Unusual bug bites I need help with

Last week me and Family went down home to take care of our Kins graves. It was my first experience staying at a air b&b thing. Anyway one night we were outside on a covered patio and shooting the bull and I woke up with two what appeared as skeeter bites, no biggie. Next night we did the same and not only I but all of us woke up with bites. I had the most, over 30. They itched more than a regular skeeter bite and were like a welt, huge lump and both itched and stung. It's been over a week and they are still a huge nuisance. We all have been ate up at times while fishing or hunting but not like this. Anyone have a clue, if not some mutant skeeters what else could do this?

Bed bugs or bird louse bites. Start out as an itch, and as soon as you scratch the swell up to dime size.

Oh my, can bed bugs do that?

Did you ever notice driving around that you see mattresses out on the lawn that people who rent to Mexicans and other foreigners? Common sight here and as others have already informed you that you were bit by bed bugs, you know where the source was in the bed you slept in.

Back in the day the old folks around here used to talk about bed bugs back in the 30's, that was from immigrants too. Minnesota had Swedes they imported for lumber camps who had half a dozen variety of lice they would crack for sport at night. The old remedy was kerosene rags on a kid's head or kerosene wiped around all the bedsprings and bed. The miracle of DDT got rid of all of that vermin, and America with what has been dumped into the states could use a good dusting. The information on DDT was bogus. It saved Europe from typhus after World War II, and would save Americans from chagas, the tick diseases, mosquitoes and clean all the bed bugs and brown recluse out of homes, as the modern insecticides are not keeping up with the two legged carriers.

As a warning, you better wash your clothes, bedding, and everything else, because odds are you brought your vermin home with you.

On the DDT comment, Mom said when the government came through and sprayed their house that they did not have to cover their food up.Safest but most abused pesticide ever made they say. They sprayed the woods for ticks and every town for skeeters here in the south.

Good Lord, I was in SE Kentucky and seen a lot of things in yards but not mattresses. This was a very nice home we stayed in. If the culprit is bed bugs then I'm gonna be PO'd. Is there any other possibilities?

If they are bed bug bites, as Star Flakes stated, you probably have brought the bed bugs home with you. You should also bug bomb your entire house as a preventative measure, to prevent the bed bugs from getting established.

My friend Lauren worked for the city of Cincinnati with poor immigrants, mostly elderly Russians. They gave her a special chair to sit on, with a rest to keep her feet off the floor and treated shoes and socks to wear, when she did home visits with her clients, to prevent her from picking up bed bugs. She was also encouraged to change her clothes and have them laundered, instead of wearing them home.

Keith

I mean to tell ya, I have been in the woods and crick banks for 45 plus years, never experienced this!

If it ain't chiggers....its bed bugs......and it's a sure bet, if its bed bugs....you brought hitchhikers home.

I would also notifie the B&B.

Is this what they look like?

My ole late daddy told me when I was a teenager, " you never know what you might catch sleeping in someone else's bed"! Still good advice.

This is my left ankle, 10 bites, taken 4 days after. Unlike anything I have ever experienced.

I am waiting till I can confirm. I never did anything like this but believe in due process. Ain't looking good so far.

Those bites look identical to bed bug bites I have seen pictures of.

Keith

ddt should be brought back. In the 60's kids would run along behind the "fog truck" that was spraying ditches and creek bottoms in towns. They thought it great fun to play in the fog. I'm sure there are some people reading this who did it. If a kid got head lice it was not an ongoing problem in the elementary school. ddt fixed it right up. Sprayed on the kid and the home was fogged. Got to many chicken hawks now anyway. Assuming it was messing with their eggs. Which I doubt. Guess what commercial chicken houses got fogged with?

I'd say chiggers, I've had them BAD before. I've never had bedbugs, but from what I have heard, those bites are more on the torso.

Could be bed bugs, but could also be fleas. But I am guessing it's chiggers. You could have been bitten while tending those gravesites. They are often located in long grass. Bad news - their bites are painless, until a day or two later, then they are like skeeter bites on steroids. Good news, they only bite the skin to eat the dermis cells - no blood sucking. They do not attach like ticks and are easily brushed off while removing clothes and by showering. You do not have to worry about carrying the critters home and infesting others or other locations. Welts will last for up to 3 weeks. Use anti-itch topical gels and try not to scratch. Worse complication is infection from scratching.

