Allergy update.

[baratron]

Meep! Just had my allergy tests (& managed to throw up all over the floor in a fit of squeamishness). Apparently I'm very allergic to dust mite - so among other things, I need to put all my furry creatures in the freezer! I'm not sure whether or not this includes the live ones...

The leaflet I got was funny though. It was talking about how you can wash your bed with toxic chemicals or you can vacuum the mattress but the dust mites hang on with each of their ten legs. I was highly amused. Of course, if you take a picture of a dust mite and blow it up to 300 x magnification, you get some sort of horrible science-fiction monster. I'm glad they're too small to see normally.

Comments

[pir.livejournal.com]

For the people who stay with me who are allergic to dust mites and dust I have hypo-allegenic pillows (dunlopillows) and a special matress cover with pores too fine for dust mites to get out ... so even if there are still mites in my matress, they can't get out to annoy anyone.

mite bog

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Usually when somebody is allergic to dust mites, it's their poo that is the actual allergen.

(I know this because that's what I'm allergic too. I only react to dust that has been lying undisturbed for a while.)

[kiya]

I tested out severely allergic to dust mites when I was a kid; I don't know if I still would, because I went through years of desensitisation therapy stuff. (I got shots for it, which actually worked pretty well, eventually. If you can handle needles and that's available without making your other medical stuff go weird on you, I recommend that as a long-term solution.)

We managed the mite allergies with cleaning-vacuuming-dusting, mostly, and the shots. I'm guessing your allergy may be more severe than mine was even before it was brought down, so you may have to do more drastic stuff; I'd look into hypoallergenic sheets and pillows like were mentioned if you can find them.

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

My sister went through a period of being hyper alergic recently. Both to external alogenics and food.
Food wise she found the answer was to go on a diet of water and brown rice for a couple of weeks then start to SLOWLY introduce back other foods including the ones she was alergic to. I know you may have a problem with the milk side of that due to some of your medication containing that but it may help with other things. It dose however take great streanght of will so be warned if you concider it that it will take your total dedication and is not particualy enjoyable.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I have Dunlopillo everything - pillows and mattress. Also hypoallergenic hollowfibre quilt and a synthetic blanket. My bed cost over £500 ten years ago - hence my complete lack of desire to buy a new one when my current one isn't worn out.

I'm really quite confused about what to do - I was under the impression that latex mattresses got far less dust mite in them than normal ones, and also that it was bad to vacuum a latex mattress because that disturbs the small amount of dust mite that gets into it regardless. I also have a double sheet folded in half inbetween me and the mattress - in addition to the normal single fitted sheet on the bed. I am beginning to suspect that the problem isn't in my bed at all, but in Richard's - he has a normal bed which I sleep under (because I sleep best in a "cave").

Oh what fun! I'm already allergic to something in condoms and we're not sure what. Now I'm getting allergic to sleeping in the same room as Richard! (OK, slight exaggeration). We can put something under his mattress to stop dust falling down, and religiously change the sheets every week, but apart from that I'm not sure what to do.

And my back hurts. Unrelated to anything, I just thought I'd add it to the list of moans ;)