Do you wake up sometimes with allergy symptoms, such as itching, sneezing or coughing? Then your mattress could be to blame. However, the mattress itself isn't triggering your allergic rhinitis. It's what's in and on your mattress that's causing your allergic reactions. And the older your mattress is, the worse the problem is likely to be.
If your mattress is at least a few years old, and you keep waking up with allergy symptoms, you could be suffering from an allergic reaction to the matter and mites in your mattress.
Old Mattresses Contain Dead Skin Cells
Did you know that the average person sheds eight pounds of dead skin every year? As gross as that sounds, it gets worse when you factor in the effect this shedding has on your mattress over the years. For instance, experts have found that if your mattress is over 10 years old, then it probably harbours over 10 pounds of dead skin cells! And if that is the case, then those cells aren't alone.
Dust mites' favourite food is dead skin cells, which is the reason you can find dust mites in human bedrooms across the world. You spend much of your life in bed, and so do the dust mites that share that bed with you.
Dust Mites Cause Allergic Reactions
According to The Sleep Council, an old mattress can contain up to 10 million dust mites. Dust mites live and breed in and on mattresses, feeding on the dead skin cells humans shed. And humans don't just provide dust mites with food, they also provide them with humidity and moisture too, which creates the ideal conditions for dust mites to thrive.
So, if your mattress is at least a few years old and is leaving you sneezing, coughing, itching and wheezing each morning and night, it might be time to get a new one. The proteins in dust mite faeces trigger allergic symptoms, as does the build-up of their decaying bodies on and in your mattress.
Although you can purchase special covers to place on your mattress to limit your exposure to them, that doesn't get rid of the dead skin cell issue, or the millions of dust mites, dead and living, inside your mattress.
How old is your mattress? Is it making you sick? Then you should consider purchasing a new one. That way, you can start afresh and actively prevent your mattress from becoming a dust mite haven by investing in mattress covers and changing your sheets and pillow covers regularly.
To learn more, contact your local mattress shop today.
