At least I think it’s an insect bite. I got 5 of them last month. Just appeared on me one morning, out of nowhere. I hadn’t been in any buggy areas outdoors in recent days, so I think something bit me while I was sleeping. They took about 3 weeks to finally dissapear. They itched right up till then. Also, they seem to appear on the same side of my body (probably the side I wasn’t lying on in bed). I’ll describe them:
-Very itchy, like a mosquito bite (but I know it’s not from a mosquito)
-Bright red and raised area around small red dot (assumed point of entry) in centre of welt
-Scratching causes a small amount of clear fluid (venom? sebum?) to leak from centre of welt (sorry if this is TMI)
-Takes weeks to dissappear
The first ones I had were three in a row on the left side of my tummy, and two on the left side of my back. They are now long gone, but as of yesterday I have 4 new ones. Two big ones on my right thigh, and small ones on my right ankle and right wrist.
I know it’s not hives or an allergic reaction. I’ve had allergies for many years and I know both of those well. This is definitely some kind of bite. Because they appeared overnight I’m pretty sure I got them sleeping, and not outdoors. Bedbugs crossed my mind, but we’ve had the same mattress for a long time, with no problems till last month. And it hasn’t gone anywhere in that time.
I discovered a teensy, tan spider sometime before the first bites happened. Also, yesterday I saw the same type of spider again (she was carrying her egg sac in her mouth, I felt tenderness towards her motherliness and let her outside). Could this be the culprit? Anyone else suffered this sort of thing?
Good try. I looked it up and found pics right away. That’s not it, though. My bites look quite a bit different. They are more flat, and look more like a big pimple that is deep under the skin. That is, just red and swollen-looking. No sort of head to it. The fluid cannot be seen under the skin. It’s only visible when it leaks from the centre of the welt.
Well, that could be me and tick bites. I have a terrible reaction to them, but not as much to other kinds of bites. Mosquito bites, chigger bites, etc. are not quite as bad, and for not quite as long. (Every tick bite I’ve had has lasted at least 3 months. Yes, three months of itching, burning, fluid leaking hell. Pity me.)
So I’m basically saying, it may be hard to identify the biter just from how you’re reacting to the bite. How do you know for sure it isn’t mosquitoes? Those are some sneaky little bastards. I’ve had several recently that got in when I opened the door after dark, and bit me in my sleep.
The area I live in doesn’t have many mosquitos at all. That, and these bites look and feel very different from mosquito bites. I swell up a LOT over a large area with skeeter bites, and the swelling is white. This reaction is pretty localized, and is a bright red.
Since we don’t have the bug, we can’t be sure, but. . .
Tucker-babe was bitten by a tick recently, and she had a similar series of welts. I think the reason that there were several was the tick kept changing spots for one reason or another. Some people are more sensitive to tick secretions than others.
Could be Lawn Gnomes. Those little bastards wake up at night and suck the blood of their vicitims while they sleep. Usually you can see little muddy footprints around the afected person the following moring.
Different people can react very differently to the bite of the same insect, so comparing your particular bite to pictures of other people’s bites might not be very fruitful.
I, too, suffer from mystery bites. Big pink blotch, a very small granular region at the center, weeps slightly when pressure is applied, ITCHES LIKE A SONOVABITCH. I’ve been getting them for years and never identified the culprit, but I have figured out what to do about them: hydrocortizone ointment as needed (6 times a day, roughly) and do not scractch unless I want another huge scar like the one next to my knee. :mad:
Are chiggers and fleas the same thing? I have a cat and at one point in time, he got fleas, and then i found out that fleas like people too… do you have a dog or a cat?
Nope. You usually get chiggers through contact with infested vegetation. When we were kids, it was simply accepted that the price of sitting on the grass or rolling around on the lawn was chigger bites.
My bet is fleas. We don’t have pets, but the neighbors do and there are also a lot of wandering cats around here. We occasionally bring in a few fleas on our shoes and socks and their bites sound like what you are describing.
I went crazy trying to figure out what was going on the first couple of times. I was afraid we had bedbugs! But then I spent some time at the home of friends who have a dog that liked to sleep under the bed in the guest room and ended up with the same sort of bites.
I dunno about fleas. The times I’ve been bitten by fleas (and I’m absolutely positive it was fleas), the itching and welts didn’t last more than a day.
And no, I don’t have fleas. When put the dogs in a kennel for a two week vacation and you come home without the pets, the fleas are very hungry.
Last time I got fleabitten by a friend’s dog, they sounded just like your bites except they did get “heads” which one could squeeze for a satisfying tiny bit of pus.
Sorry about that.
They itched like hell for a long time and hurt like a bitch when you squeezed them, too. I reccomend a hydrocortisone cream, that seemed to help a bit. They left pretty noticeable marks on me which took months to fade, I might add. I never fell asleep on that couch again.
Thanks for the hydrocortisone suggestions. I had a tube kickin’ around and it’s helped a bit. I’m thinking the guilty one could be the little spidey I saw. I found a web in the space behind the bed, not too far from my pillow. Considering I put that mama spider outside a couple days ago, maybe it was her web? She was on the wall right outside the bedroom. I guess I’ll know for sure if I don’t get any more bites…
Chigger. That’s one of those rare words that sounds funny and disgusting at the same time.
AFG, you got bedbugs. For sure. Guaranteed!
I’ve had them on and off over the years; you gotta fumigate your mattress, then re-do it again in 3-weeks, after the eggs have hatched. They are extremely hard to get rid of.
The ‘three-in-a-row’ bites are a for sure giveaway, as is the long itching period.
Look up bedbugs on the web, or contact your state’s vector control program (if you have one).
Nasty little biters!
I get massive reactions to any type of bug bite. We had a chigger infestation in our sheets a few weeks ago, along with fleas on the pets. I had fifty or sixty bites on my ankles that swelled up to 1/4 to 1/2 inch itchy red welts.
Ardred had a similar number of bites, but they didn’t make him itch nor did they swell.
A lot of it depends on what type of skin you have and your susceptibility to bite venom.
So, you can’t necessarily tell from the look of the bite what it was that bit you.
