Allergies in Seniors and Mattress Cover Correlation

Beds, especially mattresses, can be very expensive. With a bedroom set costing in excess of $800, you'll want to make sure that nothing happens to your mattress that might force you to replace it. To increase the life of your mattress, you should use a cover on the mattress. Many of us think that since the mattress is covered in sheets all the time they remain clean, but there are many unwanted contaminants that can end up inside your mattress.

One of the most obvious reasons to have a mattress cover is that mattresses are absorbent and will tend to retain traces of any fluids they come in contact with, including urine, blood, semen, and sweat, as well as spilled coffee and water from your leaky roof. These contaminants will drastically reduce the willingness of another person to buy or even accept for free your old mattress. Using a plasticized mattress cover will repel most of these fluids and keep your mattress from smelling if anything is spilled onto it.

If you have allergies, a plasticized mattress cover is a good idea because dust mites, the tiny insects that feed on your shed skin cells, can live in your mattresses and pillows and cause your allergic reactions to flare up. Encasing your mattress makes it impossible for these insects to get inside your mattress and will suffocate any that are currently living inside it, eliminating your dust mite problem. Covers can also prevent other insects, such as bed bugs, from taking up residence inside your mattress or from migrating out of a contaminated mattress and into the walls of your home. Bed bugs have become an issue again in recent years as more and more insecticides (most notably DDT) are banned or shunned and are expected to become more of a problem in years to come.