Questions we hear most often

Allergies happen when the body's immune system malfunctions. There is currently no outright cure, but removing and avoiding your triggers while keeping healthy lets you live a completely normal life.

No — allergies are not an infectious disease. They do run in families, though, because they are hereditary.

Hay fever usually brings only itching, sneezing, and a clear runny nose. Influenza brings high fever, body aches, sneezing with a stinging nose, a sore throat, coughing, and symptoms that last all day. Watch out for complications — see a doctor immediately if you have the flu.

Both. Dust mites excrete droppings that become airborne dust in bedrooms and stuffy corners, and household dust itself contains plenty of contaminants. Breathing in a lot of it can trigger allergies either way.

Eye allergy is common — it affects the eyelids, conjunctiva, and cornea, and usually comes together with nasal allergy, skin allergy, and asthma. It itches intensely and the conjunctiva swells and reddens, but not as intensely red as viral pink eye.

Yes, it can be. Even after pest-control services or changing your sheets, dust mites cannot be 100% eliminated.

Rubbing your nose often does not cause nasal polyps. But chronic allergy can lead to chronic allergic rhinitis and chronic sinusitis, which in turn can result in nasal polyps.

Yes. Patients with chronic sinus problems should also be checked for nasal allergy, because it swells the nasal lining and blocks the sinus openings, leading to sinusitis. That said, sinusitis has other causes too.

You can get allergy testing at major hospitals. There are two methods: the skin prick test, and a blood test for the specific antibodies that cause your allergy (Specific IgE).

The skin prick test is the standard used worldwide to diagnose conditions like hay fever and asthma, and it leads to precise treatment. The pricks are very shallow, use just one drop of solution each, and are neither dangerous nor painful. The alternative is a blood test — but results take longer, it costs more, and it may not cover everything; some people end up needing the prick test afterwards anyway.

The nose and sinuses sit close together and share the same continuous lining, connected through the sinus openings into the nasal cavity. Allergy can spread into the sinuses, especially in long-term sufferers. Checking the sinuses means anything found can be treated alongside.

People with allergies or asthma should not smoke or stay around cigarette smoke. Get enough rest, avoid alcohol, and exercise — with good health, the asthma should not return.

Pros: it can retrain the immune system to work normally again, protecting against respiratory allergies and asthma, strengthening immunity, preventing new allergies — and potentially curing the condition.

Cons: the injections must continue over a long period — initially maybe 1–2 shots a week with gradually increasing doses for 3–6 months — and must be given at a well-equipped facility, because severe whole-body allergic reactions can occur.

Yes — there are now under-the-tongue (sublingual) vaccine drops, which work just as well but require higher doses, making them considerably more expensive.

The dust-mite vaccine is made from an extract of dust mites, adapted for human use. It gradually trains the body to build immunity and can control the disease for a long time — but diagnosis and treatment should stay under a doctor's judgment.

That type of spray works by constricting blood vessels, shrinking the swollen nasal lining. When it wears off the swelling returns, and with continued use congestion can worsen until you can't stop using the spray. Don't use it for more than 5 consecutive days.

Allergy sufferers tend to accumulate more allergies over time. Starting with dust mites at a young age, each new allergen exposure stirs things up further. Avoid indoor allergens such as pet dander, avoid outdoor allergens such as pollen, weeds, and mold — and consider treatment with immunotherapy.

Lay the person half-sitting in a well-ventilated spot, keep them from exerting themselves, keep them warm, give small sips of warm water, and reassure them. If they have an inhaler, use it right away — then get them to a hospital.

Different. Dust mites are too small to see; bed bugs feed on blood and have piercing-sucking mouthparts. Dust mites don't bite — their mouths are for eating proteins such as dander, bacteria, and the like.

Dust mites cannot bite or sting people. Their droppings cause coughing, sneezing, and asthma — so the itching most likely has another cause.

The mattress has to be vacuumed with a specially designed dust trap and the sample analyzed in a lab. The dust is bagged, stored at −20°C, and sent to the Dust Mite Service and Research Center at Siriraj Hospital.

Cold countries have dust-mite problems too — just a different species from the ones in tropical countries like ours.

Yes, through ordinary weaves. Regular cotton bed sheets have pores around 500 micrometers — dust mites pass through easily. That's why tightly woven fabrics were developed, with pores of roughly 6–10 micrometers, too fine for mites or their droppings to get through.

A dust mite's home is "the mattress, pillows, and stuffed toys" — the right climate and darkness, plentiful food, and complex fibers to hide in, letting populations boom. Kitchens tend to harbor other kinds of allergens instead.

Maybe, maybe not. Dust mites live where there are fibers, but they dislike sunlight — and even crawling on you they're harmless, since they don't bite. It's mostly their droppings people are allergic to.

It reduces both dust and dust mites — but never eliminates them 100%.