Allergies
What is an allergy? How do they start?
Allergies start when our immune system makes a mistake. A mistake in identification.
It confuses naturally harmless things like tiny pollen grains and dust particles with really dangerous invaders: bacteria, viruses and fungi. In response, it pours out substances which create inflammation and symptoms like itchy eyes, sore throat, sniffling, sneezing, wheezing, skin rashes. In other words, an allergic reaction. There are many ways to cope with allergies. One of the best, experts tell us, is to prevent them. Prevent them by getting rid of the cause: allergens. When you clean up on allergens in your home, you can help to stop allergies before they start.
Dust Mites
Think about 10,000 house guests per square meter!
Invisible dust mites are the number one household cause of respiratory tract problems. Their natural habitat: dust on upholstered furniture, dust on curtains and in carpets, dust in mattresses and pillows. Their diet: fallen flakes of human and animal skin, hair and moulds. They love dampness and thrive when the temperature is 20 to 30°C. That’s why one gram of house dust often holds a thousand mites. These microscopic members of the spider family don’t bite, sting or transmit infectious diseases. But their droppings, tiny pearls of protein, can cause allergies and trigger asthma episodes.
Hay Fever, today’s big, bad allergy!
Your eyes itch, your nose runs, you sniffle and then you sneeze. You feel blah because you’re one of the millions of people around the world who suffer from hay fever. It’s all caused by microscopic grains of pollen from the flowers of grasses, bushes, weeds and trees. The wind picks up pollen grains, whirls them around and can carry them in invisible clouds for hundreds of kilometers. You breathe them in and then they irritate the mucous membrane in your bronchial tract. You start to sneeze so you go inside. But you can’t escape that easily because pollen follows you inside; it’s caught in your hair or it flies in a window. It’s also lurking in curtains, cushions and carpets.
How to cope:
Pay attention to the pollen count. Keep windows closed and stay inside. Improve indoor air quality by vacuuming regularly with a high performance vacuum with a high efficiency completely sealed filtration system. Wash your hair before retiring at night.
House Dust, don’t dust, vacuum!
There’s house dust you can’t even see: microscopic fragments of fabric, bits of soot, pollen grains. It’s fine dust and it triggers allergies. Ordinary vacuums can pick it up. But they may also let you down at the other end where exhaust air comes out. Sometimes, it can be as dirty or even dirtier than air that’s sucked in. That means fine dust is just being whirled around before settling again on furniture, carpets and curtains where it can still cause allergies.
Fight back with AllergyControlPlus
Don’t be an allergy victim. You can go after allergens and help to stop allergies before they even start with the right kind of vacuum. A high performance machine with a high efficiency filtration system. A vacuum like Miele’s AllergyControlPlus. AllergyControlPlus is engineered and equipped to assist in removing allergens right off floors, carpets and finer fabrics like mattress covers and pillow cases. Once captured, those microscopic particles can’t escape the unit’s airtight hose couplings, motor compartment or its special exhaust filter. It’s Active HEPA filter not only traps 99.985% of particles as small as 0.3 microns, that’s one third the width of a human hair, but even absorbs odours. It’s no wonder that, in many countries, hospitals and clinics specify HEPA filters. They help people who suffer from dust-related allergies and allied respiratory problems by reducing their exposure to allergens.
Clearing the air:
When it comes to clean exhaust air, some ordinary vacuums may do more harm than good. That’s why Miele designed AllergyControlPlus, a vacuum which can help you to really clean up on allergens and getting on top of allergies.