A little background:
Back in December I was bitten by a spider on the edge of my hand, just below the last knuckle, and the bite became seriously infected. After a gush of gunk worthy of the pimple TMI thread in MPSIMS and a course of strong antibiotics, the infection finally cleared up. I now have a 1/4-inch scar where the bite was, and a patch of discolored skin the size of a quarter around it.
Now, I have always had a few fine hairs on the back of my hand that were not noticeable unless you looked closely. However, within that patch of discolored skin I now have a bumper crop of little hairs that, while still fine, are more noticeable owing to their abundance and slightly darker color than the other hairs on my hand. I would have thought that injury or trauma to skin cells would have damaged the hair follicles in the vicinity, but in this case they seem to have been stimulated.
Is this common? What actually causes it?