Experiences
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From: Deborah T.
Mar. 7, 2010
I first thought I had fleas moving in a new place with new carpet, I would feel something only when I lay down to sleep, My things was in storage , I had my place sprayed for fleas, I even put flogger out. They bite like fleas,I sprayed myself with bug spray, a friend of mine told me about the dust mites…
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From:Evelyn A.
Jan. 25, 2010
I don’t know if this is dust mites or not, but at nite when I go to bed, I feel like something is crawling on my face. This happens off & on all nite long. Also, if I lay back in my recliner I feel the same thing. I have suffered with a clear runny nose for about two years. This mostly happens when I am eating a meal. My ENT doctor has recently checked me . Found nothing physically wrong. He put me on some nose spray, which has not helped at all. My husband suffers
constantly with sinus problems. Your imput to this would be greatly appreciated.
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From:Racquel
Jan. 4, 2010
I had been diagnosed with copd in Nov. 09 I have never smoked. I have religiously used all the inhalers to relieved me from wheezing and coughing but no relief. I am allergic to dust mites and had use serum last year to immunize but stopped..The wheezing intensifies at night in the bedroom. I am using a water vaporizer at bedtime and I found my wheezing worst. I cough non stop and I end up sitting by the computer until I feel that the phlegm coming from my bronchial is loosened up. I am convinced that my problem is not copd but I am reacting badly to the dust mites in my bedroom.My beddings are washed 2 times a week and it could be that the pillows are breeding grounds .I should throw them away..What can I do to eradicate them?
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From:Margaret
Dec. 5, 2009
After reading some of the letters I have decided to include my own. I have decided that whatever is in my house must be a dustmite. It is too small for me to see even with a magnifying glass. I am up most nights and slowly getting to the stage of being feared to go to bed at night. For the same reasons stated in articles from other readers. The dust mites jump regularly in my eyes and they are constantly sore and stinging.
I can feel them crawling on me when I go to bed at night. I have sometimes taken 3 baths a day, including one in the middle of the night. I have sprayed insecticides on my bed of all descriptions, flea powders, I have sprayed my face with insect repellents, I have washed my hair with derbac and goodness knows what else.
I am making myself ill with all this I dont know how to stop it. My friend came around and I know one went on her and I was so embarrased. I am miserable and very unhappy. I have vaccuumed my mattress and every part of the bed. To no avail. I relocated from Lincolnshire and my Doctor told me here I have no immunity to Norfolk bugs. Each year I have had problems when I am outside, some have been severe. But this one is the worst of all, a nightmare. I am at my wits end to know what to do and dread laying down as in minutes they are on my face and going into my eyes.
Please help, thankyou.
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From:Fenella
Aug. 4, 2009
I have lived in France for nearly 5 months. Soon after moving here, I began to experience itchy bites all over my body including in my hair, but not between the fingers. They take a long time to go away, and leave a mark. I do not have any visible signs of infestation in my home or in my bed. I have seen a French dermatologist, who diagnosed Acariens - mites. He recommended spraying with Baygon Anti-Acariens, but I now find this product is no longer available. I do not have asthma, nor hay fever symptoms, so I’m not convinced he’s made the right diagnosis. I’d like to know what you think please.
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From:Laurits H.
Jul. 29, 2009
Good morning.
This is actually a question, not a story.
Searching your site as well as others’ I keep wondering about one thing: Is the food of house dust mites restricted to human debris, or can they feed on other types of dust such as plain carpet dust (woolen, synthetic, etc.), book dust, dust from clothings, etc.?
Point: HDM are almost impossible to kill by chemicals, the best methods being low temperatures and or low humidity. If one has acquired HDM allergy the HDMs are most likely all over ones residence. The life time of an HDM is up to 70 days acc. to Wikipedia.
Now the question: Is it possible to kill HDMs from items (”cleaned”, wiped off, “dedusted” clothes, books, furniture, etc.) by putting them in sealed carton boxes for a period of say 3 months, irrespective of temperature or moisture? If the HDMs have consumed the human part of the remaining dust, will they be able to survive on the remaining dust?
Best regards and looking forward to your reply.
Laurits H.
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From: Claire W.
May. 16, 2009
My 6 year old son is the one with the allergy to the dust mintes. My husband and I only found out about it when Steven took a very bad reaction to them. He was in his bed and about a hour later came down and said his eyes were sore, at first we thought he had been playing with something in the bathroom, but after checking we soon knew he hadn’t been.
