subject: Protect Yourself With A Mattress Allergy Cover [print this page] A mattress allergy cover is the ideal way to protect your family against allergic outbreaks. While this is the major purpose of these impermeable covers, they also increase the life-span of mattresses which are usually discarded because of damage caused by wear and tear.
This type of cover can significantly decrease the discomfort of seasonal allergies. One of the biggest causes of a seasonal allergy is pet dander. Along with dust, the dander accumulates in the mattress and can bring on allergy symptoms like sneezing, rhinitis, watering eyes, and breathing problems.
By placing a hypoallergenic cover on your mattress, these build-ups cannot penetrate through your bedding, therefore the cause of the symptoms are eliminated. Dust mites are also largely responsible for allergies. It may shock you to know that a two-year old mattress can be home to as many as 10 million dust mites.
While the mites themselves are not harmful, they shed skin and defecate. The fecal matter and dead skin can irritate the respiratory system and result in bad asthma attacks and bronchial problems, especially if you are already prone to allergies. Because the mattress cover cuts off the supply of dust mites' food, namely your dead skin cells, many of them die.
Another more serious reason to use a hypoallergenic cover is to avoid an infestation of bed bugs. These often occur in climates that are hot and humid. Some people think that bed bugs are only a result of dirty or unhygienic living. While this is true to a degree, they can infest the cleanest of bedding simply because of the ideal climatic conditions.
These parasites feed off human blood and are most active in the early hours of the morning. When a bed bug bites, it squirts an oily, foul-smelling liquid into your skin. This causes itching, swelling, and other skin irritations. A female can lay as many as 500 eggs in a lifetime.
The eggs take a couple of weeks to hatch, after which the hatchlings immediately start to feed of the host, i. E., you. After four or five weeks, the hatchlings reach full maturity and begin to breed. This cycle repeats over and over again. Bed bugs are very resilient and getting rid of them can be difficult.
Therefore, prevention is better than cure. As with the case of dust mites, a mattress allergy cover can drastically reduce the population of bed bugs. When buying a cover, find one that is water resistant because it will also prevent sweat and moisture from damaging the mattress.
