So there I was, clearing underbrush and trimming bushes
about a week ago, just minding my own business in my
own yard. It felt good to see so much deadwood removed,
even if it was a tough job.
A couple of days later, I'm trying to go to sleep but I can't
because my legs feel itchy and tingly. I get up to take a look
at around 2 AM, and guess what I see - little itchy blisters
all around my ankles and all the way up to my knees -
chigger bites !!!
I turn up the hot water heater as high as it will go and proceed
to strip the bed all the way down to the mattress. I spray the
whole mattress down with amonia, wash everything twice in
scalding hot water and bleach, go soak in the tub with sea salt
and Epsom salts, wipe my legs down with rubbing alcohol, slather
on cortisone cream, take a Benedryl and get to bed long after
the sun is up and I've thrown out seed for the birds.
I've been sleeping the better part of 2 whole days and the Benadryl
is helping a lot, but here's my question:
WHAT do you do in Texas for chigger bites? I've never had to
deal with this type of thing before. Is there a Sure Cure?
CHIGGERS !!!!!!!!!!!
Hi there,sounds like you are having a heck of a time of it. I dont ever recall chiggers this time of year and I grew up in your area. Are you sure that is what they are? I tossed my shorts out of the boat once in the grass and later put the shorts back on. NOT GOOD! We counted over 300 bites and my Doctor gave me a shot. It was bad let me tell ya. I would call a Pharmacy and talk with them. They have alot of over the counter meds that may help. The only cure is to stay out of tall grass! I have been in tall grass out here for years now and have never gotten chiggers. Not sure why because when I was a kid they loved me. Could they be flea bites? It sounds like you have brought out the army in your house to get rid of whatever has brought this on. Maybe you got into something that you were alergic to. I do feel for you and hope it ends soon. Wish I could be of more help.
Thanks, but I'm sure it's chiggers. Don't have it anywhere
else and the only thing I'm allergic to is my bills. I break out
in a horrible sweat whenever I get near them.
My daughter and SIL took a look and they agree. Don't forget
that we had a pretty good warm spell for a while and everything
is goofy and upside down this year. It's getting better already
but I want to know if there's something that works for sure and
works really fast. It's just from my ankles to my knees, so it
showed up above the top of my socks and went to a bit above
where my cropped pants stopped. From now on, it's long sleeves
and long pants and high top boots out there !!!
Yep those creatures like those spots for sure. Might try something called chigger rid at the drug store. I seem to remember vinegar was good also.
Now about those bills...Taxes...They really make me itch also! Got a Sure Fire cure for those?
Taking Benedryl internally and Benedryl cream on the chiggers themselves is the best as far as I know. It has a histamine blocker that helps.
Friends that work in the outdoors take showers/bathes in flea shampoo when coming indoors. I coat chigger bites with fingernail polish. Leaving it on until the oils from the skin let it come off. The polish coats the itchy surface preventing it from being irritated. I always thought it also smothered the chigger but have been told the chigger is already dead when the itching begins. Small satisfaction there.
I have a safe remedy for chiggers or red bugs as we called them. Immediately after working outside, take a bath, not shower, and add about 1/2 cup of Pine Sol or Pine O' Pine to the water. Your skin will not smell of the Pine after the bath, but it kills the chiggers and you won't have one bite. An old country doctor told me this remedy when I was a kid. I was so allergic to the bites, I would swell and look like a giant strawberry. I didn't believe him, but it works and I've used it for over 30 years.
Chiggers don't usually wait two days to make you miserable! They let you know they're there the first evening. Are you sure you don't have poison ivy blisters? Chiggers make welts, but I 've not seen blisters....and I get them every summer from some unknown spot in my yard. I've also gotten into poison ivy a few times....and the blisters can show up a couple of days later.
Anyway, so sorry for your discomfort. I don't think I've ever heard of such a thorough cleaning of bedding in the middle of the night! I need a nap after just reading it! Hope you're better soon....
You're right, I've never heard of chiggers waiting two days or making blisters. Anyway, I'm sure the medication will help, no matter what it is.
...and why did you strip the bed? Can chiggers live in your bed? I thought they actually burrowed in your skin? If something bit you in bed and made blisters it sounds like something else. Thank God I don't have chiggers here and they don't really care for me anyways!
Thanks for the tips, ladies. I'll have to buy a BIG bottle of
PineSol and I had no idea that Benadryl came in a cream
form. Gonna go to the store later on and get both - just as soon
as this Benadryl wears off some more.
