Hi

[EJ-1974]

My 10 year old son has difficult to control asthma. We've recently discovered that he's highly allergic to house dust mite. We've tried lifting carpets in his room and I wash his bedding on high temp every other day but it seems to make no difference. I've seem a new dyson fan advertised that claims to get rid of 99% of allergens in the air. Has anyone tried this?

[Hidden]

There are other things you can do.  1). Open his window every morning, throw back the bedclothes and air the bed thoroughly.  Ideally keep the window open for at least an hour if you can (even if it's sub zero outside), and keep the bedclothes thrown back until around mid afternoon.  You should also hump the pillows up to form an arch so that air can flow both under and over them.   2). Don't store anything under his bed - doing so creates very effective dust traps.  If you have a divan bed for him, then when you air the room out lift the mattress up onto it's side so that the matress gets aired throughly.  We have a bed (as does our younger, asthmatic son) with a slatted base so that the air can circulate right round the mattress, but that can't happen with a divan base.  3). Keep his room cool.  We never have the radiators on in any of the bedrooms of our house. In the depths of winter, we close the doors to the bedrooms (to keep them cool even after the windows have been shut) and only open them late in the afternoon - around 4pm - to take the chill off before we go to bed.  

Hope this helps.

[Hidden]

Hi I don't know about the fan but here is some advice.

It is better to have blinds than curtains,  and wooden floors than carpets as these are all dust collectors.   You need to wash the bedding at least at a temperature of 60 degrees otherwise you don't kill the mites.    Also you can buy mattress and pillow protectors to help cut the dust mites down.  

Pillows are often another major dust mite collecter..   Wash them in 60 degrees and replace them at least every 6 months.   Oh and no pets in the bedroom!    I hope this helps.  x

[sdan4]

When I lived at home and had severe allergies to pets that we could not get give away as they had expensive health problems, I had an air filter (mid-range model from Argos) in my bedroom and in the lounge (the other room where I spent most time). I'm not sure how well it worked - I still had to take 2 x inhalers and Montelukast and still had problems but severe attacks certainly reduced. 

I also found simply opening the window was the best thing to do - my bedroom became known as the arctic because even in winter I had the window open! And had an extra thick duvet to make up for it. Sometimes if having a very bad attack I would literally stick my head out of the window to breathe in the outside air and would soon start to feel better - showing just how allergic I was to the air in the house.

You could also consider a latex pillow to reduce what he breathes in directly at night - not just an option for asthmatics as my non-asthmatic friend has a latex pillow and actually swears by it as the comfiest pillow she's ever owned!

I hope he feels better soon - I know the feeling of being allergic to your home, a place where you should be able to relax and feel at ease, and the feeling of helplessness for the parent; neither is is a pleasant one.