What exactly causes allergies and what her symptoms?
How do I know if I have an allergy to dust?
How is allergic to dust?
How can you avoid contact with the allergen?
Living with dust allergies - whether it's you or a member of your family - always generates a lot of questions. For example, can an allergy to explain the endless dust symptoms of colds your child? Or why you become particularly bad when you go to bed? In order to successfully fight this disease, you need to know about it as much as possible - from the causes of allergies and the pumping, what treatment can help you. We will answer the most frequently asked questions about dust allergies.
Where does the dust and why it so much?
In every house there are certainly corners where dust accumulates. Even the cleanest apartments are unlikely to pass the test with white gloves. Dust particles can easily penetrate and under the bed, and under the ceiling, the chandelier or cabinet. House dust - generally the most common cause of allergies.
What is house dust? It consists of fiber pile carpets, fur toys, cloth upholstery, as well as the scales of the epidermis - your own and your pets. Add to this their wool, as well as microparticles, brought on clothes in the street, and you can see from a "cocktail" is house dust.
Most of the dust consists of toxins released by insects and microorganisms that live in your home. Besides the cockroaches and spiders in your home can be a huge number of live mites who love natural products and therefore settled in woolen carpets and blankets. Dust lump weight with paperclip contains about nineteen thousand species of dust mites!
What are dust mites?
Dust mites - tiny spider-like creatures that thrive in warm and moist conditions. You can not see these little rascals naked eye, but they can cause big problems if you have a dust allergy. They really like the conditions that prevail in our homes, where it is always warm and humid air - they prefer the humidity from 75% to 80%. To survive at low temperature, they can not - such as dust mites have never met in Antarctica and are rarely found in dry cold climates. Yes, and in our latitudes, people with dust allergies tend to deterioration in July and August, when the population of dust mites reach the peak because of the warm and humid weather.
Dust mites feed on fallen flakes of dead skin of people and animals. Since skin flakes fall every day, mites, of course, hardly fast. The average adult loses every day and a half grams of the skin - this is enough to feed an army of a million dust mites. The flakes of dead skin accumulate in carpets, bedding, furniture, inviting ticks to a hearty meal. Most dust mites accumulate it in mattresses, in bedding and upholstery.
And closest to our airways are mites that live in pillows - Down and feather. Clamp-peroedy great feel in a moist and warm environment, so in ten years, any cushion of 40% is made up of mites and their metabolic products. From this neighborhood is easy to make an allergy.
But not only the mites, the pen itself also causes cough and allergic rhinitis. The pen consists of mikrokryuchochkov that easily penetrate the fabric pillowcases. And when inhaling a great number of these particles stick into the lungs and bronchi.
What exactly causes allergies and what her symptoms?
Most people with dust allergies are actually a reaction occurs in the proteins that are found in excreta, dust mites. That dust mites can cause year-round rhinitis, they also can cause asthma, especially in children.
Symptoms of allergies to dust are similar to the symptoms of pollen allergy and may include:
Redness and itching of the eye mucosa, lacrimation;
Runny nose, nasal congestion;
Sneezing.
Some people may show symptoms of asthma:
Strong paroxysmal cough;
Shortness of breath;
Rattling in the bronchi.
Furthermore, in severe cases, the dust allergies may manifest symptoms of atopic dermatitis.
How do I know if I have an allergy to dust?
Symptoms of allergies to dust may be very similar to the common cold. However, if the runny nose and sneezing, you do not go for a long time, you should consult an allergist. The doctor will ask you questions that will help clarify the picture, hold the skin tests to identify the allergen. Furthermore, the allergen can be detected with the aid of special blood tests.
Identify the specific allergen and determine the extent of your exposure to allergy, your doctor will give you advice and, if necessary, prescribe treatment.
How is allergic to dust?
Dust allergy treatment includes three main methods:
Avoid contact with the allergen
Treatment with drugs
Allergen-specific imunoterapiya
Avoiding contact with the allergen - rather, it is not a cure, but a warning of allergic attacks. This means that you need to take special measures against dust and limit the impact of specific sources of the substances from the dust, which cause your allergies. The latter is possible if the test shows that you are allergic to, such as pet dander.
Antihistamines are medications that can alleviate your condition, you will choose your doctor. He will tell how long the treatment should continue. Antihistamines relieve itching, sneezing, watery. Such preparations are in the form of tablets, drops, syrups, as well as it may be nasal sprays or eye drops.