I'm a former Girl Scout leader, so I know what poison ivy and
poison oak look like and there is only one tiny corner by the
fence here where there is poison ivy, which I'm battling with
Round-Up, but I wasn't anywhere near that spot.
The reason I stripped the whole bed down and sprayed and
washed with amonia is because I was PO'd and I was in my
Killer Mode, LOL. Anyways, my SIL is chlorinating his pool
today so I'm gonna go over and dangle my legs in the pool for
a while. It's too cold to go in yet, but I'll just grit my teeth and
think Die, Chiggers, Die !!! Hey, I'm a Texan now and I can
do it !!!
Chiggers are long since dead and gone by the time you see their welts (which usually show up within a few hours), so I'm curious as to what left such agony on your legs. Be that as it may, what works for me is long hot soaks in Espom salts. And to never ever ever ever never go into tall grass without first spraying my shoes, socks, and pants with Off or something like it. As if Fire Ants aren't bad enough, we also have to watch for Chiggers! Yuck!
Carla
I have had chiggers a lot in my childhood-it was my job to get firewood kindling, and where i"m from, the kindling place was full of chiggers. I'd get them everytime I went out. I always did the nail polish thing, but I've heard there's some OTC stuff that works as well and doesn't irritate-the nailpolish did after awhile.
crowelli- I want to keep this thread bumped, cause if some pine-sol in the tub is all it takes, it's a heck of a lot easier than walking around with nail polish on you for a week! If I get chiggers again, I'm trying that!
I put Campho-Pheniqu (don't trust the spelling) in the bath water. It will kill them or the itch they leave too. Can't stand the critters either. I have done the nail polish too. The kids loved to put red spots on their dad's legs when they were little.
I worked inside my greenhouses about 2 weeks ago and came indoors covered in itchy welts. I took 2 Benedryl tablets which usually knocks me out, took a cool shower using plenty of mild soap and applied some Benedryl cream. Since I have a lot of allergies, I assumed that I had encountered an allergen. I forgot about chiggers.
My GP has advised taking a cool soapy shower rather than a warm or hot one as heat often activates oils if poison ivy or oak, toxins injected by insects or our body's reaction to such bites.
Mahnot, I hope you don't suffer like that again, but if it happens and get PO'd again, take it out on something else with something less potent than ammonia. I hate to think what ammonia did to your lungs. When I started student teaching, my mentor who was deadly afraid of mercury poisoning (He'd processed his own photos for years so had been exposed to unknown quantities of mercury) cleaned up the floor after a student dropped and broke a mercury thermometer. The fumes of the cleaner he used put him in the hospital for a few days.
crowellli, PineSol seems like such a drastic cure and a potential irritant. Besides, the smell is awful.
I get chiggers once in awhile,for some reason they are never in our yard though. But I use something called ChiggerRid. You may have to go to a pharmacy to get it, but it is over the counter. It's mostly fingernail polish, but it also has something in it to kill the itch. Works very well.
Well, I didn't get to the store today because the guy who's
gonna help me clean out the horrible mess in my flower beds
showed up, thank goodness - I had just about given up hope.
Anyway, I got dirty and tired and didn't want to shower and
get dressed to run out and then come back and put on my
old rags again, so here's what I did:
I put one tablespoon of water in a small bowl, crushed 6 Benadryl
pills, made a paste and spread it all over my legs from the ankles
to the knees. NO itches - not one - not since 2 PM this afternoon.
Will let you know how it works overnight and how things look
tomorrow. Thanks everybody for the great tips - I'm printing
this whole thread and I'm gonna save it for the future. Sure hope
I never need it again.
Why are you up at 3 am? I hope it's not chiggers keeping you up.
ugh..chiggers....awful little beasties! :p
Bleach! I grew up in northwest arkansas and was constantly besieged by thease nasty little critters.A fairly strong bleach solution if you are not allergic or somthing like that will snuff em out immediately. It is best to use it before you have scrached the spots into sores I have both knealt in a tub with bleach water and rubbed it on my legs with a rag. I used this method almost exclusively after several years of trial and error compho phonique,nail polish,etc etc etc was mildly effective for small infestations but bleach always worked.
Ted, I believe in bleach too, but I never thought to
rub it on myself. The itching has stopped; however, my legs
look like some map drawn up by a kid in kindergarten who had
access to LOTS of red crayons ! I'm gonna buy up all the Clorox
in the Kroger today, LOL.
