I have been served as a four-course banquet feast for at least 100 hungry chiggers. They feasted and dined while dancing jigs all over my body. I have so many bites on my belly they are impossible to count, plus my arms, neck, back and behind my knees. I have been itching and scratching and have yet to see one of those nasty critters so that I can take due revenge. I have been suffering several days from them and it seems like new welts are still appearing in spite of repeated hot, soapy showers, lotions and even rubbing myself with hand sanitizer, hoping it would kill them. Last night I was miserable and kept waking up to scratch.
(Magnified Chigger)
“Chiggers are extremely tiny, and it is very unlikely you will “see” one unless you are looking for them. You will need a hand lens or microscope to see them well. Their presence is best known, instead, by the intensely itchy welts they leave behind, usually where your skin is thin and tender (ankles, backs of knees, about the crotch, under the beltline, and in the armpits) and where tight clothing proves an obstacle to them (as where a belt or elastic band limits their wanderings). (Mosquito bites, by contrast, are usually in exposed places where those flying insects can easily land.) Chigger bites sometimes have a tiny red dot at the center, which is the remains of a scablike tube your body formed in response to the chigger’s irritating saliva.
Larval chiggers are red and have 6 legs. They are 1/150 of an inch. A cluster of them can sometimes be seen on your skin because of their reddish color. After a blood meal, chiggers look yellowish. Adult chiggers have 8 legs and are 1/60th of an inch and look like several other types of mites”. (http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/chiggers)
I don’t know where I go into them. Over the weekend I sprayed weeds with Eraser and there were some thistles I wanted to get in one of the pastures. I didn’t want to open the gate so I laid on the ground and rolled under the electric fence. I was only on the ground a few seconds. I must have chosen a nest to roll over and they must have screamed “lunch”!
Today I washed my sheets just in case they are regrouping there waiting for me to come back to bed so they can have another banquet, however, Gene hasn’t gotten any bites.
So for now, I have been dined on and I know exactly where each bite is missing! Itch, itch!
Linda Burkholder Said:
on August 15, 2013 at 9:30 am
SO sorry to hear of your demise, Pat. Dwight has had those horrible things several times. Someone said to paint them with clear fingernail polish. We did. It doesn’t kill them immediately but maybe sooner than if you do nothing–not sure. They are just plain down miserable! Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 01:27:49 +0000 To: dlsburk@hotmail.com
Dee Said:
on August 15, 2013 at 10:08 am
Pat, those invisible boogers find me at least once a year. I truly empathize with you. ChiggerRid will help stop the itching. It is over the counter, but you have to ask for it at the pharmacy.