There is another group of drugs, the treatment of which is made strictly on prescription. This nasal steroids, anti-inflammatory drugs which are capable of stopping and allergic reactions, and leukotriene-receptor antagonists, which block the action of chemical substances produced in response to allergen. Once again, that the treatment is given your doctor, and many of the drugs against allergies are available only by prescription. And how exactly to treat allergies, it can be understood only after the survey.
How can you avoid contact with the allergen?
Treatment with drugs can help, and quickly; but even the most effective treatment eventually lose all meaning if the allergens are you still surround. Reducing the amount of dust and destruction of dust mites should be the first step in alleviating the symptoms of allergies or asthma. And start especially in the bedroom, where any person spends every day most of the time. Do not forget to wear a gauze mask or respirator during cleaning.
People who wake up at night from the dry painful cough, it is first necessary to part with feather pillows. But those who have a predisposition to allergic diseases, should not wait for the onset of illness to part with it. If you decide to leave a cushion, then change them requires not less frequently than once every ten years, and once a year to give to the dry cleaners, or at least to bring them under the open sun, because ultraviolet rays detrimental effect on feather mites. In winter, pillows and blankets, mattresses with natural fillings must be periodically aired endure the cold - mites die quickly at low temperatures.
If you throw away your favorite thing you do not want, you can pack pillows, blankets and mattresses in special plastic or vinyl covers. As often as possible wash things at a high temperature, if possible, and in the bedrooms do not allow moisture to the air. Carpets treat acaricides.
Allergy Bedding should be of smooth and dense fabric as soft tissue quickly wear out, which increases the number of microvilli in the inhaled air. But carpets, especially with a fluffy pile, not in the apartment allergies. Wet cloth, and even a vacuum cleaner is not able to cope with household dust that literally accumulates in carpets. Following the carpets need to get rid of upholstered furniture with loose upholstery, as well as cushions and a collection of soft toys. And do not feel sorry for all these things, otherwise you will no cure for allergies does not help.
It turns out that allergies have to choose for themselves the quality and hypoallergenic synthetics. If possible, replace all natural things by their counterparts dust free instead use blinds curtains and natural bedding replace synthetic duvets and pillows. Furniture is better to buy filled with foam and removable covers that can be washed filler.
Allergy sufferers should be reviewed and their habits: for sewing, knitting, working with leather, fur or paper is better to forget; odors in the apartment of a person suffering from an allergy, too, is not the place. Independently to get out of the house is not recommended, but if there is no alternative, then be sure to use a damp gauze bandage, and after cleaning to leave for a few hours walk, so as not to trigger an asthma attack. Vacuums should be a multi-stage filtration system filters and themselves - are not clogged.
Loved hats, sweaters, mittens and scarves made of natural wool, too, will have to say "goodbye." A robe washed as often as possible and beat the dust out of it. His personal library should be removed in cabinets with glass, and small souvenirs or throw or give more healthy friends as they gather on a lot of dust, which is difficult to remove. Potted flowers also prohibited, not so much because of the pollen, but because of the molds, which reproduce them. Naphthalene, aerosol fragrances and insecticides are better left on the shelf in the store.
If you are allergic to house dust, in most cases, the list of allergens is rapidly expanding, joins allergic to pet dander and feathers. Therefore, a pet should find new owners, no matter how it was difficult. Aquarium fish also are considered potentially dangerous due to the fact that dry food for them is highly allergenic, but if you only use the live feed, the fish, perhaps, you can leave.
Here are some tips to reduce the amount of dust:
Instead, use the feather pillows to polyester fiber fillers.
Wash all bedding in very hot water (even better - to boil them) at least once a week. The powder is better to take the one that is designed for children's things - such powders hypoallergenic.
Clean all surfaces with a clean damp cloth, preferably daily.
Try to keep the humidity in your home below 55%. To control the humidity hygrometer purchase.
Curtain is better to remove. If without them can not do, wash them with warm water once a week.
Remove stuffed animals, bouquets of artificial or dried flowers and other "dust collectors" of the house.
Choose a wood or vinyl floor coverings. Carpeting - it's just a trap for dust.
If you are using devices for heating or air conditioning, then change the filter every three months.
Weekly wash all the little mats (eg, bathroom or toilet) in hot water.
We have repeatedly mentioned that if you have a severe allergy to dust, you would be better to remove all the carpets. But if it seems impossible to you, talk with your doctor - perhaps for you to be acceptable treatment option carpets chemical cleaner to neutralize the waste products of the dust mite.