Molon Labe !!! :o)
Silverfluter, sorry - I forgot to answer you.
No, I'm not itching anymore but I am a true night owl.
It's the best time of day to collect your thoughts, go out and
look at the stars with the dogs, read my bible, answer mail,
and get work done in general. No phone, no doorbell ringing,
just peace and quiet.
Of course, there are times when you wish you could go to sleep,
like last summer when my dog got a new hip and I had to take her
outside about every two hours to whiz. You should have seen me -
in the moonlight with a flashlight and the dog dragging me to "just
the right spot." It'll be a repeat performance this year - the poor
thing has to have the other hip done too. This "free" dog from the
shelter has totally busted my bank. She was just 3 months old when
I got her and the hip dyspasia didn't show up until she was almost
a year old. Oh, well. It's too late now. After all, who can resist a
pair of brown eyes that look at you like you're the most special
thing that God ever made - not me, I can't - so we're broke and
happy, LOL.
I know I posted this little verse somewhere else here before,
but if you love dogs you know it's true:
"There are times when only a dog will do
For a friend...Beaten sick and blue,
And the world's all wrong, for he won't care
If you break and cry, or grouch and swear,
For he'll let you know as he licks your hands
That he's downright sorry...and understands."
by Don Blandings
Greta Louise is a Shepherd/Rottie mix.
Angus Murphy, my Australian Shepherd is just fine.
Oh, Ok. I know some people are night owls. I used to be. In the summer time when I was in high school I used to stay up and read. There's something about being the only up in the house. Sometimes I would read til dawn.
I think it's great that you adopted a shelter dog and I know what you mean about their eyes and the way they look at you. I had a dog when I was a kid. We have cats now, or rather they have us. They look at us usually very judgementally, but they are very affectionate and demanding. No independent cats here. Their names are Misty, Barefoot and Tess.
In some rare cases, chiggers can start reproducing inside the house, so better safe than sorry. Wash all clothing you were wearing in a separate load in water as hot as their labels allows. And if you went to bed before bathing, wash everything you take off the bed as well. A mattress can be sprayed with a mild insecticide if necessary. You have my sympathies. I have a little poison ivy rash right now, so I'm itching also. Yes, between the poison ivy, the chiggers, the skeeters and other various and sundry pests outside, the itching season is beginning! Oh, yes, and how could I forget...FIREANTS!
This message was edited Apr 21, 2007 1:17 PM
ok, i have read all these posts about chiggers and did not know anything about them till i saw a CSI episode about where "Nick" got bit by them and now i know what they are and have had been bitten by them while cutting grass and doing yard work. My question is sorta weird i guess but how is it safe to take a bath is Pine Sol...would that not be dangerous if it got into "certain" place.....I mean i dunno maybe if it is watered down it's not all that dangerous but it seems that is something is meant to clean dirt and grime and such it can't be good for those "certain" places.
LOL as i re-read this....heheheheheh
char
Yes, I would worry about that too. It isa good idea to wash the clothes asap though.
I've used the Pine Sol for years without any problem. You only put about 1/2 cup in a whole tub of water, so it's not very strong. I have really sensitive skin, and it's never bothered me.
Oh, I almost forgot: About 3 years ago I heard that if you are taking Vitamin B, the chiggers and ticks won't bother you. I forgot about that, but was taking it after that for energy and, well, simply my health and realized by the end of the summer that I had not been having any problems with chiggers and ticks. In fact, I tested it by walking out into the weeds a couple of times and didn't have any problems with that either.
Now I don't know if it has anything to do with body chemistry in combination with the vitamin B or if it works for everyone. I seriously doubt it works for everyone, but hey, it's worth a try, right? I've just started back up on it for that very reason.
Oh, and a cap full of bleach in your bathwater will kill the chiggers that have not bitten yet. And yes, stripping the sheets is a good idea if you found the chiggers the next morning. They may still be there and looking for a place for their eggs......i.e..you're legs.
My mom tells about getting chiggers from a cat in the middle of winter one time. Took her awhile to figure out where they were coming from. I think it was a new stray she took in.
