House Dust Mites

And the blood test results are...

.....Molly has an off-the-scale reaction to house dust mites. There are no known food allergies (although she hasn't been tested for every food in the world, so you never know), just simple house dust mites.

(except of course, it's not really that simple).

On a RAST blood test, the results are scored from 0 to 6 on an allergy scale, with 0 being negative (ie no

allergy), 1 being a bit inconclusive, 2 being a positive result (ie an allergy) and then 3 to 6 being "strongly positive".

Molly's results look like this:

CODFISH                                      0.01
COWS MILK                                0
EGG WHITE                                  0
HOUSE DUST MITE                  >100
SOY BEAN                                    0.46
WHEAT                                          0.54

So, that's a fairly extreme reaction to the damn little critters!

We are firstly, extremely relieved that it's not more serious, but we are also feeling quite dazed and confused by all the advice and recommendations on exactly what we have to do and how successful it's going to be. We're hoping that a house dust mite allergy might be easier to manage than a food allergy - although it's going to be impossible to completely avoid exposing her to dust mites. We can be responsible for limiting them at home, but she'll inevitably be exposed in other places.

The results mean that many things are now explained: for example, why she always comes out of the library with big red rings around her eyes (those dusty books and cushions), and why she always becomes unwell when we stay at baches for the weekend.

My bed time reading has now become all about dust mites. Riveting stuff, ha ha! But here are a few interesting facts, for anyone out there who is interested in this kind of stuff:

1. House dust mites are extremely common in most New Zealand households. Most of us live with them with no symptoms, but in some people they cause eczema, asthma and rhinitis (basically a permanent year round cold). Unfortunately Molly is one of these people.

2. House dust mites love high humidity levels - which is probably one of the reasons we have so many of them in NZ! With this week's forecast for Wellington being 80%+ humidity all week, we certainly have a challenge on our hands. Expert recommendations are to keep your household humidity level below 55%. Easier said than done, especially in a rented house where we can't install a ventilation system or decent heating equipment. Yet another reason for finding our own home soon! In the meantime, we'll need to invest in a dehumidifier and keep all our windows open.

This is fascinating. It completely explains why Molly had eczema in Auckland as a baby, which disappeared when we went overseas. She had no trace of allergies when we lived in the desert (Central Australia) with zero humidity, and it all came back again when we returned to NZ.

3. Some of their favourite places to live are in carpets, soft furnishings, soft toys and bedding - hence the recommendation to replace carpets with wood or tiled flooring. We can't do much about the carpets in our rental property, but we can do something about the bedding.

I'm concerned that we may have a bit of a mission on our hands when we tackle the soft toys, many of whom have been an important part of our family for years now. Many of you will have come to know and love characters like Bobby, Rabbit and Penguin over the years, but goodness knows what's living inside these dear creatures...

Anyway, it's a relief to finally know what it is that's triggering our little girl into developing such angry reactions which affect her quality of life so much. Now we start a big journey into trying to resolve things as much as we can for her.

PS Big apologies for the yucky images of dust mites on this post!