Dust Allergies

Marlese pretty much summed everything up for you, but one additional thing to watch out for is stuffed animals. They are known for hoarding dust mites as well away from him too.

Hi A.,

I would suggest the following: get some allergy covers for your son's mattress, box spring, and pillow(s). You can put the cover over the mattress pad so that you don't have to wash the mattress pad every week. Wash sheets and towels weekly. Dust surfaces at least weekly with a microfiber cloth (or swiffer duster type thing). Use a dust mop/swiffer to dust hard wood, tile, and linoleum floors, and use a vacuum with an allergy filter to vacuum carpets (again, weekly). A HEPA air purifier may help (the white noise is nice, too), but they're not inexpensive.

For away from home, I would recommend bringing a pillow from home for your son (unless you are staying at a hotel where sheets, etc., should not be musty).

They also make masks that your son could wear when you (or he) are dusting/vacuuming to filter the dust.

Good luck!
R.

Get an allergy cover for mattress & pillow. Wash sheets every 1 to 2 weeks in hot water. Don't let him sleep with a lot of stuffed animals. Remove curtains from the windows, they collect dust. If the floor is carpet, vacuum often. Don't let him sleep with a fan on, especially a ceiling fan. If I sleep with a ceiling fan on, I wake up with puffy, itchy eyes!!

Get him the allergy matress and pillow covers, dust vacuum, etc. We have the Ionic Pro air purifier and it works great. My dad's girlfriend has allergies and asthma and has a dog and a cat. She was having serious problems until they bought 2 and her allergies flare ups decreased once they started using them.

wash all cothes in hot water. buy pillow encasing and mattress encasings. get some damp rid to pull moisture out of the air it suffocates the dust mites. get a hepa filter at least for the bedroom. I would suggest at least 3. I have one dining room front room and bedroom.(they are a little pricey but worth it) it cuts down on the need for medication as much. buy a hepa vacumn. and get an allergen air conditioning filter. again a little pricey but very much worth it. change bedding at least once a week. you can get sheets and blankets and stuff for dust mite control. again pricey its up to you. I do not have them I just launder bedding alot. you can get dust filters for the top of your cieling fans. I have used them but do not like them quit using them. if you have central heat air buy the vent filters (get at lowes.). almost all of what I named is available at lowes. check out about.com allergies.for more than what I just said.

Don't forget to wash the window coverings. You will not believe how much dust gets traped in them. We took out all our carpets and put down hard wood floors. We only have a few area rugs which we vacuum often. Don't forget to dust base boards and over the door ways. The less stuffed animals the better. They also hold in a lot of dust mites.

Go to www.allergycontrolproducts.com
You can also call them and they will answer any question you have. You need to encase the mattress/boxspring/pillow cases. Remove all stuffed animals (my son used to sleep with a matchbox car!). Wash all bedding in hot water once a week.
Ideally, remove all curtains, install hardwood, etc. If that is not possible plan on vacuuming daiy. They also have a spray that you can use on the carpet/furniture that you can spray to remove the dust mites. (mine is super old and called allersearch adds anti-allergen dust spray) It lasts forever and lasts 60 days after each application. We even have taken it to my brothers house to spray on the carpet if we are spending the night.
If you have any questions feel free to contact me. I have been dealing with this for 9 years now and my son is still on allergy meds BUT he outgrew the childhood asthma and rarely if ever has flareups.

A friend of mine told me the essential oil eucalytus radiata is great for dust mite allergies. Her mom is allergic to dust mites so she bought the essential oil and a diffuser for her mom. It has worked great. My sister is allergic, so I just ordered the eucalyptus radiata essential oil for her.

Just make sure the essential oil is 100% natural & therapeutic-grade. Otherwise, it can be watered down or synthetic - which won't help as much.

I am personally allergic to dust and dust mites. I had to live in a house that did not have forced air heating. My house when we grew up had hot water furnace. I didn't have too many knick knacks since they too collects alot of dust. I need to dust often and I believe our house didn't have a lot of carpet, mostly hardwood floors, because the carpets bothered me too. I know some of these are expensive suggestions, but it helped me. The cheap way is to dust your house often and wash the curtain once in a while since they also collect dust too. Good Luck!

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Wash everything in hot water, bedding and pillowcases need to be sealed in plastic seals. I once watched a show on Oprah all about this and they stressed this to keep out dust mites. Other things I recall our allergist is allergen proof house-wood floors better if possible, vacuum often, clean air filters or use hypoallergenic filters but make sure setting is okay or change out often so doesn't burn out furnace.

I agree with the others about washing in hot water, dusting, vac, etc. They also have steam wands on the market now. You can do your mattresses with them. They are proven to get rid of dust mites and bed bugs. Don't forget to wash any "guys" or blankets your little one might be attached to. If his allergies are bad (my daughter has allergy related asthma) you might need to see an asthma specialist to treat him for outside allergies. You can also put any stuffed toys that can't be washed in a plastic ziploc bag and freeze them. We learned this in asthma classes. Freezing them also kills dust mites. We also have a couple of room air purifiers. They are a little pricey but you can find ones that the filters can be vacuumed out instead of having to buy new ones & change them. The air purifiers make a huge difference! Make sure you are changing your bags on your vac often. If you have a canister type instead of bags, you need to make sure you change out the filters often. Also, make sure when you are dumping the canister that you do it outside. In asthma classes they talked about how even the most expensive Dyson vac is useless if you are dumping it in to your garbage inside the house. Everything you just vacuumed up is now airborne. They highly suggested only using bagged vacuums. Everything gets trapped in the bag and you can put your used bag right in another bag tie it up and throw it out. Like I said, little tips we learned in asthma classes. Good luck!

Buy a bagged vacuum if you have bagless. You would be amazed how much dust can escape those canisters both when vacuuming and when emptying the canister.