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How to Avoid Dust Mites: Some Helpful Tips

Last Reviewed on: September 6, 2005

You might be surprised to learn that microscopic "spiders" are the true cause of your allergy symptoms. But in fact, dust mites are the unseen trigger for millions of people. They are extremely small members of the arachnid class, of the species Dermatophagoides, making them similar to spiders and "cousins" to lice and ticks. People with dust mite allergy are sensitive to both the organism and its feces. Dust mites are found in beds, couches, and rugs, and cause eyes to itch, noses to run, and skin to crawl.

Do You Have Dust Mite Allergy?
Dust mite symptoms include itchy and runny eyes, itchy nose, sneezing, coughing, wheezing and dry, itchy skin. If these symptoms sound familiar to you, it is important to have a skin test done by an allergist in order to pinpoint your exact allergy. If you're going to go through the inconvenience and expense of environmental avoidance, you should first make sure you know what's triggering the allergy. I have seen parents who gave away the family cat only to find out later that their child had a dust mite allergy.

After undergoing skin testing that confirms a dust mite allergy, patients and parents are often defensive about their housekeeping habits. I often hear, "I'm a good housekeeper and I dust everyday." Although this may be true, dust mites can live and thrive in places that dusting can't reach.

Dust Mites: Up Close and Personal
With a little effort, you can significantly decrease your exposure to and symptoms from dust mites. But to defeat the dust mite, we must first understand how it lives and thinks.

The Diet of the Dust Mite:

Believe it or not, the dust mite loves to eat our skin, especially the skin cells we naturally shed from our body.

The Habitat of the Dust Mite:

Dust mites tend not to be airborne, primarily because they are too heavy, but also because there is no dead skin in the air (unless you have very bad dandruff or flaky body skin). Thus, we find high concentrations of dust mites in bedding, clothes, upholstered furniture, and, to a lesser extent, carpeting. Jumping up and down on the bed or extensive cleaning may temporarily alleviate the problem (giving those with a dust mite allergy a good excuse to go to the beach while someone without dust mite allergy is vacuuming and/or doing some other anti-dust mite activity).

Dust mites like to live where there is abundant food, moisture, and warmth. This often means our beds. A bed is the ideal spot for dust mites in some of the same ways as it is for us: it's cozy and toasty. But besides that we tend to shed most of our skin cells in bed. And that's good news for our hungry dust mite companions.

However, dust mites prosper anywhere there is warmth and humidity, not just your bed. For example, when you open up your beach house in May (assuming you are lucky enough to own one), you may experience some violent sneezing and wheezing. The place has probably been sealed for six months with little or no circulation, and as a result, any moisture present when the house was closed has been trapped, producing favorable conditions for dust mites, as well as molds.

Keeping Dust Mites Out: The Bedroom Battleground
When planning to battle the dust mite, we must focus our attack. And that means making the bedroom our main battlefield. It is a place where many of us spend much of our time, thinking we sleep safely and snugly—all the while not knowing what we may be actually breathing in. With our heads nestled in the pillow, the dust mite has relatively easy access to our airways.

There are a number of things that can be done to decrease exposure to dust mites in the bedroom. You could sleep in a hammock that is washed weekly in hot water. Although this is highly effective, it is relatively impractical and I don't usually recommend it. Fortunately, there are easy and practical steps that can be taken:

1. Place an impermeable dust mite encasement around the mattress, box spring, and pillow. This type of encasement has vinyl on the inside and cloth on the outside to trap dust mites, but does not crinkle like plain vinyl. It is also less likely than a plastic cover to make you sweat. One note of warning: some of my patients have reported dramatic improvements in their symptoms after using a dust mite cover, while others haven't experienced any improvement, even after a few months.

2. Wash all sheets, blankets, and pillow cases in water over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Achieving this temperature can be a problem in some apartment buildings where the thermostats on hot water heaters have been lowered to prevent scalding. I would recommend a pot of boiling water to be added to the hot cycle to raise the water temperature. If it is not practical to wash certain types of the bedding, like an expensive down comforter, place it in a bag and put it in the freezer overnight.

3. Remove unnecessary objects from the walls and ceilings.

4. Keep stuffed animals to a minimum. Only let your child sleep with teddy if it can be washed every week in hot water. All other stuffed animal companions should be kept in a closed toy chest.

5. Use window blinds that can be wiped rather than curtains.

6. Remove carpeting, if possible. If your children are allergic to dust mites, they should be encouraged to play on title or hardwood floors.

7. HEPA filters are also used, but I don't recommend them. These "air cleaners" don't do much and are very expensive. Spend your money on dust mite covers; you'll get more bang for your buck.

These steps may seem like a lot of effort, but it will be worth it if you or your child suffers from a dust mite allergy.

Scientific Evidence for Avoidance

There is good scientific evidence that dust mite avoidance works. A number of studies have been published linking the development of nasal irritation congestion (allergic rhinitis) as well as allergic asthma to dust mite exposure. More importantly, research shows that avoiding dust mites will decrease allergy symptoms.

Most of the studies demonstrating the efficacy of dust mite avoidance have involved people with severe asthma. One study, for example, took children with severe asthma caused by dust mites and placed them in an aseptic clinic in the Swiss Alps for six months. All of the children had a dramatic improvement in their asthma symptoms. However, upon returning to their homes, their symptoms returned.

Similar improvements have been reported for dust-mite-sensitive asthmatics who lived in hospital rooms for an extended period of time. This means that if you are allergic to dust mites, your bedroom should be modeled after a hospital room: plastic mattress, tile floors, plastic furniture, and very little clutter. In addition, all of the bedding in a hospital room is washed in extremely hot water every day.

Although dust mites are everywhere, a few simple environmental measures can dramatically improve your allergy and asthma symptoms as well as decrease your need for medication. Dust mite avoidance is the safest and among the most effective ways to treat allergies.