Clean bedcovers hold countless benefits from ensuring a good night sleep in comfort and relaxation, all the way to setting a positive image.
Regular changing of bedcovers is a simple act of personal hygiene that is important to health. Hair and bodily fluids rub off on sheets and pillowcases. When these build up, they cause unpleasant odours and also serve as a breeding ground for bedbugs, dust and mites. Invariably, making individuals suffer more extreme symptoms from respiratory problems like asthma and allergies or diseases like bronchitis.
How often are bed sheets or bedcovers supposed to be changed? Certainly, the frequency of change of bedcovers could differ from person to person depending on such factors as lifestyle and of course presence of some diseases such as hyperhidrosis, a medical condition that causes sweat in abnormal quantities.
Nonetheless, bed spread need to be changed at least once a week to ensure it does not harbour bedbugs, dust and mites, which are common triggers of asthma. In individuals with asthma, regular airing of mattresses and pillows as well as ensuring clean bed lines would help to reduce incidences of asthmatic attacks in people recognised to have such asthma triggers as bedbugs, dust and mites. House dust mites live in such things as pillows, rugs and upholstery chairs, maintaining a home-free of cockroaches as well as clean and dust-free upholstery and rugs has been shown to protect against frequent asthmatic attacks.
Environmental variables may initiate the first attack of asthma and also trigger subsequent asthmatic attacks. From studies in Nigeria, house dust mites constitute the major trigger in a large proportion of asthmatics.
Asthma is a chronic disease of the airways. It makes breathing difficult. There is inflammation of the air passages which result in a temporary narrowing of the airways leading to wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness and coughing.
How does asthma come about? Asthma can arise at any age. Why some people have the disease and others don’t is not known. But individuals with asthma tend to experience symptoms which range from attacks of breathlessness, tightness in the chest, difficulty in breathing, wheezing to coughing. Some people may have these symptoms all of the time, others may be normal between attacks.
Thousands of things may trigger an asthma attack. Stress, cold dry air, pollen, emotions, dust, animals, exercise, food and medications are just a few.
“A child’s asthmatic attacks may be precipitated by a cold, dust, smoke and other factors. There may be in addition, presence of other evidence of allergy in the child such as recurrent catarrh and skin rash.
Asthma runs in families, identical twins are more likely to both be asthmatic than non-identical twins just as half of the identical twins with an asthmatic co-twin are themselves asthmatic, indicating a non-genetic component as well.
Sadly, too many people still die from asthma. “There are an estimated 250,000 annual worldwide deaths from asthma. However, most of these deaths, which occur in people above 45 years of age, are largely preventable given that total control of asthma is possible.
Total control of asthma is achieved when there are no more daytime asthma symptoms attacks, no emergency visits or hospitalisation, no limitation of daily-life activities, including exercises and least side effects possible from asthma medication.
“If a patient’s asthma is controlled, such a person should not experience asthma symptoms or exacerbations. Exacerbations of asthma are episodes of progressive increase in shortness of breath, cough, wheezing or chest tightness. Severe exacerbations are potentially life-threatening. Poor asthma control in many individuals ranges from low use of asthma medication, non-adherence to guidelines by asthma patients and limited access to to non-affordability of essential asthma drugs.
With good control of asthma, people living with asthma need not live in fear of the symptoms of the disease given the fact that improved asthma care was achievable with inhaled steroids.
But it is not all good news with asthma. Limited access and high cost of essential asthma medicines as well as underuse of inhaled corticosteroids were some challenges in ensuring asthma control in many individuals.
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