My father always kept a cup of sulfur by the back door with a shaving brush in it. He would brush it around his ankles each time he went outside to keep the chiggers off. I've used it also and it seems to work....when I remember to use it. In another thread someone mentioned that a thick film of vasoline around your ankles will keep the critters from crawling up your legs. When we were kids, my brother would come back from the creek and take a roll of adhesive tape and pull the chiggers off. He enjoyed keeping track of the number and I remember that he pulled off nearly a hundred one day. Another thing, Mahnot, when I get chiggers some almost always make to my waist band or some other constricting spot. I find it interesting that yours were only on exposed skin. I sympathize with your itching. In addition to being a tasty bite for chiggers, I'm one of the 10% of people who are mosquito attractors. There have been times in my life that I've gotten 50-100 mosquito bites and the people I've been with have gotten none.
Linda
When I was a youngster, we'd go hiking in the Everglades. Putting sulfur around pant legs and wrists was mandatory or you'd get eaten up by chiggers and have more ticks than any dog ever had.
Powdered sulfur dusted around the ankles is good advice..sugarfoot! I learned this trick years ago while a boy scout.....we used it before going into the woods/brush and it works...I put it on the outside of my jeans/pants cuffs as well. Campho-Phenique dabbed on the welts for relief and help prevent infection from scratching at night in your sleep.
If you did actually have blisters.....I don't think chiggers caused that.....more likely poison ivy.
Ha, ha, ha - got poison ivy too ! Oh, yeah - I don't do things
half way, ya know. The chiggers are dead now, and so is
the poison ivy, believe you me. I've sprayed it twice now
and see nothing but dead wilted leaved - but I'm not taking
any chances and I'm gonna spray it one more time next week,
after all this rain has dried up. I don't care if it costs me an
arm and a leg - it ain't gonna make it !
I was pruning the shrubs and was busy looking up so that
I could reach the overhanging branches and didn't notice
the poison ivy coming through the fence from the neighbor's
yard. At any rate, like I said before, I stripped everything
down the night I first started itching and turned up the hot
water heater to the Boiling Hot - Kill 'Em Dead setting for
a half hour before I threw everything in the wash and it did the
job. The itching is almost gone - down to about a 10% of
what it had been, and the redness is fading to a Hot Pink.
Think I'll look on eBay for a Hazmat suit, LOL.
Sulphur to brush on - at the garden center? Doesn't it make
you smell like rotten eggs?
I take a vitamin B complex all the time, along with other things,
and never ever get bitten by mosquitos. I also rub a little
rosemary leaf on myself, or run a dry bar of eucalyptus soap
on myself and my clothes when I'm working outside, but this time
I wasn't thinking about bugs. I was just PO'd at how much work
there was to do out there and left my brains in the closet.
Thanks for all the great tips. I think I need a nanny.
OOOO believe me ,...my heart goes out to you....I'm very allergic to Poison Ivy....when it's hot (summertime)....all I have to do is get NEAR it...and I'll be affected....due to the plant's transpiration (I think that's the term)...the compound that causes us to break out is atomized while the plant is "breathing"......BEWARE of burning poison ivy and getting in the smoke....TERRIBLE results!!! (maybe someone has already cautioned you about this...but steer clear of that smoke....trust me!)
Oddly enough,....I've discovered that when I do have an "area" of blisters (usually several to many areas)...I can get a night of relief from the itching,...IF I'm able to "scald" the area(s) in the hottest water I can stand streaming from the shower or faucet....believe it or not,....it is almost ecstasy....as though it's being "scratched"......I quit when the "sensation" ceases. Pat dry and let yourself cool off....it usually doesn't itch for numerous hours. I don't break the blisters....but rather coat each area (after it cools down) with a thin coat of Aloe Vera gel and let that dry....amazingly,...the Aloe gel causes the blisters to dry up a heck of a lot quicker...usually about 3 treatments as described...and the stuff starts to disappear.....keep this in mind for the next time....oh yeah,....don't think you can't get it during winter.....if you dig barehanded in an area where PI roots are underground (and who can tell which roots are which?)....you'll get it.
It's happened to me too many times ...while transplanting a desired tree from a wooded area...usually unaware that there are PI roots there. Good luck! Lee
Thanks, Lee, for the tips.
I remember that my mother used to use an old European
method for any area that blistered or was swollen.
It was used for ages by poor folk who couldn't afford medical
attention.
She would grate several potatos, take some cheesecloth
or any other cotton rags, and soak the rag in the potato water,
adding some of the potato to the "bandage" as a poultice.
This would be wrapped around the affected area, and would
be changed frequently. The idea was to "draw" the heat out
of the problem site. I remember that it worked too. Even
stopped the itch of chicken pox when we had it as kids.
Also worked for swollen ankles, etc. The things you remember.
Wish I would have remembered it sooner - it might have worked
for poison ivy too.