Are house dust mites involved?

What are house dust mites?
House dust mites are very small insects that are invisible to the
naked eye. They are found in all of our homes, and they particularlylike living in soft furnishings such as sofas, mattresses, carpets and
duvets, where they are found in large numbers. Modern standards
of living, with central heating, seem to encourage their growth, and
in practice they are difficult to eradicate completely.
House dust mites do seem to be important in making asthma
worse. Although their role in atopic eczema is less well established,
they are worth taking seriously in some cases.
How do I know if my son is allergic to house dust mites?
It is easy to find evidence of allergy to house dust mites by
subjecting your son to skin-prick testing, but the result may not be
very useful. Many people with eczema have a positive reaction to
house dust mites – and to many other allergens that do not seem
to make their eczema worse. Many children without eczema also
have positive reactions to house dust mites. If you suspect that
house dust mites may be important in your son’s eczema, it may
be best to try some avoidance measures (see Chapter 4) rather
than having the test done. The test itself involves putting on to the
skin drops of liquid that either contains mite extract in saline (salt
water) or is just saline on its own. The skin is then pricked with a
needle through each drop, and the skin’s reaction is tested. A strong
reaction to mite extract compared with saline indicates a positive
result.
I had a blood test at the hospital and have been told I am
allergic to house dust mites. Is this a good test?
This is probably a RAST test, which detects antibodies in your
blood that react to different things. The test is good at detecting
an allergy, but the link between having the allergy and actually
getting problems on your skin is sometimes less clear. It is certainly
worth you trying all the avoidance measures (see Chapter 4). A
RAST test is not able to detect general allergies as it is quite specific,
so each test needs to focus on one possible cause or related groups
of substances, for example dairy products, nuts or cats.People keep telling me that the eczema on my hands is
just a sign of stress. Is this true?
Stress is mentioned as a cause or trigger of many different diseases,
not just ones that affect the skin. It is easy to generalise but difficult
to be sure in any individual case. The best test may be to keep a
diary of when your hands flare up and see whether this is related
to times when you feel under stress. Some interesting work has
been done looking at people’s reaction to stress as a risk factor for
developing eczema on the hands. It does seem that if you are
someone who is more affected by stress and doesn’t deal with it
well, you do have a greater chance of developing hand eczema.
This is interesting as it relates to some of the ideas in homeopathy,
acupuncture and other complementary medical philosophies that
take account of the type of person you are when choosing a
treatment. To generalise a bit, the younger you are when you
develop hand eczema and if patch tests are negative for allergy,
the more likely you are to be affected by stress.