers and pillow cases that are dustproof and impermeable to allergens.

If you've had your pillow for a couple of years, chances are that its fluffy innards consist mostly of dust mites and their feces.

To minimize the mite population in your pillow, it's best to choose one made of synthetic materials, wash it weekly and replace it yearly. If your pillow won't stand up to regular washing in hot water, you can pop it in the freezer for a day or two to kill the mites, then fluff it in a clothes dryer to remove their little corpses.

Mites like your clothing almost as much as you do. Clothes that aren't cleaned at least monthly can harbor roughly 20 times more mites than those that are washed on a regular basis. If you can't bear the thought of doing all that laundry, wrapping your clothes in plastic and keeping your closet doors shut will help reduce your exposure.

In other parts of the house, mites typically reside in fabric wallpaper, upholstered furniture and Venetian blinds. Be on the lookout for dust mites in the kitchen: They like to set up housekeeping in bags of flour and on the tops of canned goods.

Since dust mites depend on moisture in the air to survive, reducing the humidity in your home can help. Mites thrive in warm temperatures with a relative humidity of about 60 percent. Using a dehumidifier and increasing the ventilation in your home can make conditions far less favorable for them.

If you or a family member is allergic to dust mites, it's likely that someone will end up doing a lot of laundry. Most experts recommend washing clothes, bedding, stuffed toys and almost everything else made of fabric weekly in water that's at least 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

Washing and drying clothes and other items at relatively high temperatures effectively wipes out the mite manure, but some hearty mites can live on to spawn new generations. Soaking clothing and bedding in a mixture of one part laundry detergent to three parts eucalyptus oil before washing has been shown to kill about 95 percent of the mites present.

Making your home completely mite-free is impossible, but the fewer you have, the better you'll breathe.

Rallie McAllister is a board-certified family physician, speaker and the author of several books, including "Healthy Lunchbox: The Working Mom's Guide to Keeping You and Your Kids Trim." Her website is www.rallieonhealth.com. To find out more about Rallie McAllister, M.D., and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.