The whites of his eyes had turned yelow and had swallen up the the size of a golf ball, it looked nothing like him, part of his face was also swollen and some parts of it was bright red. My husband and I had no clue what happend to him and it was scary for all of us.
It took aout a week for the test results to come back to let us know what he took the reaction to, and it was then we found out what ALL his allergies are, and he has a few.
This was about a year ago. Since then he has had the odd attake, but nothing like the first one. Now though we think there is things in food he can’t have.
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From: Arrex Cray
Jan. 5, 2009
Starting last year of ‘08 I began feeling an overbearing sensation of something crawling and biting me as if it were microscopic. Well I began cleaning everything and staying clean myself. It seems that at times these dust mites get quite out of hand. Sometimes I get rather itchy at work and that’s very irritating. What must I do to rid myself of this situation?
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From: Rick Package III
Nov. 25, 2008
I lived in a dirty digusting dorm room my freshman year of college. After three months of waking up each morning wheezing, sneezing and itching, I finally went to the doctor. Naturally the doctor told me that it was probably allergies and advised me to take some Claritin. The Claritin didn’t work at all so I was really frustrated. My parents insisted I see a specialists. After three months of constant visits to the allergy specialist, he determined that my allergies were caused by dust mites. This really freaked me out- DUST MITES! Aren’t those like cockroaches or ants? I guess not.
They’re so tiny that you can’t see them without the aid of a microscope. After learning more about them, I wasn’t as grossed out. But I started washing my sheets, pillow cases and blankets every three days. I had my suitemates doing the same. We also had the carpets and draperies cleaned professionally. After doing all of this my allergies subsided without any prescription or OTC medications. One thing I don’t understand though, is why were these little dust mites causing me…and ONLY me to have these allergic reactions?
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From: Elaine
Sept. 30, 2008
I changed my bed 2 days ago - all freshly laundered. That night I felt itching all over - assumed a reaction to the detergent (although same as usual).
Changed it again - and worse - being bitten.
To be fair, haven’t vacced mattress in some time although regularly launder under blanket, mattress topper and all bedlinen.
Q is do I need to replace every thing, or is a really good vac and washing of everything sufficient.
Am happy to junk the lot, but am fearful of replacing with new if the same is to happen again - aka haven’t got rid of the problem.
Thanks - urgent reponse appreciated!
Have just showered - it’s 0300 - and am afraid to sleep in my guest room in case I ‘contaminate’ it.
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From: Kate
Sept. 27, 2008
This summer of 2008 seems to have been particularly friendly for dust mites. I have had allergic symptoms since May: sneezing, runny nose, coughing at night, ear irritation. I guess it is because there has been so much rain here in the U.K.. Am I right?
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From: Robert P.
Sept. 26, 2008
We live in Florida and decided to take a family trip to Wisconsin for the Summer. We spent six weeks in Haywar, which is pretty far North in the state. Anyway, one of my daughters developed itchy watery eyes, sneezing and overall fatigue with in a few days of being up there. We figured she just had a cold or something. It turned out that she had a severe allergic reaction to sdomething in the environment.
We took her to the local hospital and it was verified that she was allergticv to dust, or more specifically, dust mites. nd she was basically given an OTC allergy medicine.
She suffered with these symptoms for the entire trip despite taking the medicine recommended by the physician.
As soon as we returned home to Florida her allergies cleared up and she’s been fine since. After doing some research on dust mites on this site, I realize that they can be controllled even if your environment is riddled with dust and dust mites. As a precaution, we had professionals come into our house to take care of the dust mites. My wife bought a HEPA filter and we installed it on our air conditioning unit. I recommend it for anyone who struggles with dust-related or dust mite aller
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From: Chris L.
Sept. 19, 2008
Kawasaki syndrome was what my soine was diagnosed with.. The doctors have no idea what caused it but I’m 100% sure it was dust mites. The allergist I hired said that dust mites have not been known to cause kawasaki disease but that doesn’t mean it didn’t. I’m writing you because I want people to make sure that if they have children, they need to keep their homes clean and free of dust. I recommend getting all hardwood or non-carpeted flooring.
In case you’re not familiar with Kawasaki disease, here is some general information: Kawasaki disease can’t be prevented, but usually has some symptoms and signals that appear in stages.
At first the kid gets a nasty fever, sometimes 105* or more.(CALL 9-1-1) and lait can last for aslmost one week. Boy was that scary!
