Dust mites that live in pillows are one of the most common causes of home allergies, chronic rhinitis and bronchial asthma. The reason is simple: these arthropods actively secrete allergens (specialists consider them to be among the strongest found in apartments and houses), and due to the fact that they are very close to a sleeping person, he inhales these allergens constantly, for a long time and in large quantities. As a result, the risk of sensitization to secretions of dermatophagous mites is very high, and diseases caused by tick allergies are among the most common in the world.
It should be borne in mind that dust mites in one quantity or another live in almost every residential area (all over the world). They are cosmopolitan and rather unpretentious to living conditions. If a person can live normally in a room, then ticks can live and multiply here. To a large extent, their number depends on the sanitary condition of housing, but they are found even in clean and regularly cleaned apartments and houses.
Moreover, if such mites are wound up indoors and settled here mainly in places where dust accumulates under furniture or behind it, then getting rid of most of them will be a matter of several thorough cleanings. However, if they have massively multiplied inside pillows or mattresses on the bed, then it will be much more difficult to remove them.
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Some experts are even inclined to believe that it is easier to throw out contaminated pillows and replace them with new ones than to try to clean them of ticks and highly allergenic products of their vital activity.
Simply put, the presence of dermatophagous mites in pillows is a serious threat to human health. If people living indoors have symptoms of diseases caused by these creatures, and there are also other reasons to assume the presence of dust mites (for example, according to the results of special tests, which will be discussed below), then urgent measures must be taken to desacarify the home.
How to understand that such "pillow" mites are present in the bed, and what to do to destroy them? Let's figure it out...
What mites can live in pillows
To date, it is reliably known that several types of dust mites settle in pillows - the very ones that actively multiply in any other places in a residential area where dust accumulates with the remains of human skin.
Among these species, the most common are Dermatophagoides farinae (American dust mites) and Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (European dust mites). A little less often, other dust mites settle in human housing in general, and in pillows in particular: Tyrophagus putrescentiae, Glycyphagus domesticus. Specifically, they are called “cushion” only colloquially because of their frequent discovery in the pillow filler. In general, they are not attached to pillows or to the bed, but in the largest quantities they are found simply in places with large accumulations of dust.
For example, the photo below shows individuals of Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus under a microscope:
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It is believed that representatives of the group of so-called barn mites can also settle in pillows - the flour mite Caloglyphus rodionovi, the cheese mite Acarus siro and some others. They are often found in all those places in the house where typical dust mites are also found, they often settle directly in the hair of pets (they do not bite, but feed on particles of keratinized skin). If the pet regularly jumps on the bed, then the risk of infection of pillows with barn mites is quite high.
Interestingly, typical feather mites that parasitize the plumage of birds do not live in pillows. This is due to the fact that the most common parasites of feathers - quill mites - can only live in the plumage of a living bird, since they feed not on the structural components of the feathers themselves, but on the liquid that is released into the quill of the feather when the mite pierces the wall of the quill itself.
This process occurs only when a feather is pierced on a live bird, and in a separated feather (including down in pillows), no liquid is released when the feather is pierced. Consequently, widespread parasites of bird plumage (especially the mite Syringophilus bipectinatus, which infects chickens and ducks on farms) are not able to live in down pillows.
In addition, all the fluff before the manufacture of pillows undergoes a special sanitary treatment, which includes, among other things, disinfestation and desacarization. That is, even if there are mites in fresh fluff, they will die with such treatment. For this reason, not only ticks, but also various parasitic insects cannot be in the down in the pillows.
Thus, ticks start only in ready-made pillows. And this happens almost always in the living room in which the pillow is located.In a store or at work, infection with them is extremely unlikely.
Lifestyle of dermatophagoids in bedding
Dust mites are permanent residents of residential premises. Here they feed on flaky skin particles that fall off people and pets.
So, each person loses up to 2 kg of skin per year in the form of dandruff and keratinized epidermis, which separates in the form of small scales for natural reasons when the upper layers of the dermis are renewed. This amount is sufficient for the constant feeding of approximately 2 million dust mites - they are microscopically small in size and are quite content with this amount of food.
It is interesting
Often, dust mites constantly live in the hair of pets, not going down to the floor or bed. From an evolutionary point of view, such populations are the beginning of the transition of dust mites to permanent parasitism. There is an opinion that it was in this way that scabies once became parasites. Their ancestors could pick up skin in the nests of animals, then individual individuals learned to live in wool and not leave it, only sometimes moving from one animal to another with close contact, and then completely adapted to life in the upper layers of the skin.
