What Are You Sharing Your Bed With? The Truth About Dust Mites & Allergies

How Many Dust Mites Are Really in Your Mattress?

Did you know that every night when you go to sleep… even if you sleep alone… you’re not really alone!

If you are sleeping on a traditional spring mattress or any mattress with fiber batting or pockets of space you’ve probably set up a nice home to hundreds of thousands of tiny creatures called dust mites. Let’s face it the skin flakes, sweat, and oil that you secrete while sleeping makes your mattress an all you can eat buffet for these microscopic pests. Their minuscule size also means they can penetrate through most sheets to make a mansion in your bed.

“Every mattress is a crime scene in terms of how it gets inoculated with mites,” explained Glen Needham, a retired professor of entomology at Ohio State University. “All you have to do is get a female dust mite to start laying eggs, and pretty soon you have a starter set going in your mattress.”

In fact, the areas around springs and the fiber batting such as wool, cotton or the pillow top of your mattress is where dust mites tend to set up camp. Then they feed on the dead skin cells that we naturally shed during sleep. Add that to the moisture from our sweat and oils create the perfect habitat for them offering food, drink, and warmth.

WHAT your mattress is made of is even more important as it has been found that dust mites prefer the polyester layer just below the cover. That means if you have a pillow-top type mattress, wool topper, alpaca topper, or any other fiber-based padding the more area for mites, meaning the higher your population will be.

Where this gets really tricky is if you suffer from allergies, as these dust mite populations are the perfect ecosystem to trigger your allergies! Did you know the proteins in dust mite feces are what causes your allergic reactions to them? Including watery eyes, runny nose, and in severe cases asthma attacks. Speaking of living ecosystems… did you know that at year 5 your mattress has more dust mites than the population of Los Angeles!

DUST MITE FREE MATTRESS

The best mattress for allergy sufferers will be one that doesn’t feature coils, springs, or any type of pillow top or fiber batting such as wool that can create a nesting ground for them. In fact, you’ll want to search for a mattress that offers many health benefits like organic ingredients, GOLS certified organic latex, vegan (no wool), and ensures a clean air environment. That is where Essentia steps in.

Essentia mattresses have been tested by Dr. Robert G. Hamilton of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who found that Essentia is the optimal sleep surface for allergy sufferers. Dr. Hamilton found that Essentia’s patented natural memory foam is impervious to dust mites, meaning not is there no fiber batting for them to nest into but they also cannot penetrate Essentia’s patented foam and thus cannot live in the mattress.

If you have been suffering from unexplainable allergic reactions, especially in your bedroom, it may be time to evaluate what you are sleeping on and upgrade your mattress. While not all allergic reactions are life-threatening, suffering from allergies while you sleep will interrupt your healthy REM sleep cycle. Leaving you waking up feeling groggy, tired, and less than ready to take on your day. It’s time to kick out your freeloading roommates and start waking up sneeze-free!