Some other stuff was:
- red, itchy eyes
- a rash on the whole lower body region including my son’s balls
- dry lips
- and a swollen up tongue
**The red itchy balls were the worst! I cringed just watching my son jam on his inflamed red testicles like Slash on an electric guitar. So parents, please, please, keep your houses clean and free of dust mites!
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From: Frank D.
Sept. 15, 2008
My name is Frank Dikindamauf and when I first heard of dust mites I thought they were similar to tertmites. I figured they were little bugs that would spend their days chomping on wood and eating houses and stuff. I was very surprised to learn that they’re actually microscopic organisms. I leanred about them when our daughter started showing symptoms of Athsma. We took her to her doctors and theyt ran some tests and said she had seasonal allergies.
It turned out she had dust or dust mite allergies. We were able to reduce her symptoms, which after three months after b eing diagnosed, had become so severe that she required an inhaler and could not participate in her gym class. Her homo gym teacher told us that she HAD to participate or fail. We threatened to take his anus to court and the school quickly came around and allowed her to sit out of class.
This lead to many of her schoolmates making fun of her and mocking her for not being in good enough shape to play dodgeball or whatever fruity games they play in gym class these days. In my day we played basketball, football and baseball. And if someone got hurt, they were hurt, we didn’t mock them for it.
Anyway, my wife decided to have our air ducts and heating and air conditioning system completely cleaned out. We live in an older house and had never had this service done before. Shortly after the cleaning the ducts our daughters allergies were 80% better. She was able to return to gym class, avoid harassment and eventually played on her high school soccer team without ever having to use an inhaler. So in my opinion, dust mites are just dust particles. And if you get rid of the dust, you get rid of the dust mites.
Nice site!
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-Frank
From: Richard S.
Sept. 10, 2008
My wife and I recently moved into a brand new home in Colorado. Our little 3 year olf nephew was over and he was playing around on the carpeting (also brand new) with some of his toys. All of the sudden he started sneezing like crazy. His eyes turned red and he actually developed a mild rash all over his body. He was coughing and appeared extremely agitated.
We originally though that is was something is the carpet (brand new carpeting). Possibly some kind of chemical treatment used at the factory or something. But the carpet manufacturer assured us that no chemicals were used to treat the carpeting at the factory. And the carpet retailer assured us they had used mo treatments either.
My nephew ended up going to his doctor and they ran a series of tests and eventually found that he has an extreme allergic reaction to dust mites.
After talking to our neighbors, we learned that some of their children have been exhibiting some of the same symptoms as our nephew. Apparently they’re prevailent in the area.
So we did some research (most of it on this site) and have taken some precaustions to prevent and rid our home of dust mites. We got a dehumidifier installed on our furnace. We also had the HVAC system cleaned because the builders created so much dust that regular daily dusting was not really eliminating the dust in our home. We boiught a HEPA vacuum cleaner with a double-layered micro cloth bag system.
Two months after our nephew’s initial visit, he returned and exhibited NONE of the allergic symptoms and reactions he did the last time he was over. So thank you for providing us with this information. It wasd extremely easy to “dust mite proof” our new home. It might be more difficult to do in older dwellings but i’d highly recommend it to anyone who has small children.
Thank you!
-Richard and Carmella
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From: Sam M.
Sept. 7, 2008
Well I thought we have dust mites and am worried about it (my 3 year old has been wheezing and is on medication for that). But what’s confusing me is the description of mites: My eyesight is particularly sharp and I can see white/clear tiny things scampering around some of our plastic toys that have been undisturbed in their open (and a little dusty) boxes for a while ( If I look with a magnifying glass). But there also are Black ones. These are slightly bigger - half a mm I’d say and I notice them with the naked eye when they move. I squash them and they make a brown smear. Under a magnifying glass they appear to have a large round body, a tiny head, and I can see two legs from the body. What are they? Giant(!) dust mites???? Please help with some advice.
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From: K.S.
Sept. 5, 2008
I work in the basement at my work place. In this basement there is cardboard boxes of real old paper documents. These boxes are on dusty shelves . and the documents in these boxes are dusty. Around these shelves are bins of old unused paper documents that’s been in the bin for several months. On the floor of the basement is dust, paper food raps. This basement do not have windows and poor lighting. This basement also have old furniture,old phones, and thousands of other old documents in boxes. This basement is use for storage. There is no clean up crew that clean the area. I have sustain dust mites bites on leg, neck, shoulder, back. These bites itch and the bites has turn black.