The greatest amount of crumbling skin is concentrated on the bed and bedding. Here, on the bed, a person spends a large amount of time, but here often there are no additional barriers in the form of clothing between his body and the bed itself. At the same time, skin particles that not only settled on the surface of bedding, but got through the pores into the tissues inside the same pillows or mattresses, are practically impossible to remove from here.
As a result, if in the whole apartment, with regular cleaning, dust and such food for ticks can be regularly cleaned, then in the pillows all this is not only stored, but constantly accumulates.
In addition, pillows can sometimes contain other food for dust mites - molds and their spores. According to studies, in the average pillow, which is used for more than 1.5 years, there are more than 1 million spores of fungi (primarily species of the genus Aspergillus). These fungi are not the main food for ticks, but in some cases they significantly supplement their diet.
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It is noteworthy that synthetic-filled pillows are as often infested with mites as down pillows. At the same time, the mites themselves do not need fluff, but they feed on the skin that gets here and sometimes the fungi that multiply here. Dermatophagous mites do not care where the human skin is located - among the fibers of a synthetic winterizer or holofiber, or among goose down. In addition, according to the test data, the number of fungal spores detected in synthetic pillows turned out to be on average higher than in down pillows.
In fact, for dust mites, pillows are “bags” of food. It would be strange if they did not breed here in large numbers.
And they multiply… Each tick lives for about 50-70 days. The life span of females is somewhat longer than that of males. After hatching from the egg, tick nymphs actively feed, molt several times and turn into adults (sexually mature stage) after 15-20 days. Females then mate with males and start laying 2-3 eggs every day.
During her sexually mature life, each female lays approximately 60-100 eggs, from which nymphs hatch after a few days and repeat the same life cycle. Thus, under suitable conditions (literally greenhouse) in the absence of natural enemies, dust mites can increase their numbers by 20-40 times in 3-4 weeks.
Fortunately, in reality, even in pillows, the reproduction rate of dermatophagous mites is lower. Various factors are involved: from diseases (ticks also have them) to starvation due to reaching the population limit under conditions of a specific amount of food. However, their reproduction still proceeds very quickly: a few months after individual individuals enter the pillow, its entire filler can literally be swarming with ticks.
At the same time, for the sensitization of a person and the development of an allergy to dust mites, a relatively small number of individuals in the room is sufficient. It is believed that the critical amount, when exceeded, there is a risk of developing tick allergies, is 100 copies of mites in 1 gram of pillow filler. Studies show that if mites have penetrated the pillow, such a number appears here after 6-8 months.
In fact, in every pillow where these pests appear, they multiply to dangerous levels for humans, since there are often no hard limiting factors here. This means that almost every pillow is a potential source of allergens.
Harmfulness of dust mites
The presence of dust mites in bed is very dangerous due to the high sensitivity of people to mite allergens.This is due to the significant biochemical activity of these allergens: the main ones are digestive enzymes, due to which the tick can digest its specific food (dry fragments of human skin).
Some of these enzymes are excreted by the tick with excrement. If a person later inhales them, the allergens will settle on the surface of the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract. Having a protein nature, they are likely to be recognized by the immune system as foreign substances (antigens), and a specific immune response will be developed to them. With some probability, this response will be excessive, and then if the allergen enters the body again, an allergy will develop.
Similarly, allergies develop when tick feces get on the skin or in the digestive tract.
Somewhat less often, hypersensitivity develops not to digestive enzymes, but to cuticle particles of dead or shed mites.
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It is not uncommon for an allergy to also develop to various components of molds present inside pillows. At home, it is very rare to find out which allergen - tick-borne or fungal - a person has developed an allergy to.
Due to the small size of the particles, all allergens from the pillow easily pass through the pores in the tissue of the pillowcase, settle on the face and enter the air inhaled by the person. In fact, a person sleeping on an infected pillow is constantly in a cloud of dried tick excrement and fragments of the chitinous shells of these arthropods.
Due to the high aggressiveness of tick-borne allergens and constant prolonged contact with them during sleep, allergies often develop into chronic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis and bronchial asthma.According to statistics, house dust mites are the most common cause of asthma in the world.
Such diseases caused by dust mites are dangerous primarily because they become almost lifelong for many people. Even if a person can completely get rid of ticks in his own home, then as soon as he gets into any room, in the dust of which the corresponding allergens will be present, the allergy will recur. Moreover, this will happen even if the number of ticks is relatively small, incapable of leading to primary sensitization - the allergic organism will still react pathologically.
Consequently, the quality of life of a person with tick-borne allergies significantly deteriorates. At a minimum, the pathology is manifested by rather severe symptoms:
- Nasal congestion during sleep (sometimes complete);
- Acute allergic rhinitis or rhinoconjunctivitis with a characteristic clinical picture - rhinorrhea, nasal congestion, pain in the eyes, sneezing;
- Allergic conjunctivitis with swelling of the eyes, suppuration of the cornea, constant itching;
- Atopic dermatitis with profuse itchy rash on different parts of the body, cracking of the skin in places where vesicles accumulate;
- Bronchial asthma with persistent cough, shortness of breath, feeling of congestion in the chest;
- Complications of chronic rhinitis - hyperplastic, hypertrophic, atrophic rhinitis (not always curable), as well as ozena.
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There are known cases of anaphylaxis when dust mites enter the digestive tract with food. Anaphylactic shock can be life-threatening, but it does not manifest itself when inhaled tick allergens.
Allergies may not develop in all people living indoors. This sometimes causes errors in identifying the etiological factor: some people unknowingly look for the cause of health problems outside the apartment, because they are convinced that if an allergy developed to an allergen located in the room, all tenants would suffer from it to some extent. In fact, the risk of sensitization is individual, and one person can sleep safely all his life on an infected pillow, on which another person will begin to sneeze and itch after a few minutes of sleep.
In addition to allergies, dust mites do not cause any danger or even obvious harm to humans. They do not bite people or pets, do not spoil pillows and do not damage the material of the filler and pillowcase, do not carry any infections. Nevertheless, tick allergies are a very dangerous consequence, and therefore, if dust mites are found in bed, they should be dealt with as soon as possible.
In which pillows do these pests most often settle and how does infection occur?
Dust mites initially enter pillows through pores in pillowcases and pillowcases. These arthropods are very small: the body length of an adult is no more than 0.3 mm, and therefore they easily crawl through the pores in most fabrics used to make bed covers and pillowcases.
Once in the apartment (for example, being brought in with things, dust or furniture), mites concentrate mainly in those places where there are most particles of exfoliating skin. As a rule, these are spaces under beds and sofas.Gradually, they populate the bed, where human skin appears regularly, although it does not accumulate in large quantities due to the periodic washing of bed linen.
Individuals that have fallen on the bed penetrate pillows and mattresses, where they find themselves in almost greenhouse conditions: a favorable microclimate, complete safety and constantly appearing food (particles of human skin).
Obviously, pillows that are most often infected with dermatophagous mites are:
- Regularly used for more than a year - they have time to accumulate a large amount of dust;
- They have a pillowcase and a pillowcase made of fabric with pores of sufficient size;
- Not cleaned with the required regularity;
- They are located in a room with a microclimate suitable for ticks.
As mentioned above, the type of pillow filler does not play a big role. If the remnants of human skin have accumulated in a synthetic winterizer or cotton pad, mites colonize it as actively as down.
Similarly, we can say what kind of pillow should be in which ticks cannot settle and multiply en masse:
- Either the pillowcase or the pillowcase (and preferably both) are made of a material through which neither skin particles nor the mites themselves can penetrate;
- Pillows are regularly washed or dry-cleaned;
- They rarely sleep on the pillow (once every few months), or they started sleeping relatively recently (less than a year ago), due to which food for ticks is not present in large quantities;
- The pillow is in a room in which ticks cannot survive - with too low a temperature, or, conversely, lies on a couch that is constantly in the sun.
Knowing such criteria for “uncomfortable” pillows for dust mites, you can choose quite effective measures to get rid of these unwanted guests and prevent them from infecting pillows. It is useful to make sure that the mites have already settled in the pillows beforehand ...
How to find mites in pillows
The first (although not the most reliable) sign of the presence of mites in pillows or other bedding is an allergy, especially one that worsens indoors, but weakens with a long stay outside. As a rule, it is she who is the reason for many people to learn about the existence of dust mites at all.
Often a person can suffer from nasal congestion at night for years, until one fine moment he turns to an ENT specialist - he will refer him to an allergist, and the allergist in the clinic will diagnose and identify an allergy specifically to ticks.
A sign of the presence of mites in pillows can be both respiratory allergic diseases and dermatological. If symptoms of such diseases have developed, you must, firstly, contact a medical institution for diagnosis and treatment, and secondly, try to find ticks in your home.
How to do it?
The most reliable way is to use special test systems to detect tick-borne allergens.
They work very simply:
- The pillow is opened and a small portion of the filler is taken out of it;
- The required amount of water is poured into the test cup, the filler is added;
- A special indicator strip from the test kit is lowered into the solution;
- By the color of the strip, a conclusion is made about the presence and amount of tick-borne antigens in the filler.If these antigens are present, then the mites themselves are also present in the pillow (or at least were present before).
A less unambiguous result is given by skin tests for allergies in the patient himself. Such a test may show sensitivity to dust mite allergens, but this does not mean that the mites live in the pillow. They can be present anywhere else in the home and also cause allergies in a person.
On the other hand, if mites are found in pillows, then they are most likely to be found in other places in the room. And they will need to be destroyed throughout the apartment.
It is possible to find dust mites in the pillow filler using a microscope. These pests look like small insects with a whitish translucent body, quite mobile and tirelessly swarming in the fibers. As a rule, it is the constant movement that draws attention to itself and allows you to quickly detect them.
With normal vision, you can try to see dust mites without a microscope, with the naked eye. They look like tiny white dots moving on the fabric or in the filler. By themselves, they are not striking, but with a targeted search they may well be noticeable.
The video below shows dust mites taken under a microscope among fabric fibers:
On a note
If a single dark-colored insect is found in a pillow or on a bed without a microscope at all, this is definitely not a dust mite. It can be a head or pubic louse, a flea, a bed bug, or some other parasite or pest.
Control measures
The most radical methods of removing dust mites from pillows ensure their rapid destruction in just a few hours.
These methods include:
- Treatment of pillows with acaricides - substances that can quickly kill ticks. These include preparations based on organophosphorus compounds, pyrethroids, neonicotinoids and some other substances. When using them, it is necessary to achieve treatment with the preparation of the filler itself, and not just the pillowcase;
- Freezing pillows in the cold. Although the mites die within a few hours at sub-zero temperatures, the pillows should be kept in the cold for at least 2 days to ensure that the eggs freeze;
- Heating pillows in the sun for several hours with an increase in their temperature to 60-65 ° C, or washing at a water temperature of 60 ° C.
More conservative methods involve prolonged elimination of mites, but with less risk to the pillow material.
In particular, it is advisable:
- Use pillowcases made of fabric that is impermeable to allergens and dust (permeability for allergens - less than 1%, for dust - less than 4%, pore diameter - no more than 10 microns, air permeability - 2-6 cm3/(sec*cm2));
- Have two sets of pillows, on each of which people sleep for no more than 2-3 months in a row.
These measures are good because they do not require much effort and give quick results. In particular, allergens already in the pillow do not go outside and do not enter the respiratory tract of a person - they are detained by a pillowcase. The same pillowcase does not allow skin and dandruff to penetrate the pillow, and over time, the mites inside it lose their food source. If at the same time no one sleeps on the pillows during their rotation for 2-3 months, the ticks, all the more, remain without food and eventually die out.
Quite old and heavily contaminated pillows, in which, moreover, mold must have started, should be replaced with new ones and thrown away.
Considering that dust mites can live not only in pillows, but also in almost any other place in the room, their destruction should not be limited only to the bed. Measures must be taken to destroy them anywhere in the apartment where dust accumulates.
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In the fight against dust mites, it is useful to use special sprays that decompose mite allergens and make them safe for humans. The fact is that even after the complete destruction of ticks, their feces can remain in the smallest cracks for many months, continuing to cause allergies. If the room is treated with special degradant sprays, then allergens will no longer be dangerous.
Prevent pillow infections
Finally, it is easier to prevent ticks from infecting pillows than to deal with these unwanted guests and, moreover, to treat allergies.
The basis for the prevention of pillow infection is the use of the same pillowcases that are impermeable to ticks, allergens, dust and dandruff. If such pillowcases are worn on all pillows, dust mites simply will not penetrate inside.
Other activities should also be carried out:
- Change and wash bedding at least once a week;
- Once a week, carry out a thorough wet cleaning throughout the apartment, removing dust from all places where it can accumulate;
- Regularly ventilate the room, maintain a normal microclimate here.
It is also useful to remove the maximum number of dust accumulators from the apartment - carpets, rugs, soft children's toys, open shelves with books and open cabinets with things. Here, in the dust, the largest number of mites accumulate, and it can be extremely difficult to remove them from the same carpets.It is enough to close the shelves with books with glass doors to ensure that particles of human skin do not get here.
Finally, any diseases of the respiratory tract, the symptoms of which appear longer than 7-10 days, should be diagnosed quickly and in a timely manner. Such a duration may already be a sign of allergies and chronic inflammation, and the sooner the cause of the disease is determined, the easier it will be to eliminate this cause. This is important not only for the prevention of tick sensitization, but also for protection against serious diseases in general.
Useful video about the presence of dust mites in bed
Macro shot of dust mites crawling on pillow fabric