Just saw your pic after my post. Elk's looks like bed bugs. Your pic is from chiggers.

Could be bed bugs but I'm thinking chiggers.

Chiggers bite you where there is snug fitting clothes ....sock area, waist band, behind knees when wearing pants, etc.

Been in to chiggers in my youth, they don't raise like these bites. I could be wrong but I don't think chiggers.

Can they raise like that Mike and be inflammatory? We were in very remote mountain side gravesites.

SW, that is where all the bites are, from all of us.

Bed bugs would go for any exposed skin at night while in bed.

Yeah, they can welt up pretty good, depending on an individual's sensitivity and how much you scratch.

when i got bed bugs they all bit in an area that made a circle. Bites were on my elbow

You can see how Elk's bites are flat and kind of spread out like a rash. Your bites are smaller and rounder, typical of chiggers.

Awesome, thanks guys I appreciate it. Looks like I forgot what chiggers do, been a while lol. I didn't want to point fingers at the B&B and knew if I posted here you all would know, thanks!

I have stayed in some low class hotels for work over the years and finally got bed bugs a few years back. It was winter here so I stripped outside and ran right for the shower. All my clothes and bags were left outside in sub zero temps for over a month and I never did get them in the house.

Now, bed bug bites that I had were always in rows of 2-3 bits. Always in a line everywhere that I had them. The bites you pictured look to me like No-See-Um or sand fly bites. Small bite at first and they itch like crazy. It will take a week or more to heal, the swell up, ooze a clear liquid and REALLY itch. Just my 2 cents worth.

Thanks 160, that's what we are experiencing. Been since 75 that I had a run in with chiggers.

Definitely Mountain Gravesite Chiggers

Absorbine junior - instant relief for bed bug and chigger bites. I have also been told it works well on ringworm also.

I got into a bad batch of chiggers several years ago running beagles after dark, we had to wade through tall wet grass to catch the dogs. I had a solid ring around both ankles, the cuff and waistband of my underwear, neck band of t-shirt and several other places. Thought I would go insane w the itching. When you think you can't take it anymore, take as hot a shower as you can stand and let hot water run over the bites. Also, tea tree oil applied helps.

Thank you Mr. Sir Ken. Have a great night.....

Thank you #11

Chiggers..gotta love em, permethrin is best thing out there for preventative measures, nothin you can do but itch them raw for next couple weeks.

Chiggers, we just got back a couple weeks ago from Illinois trimming shooting lanes and putting up stands and even using permithrin we still got eat up with chiggers, they really effected my dad for two weeks and some even blistered. Mean little boogers

Bed bug hosting bites it appears. Hope you all didn't bring them home with you.

you can see bed bugs but NOT chiggers

the bites look like chiggers to me, just like ive had a few times

I learned to douse well with DEET spray in summer

...put a cup of Clorox bleach in your bath water and soak ...

Yep, Chiggers
Had them several times on ankles and lower leg.

Chiggers like the tight spots like under socks and waist band areas. They will swell like heck when scratched.

Also....get some sun on them legs b4 you show them off again.....lol

YEP!...……., bout 30 mins/day

you were sposd to be doing this from the start!

I've had chiggers bad before and they look like what you have. Never had bedbugs. If it's chiggers cover the bite area with clear nail polish. That helps with the itching but it'll take a while to heal.

Try one of those ammonia itch pens on the bites. They help a lot.
Chiggers bites usually are concentrated in the tight places in clothing. Around the ankles, behind the knees and all round the elastic of underwear.
I caught a good dose of them last week. A good dose being 50-75 bites.
You can get chiggers in any grass and especialy if it is in a damp area

.

Looks like chiggers to me. I got into them so bad one time squirrel hunting. I had them from my neck to my ankles. It looked like you shot me with #9 shot. It itched so bad for two weeks and I was at the point of getting a wire brush and bullet to see which one was going to give me relief.

I don't know if this will help with chigger itch but it puts an end to mosquito itch immediately and forever.

I you're a smoker ( lets hope not) get a ciggy burning and hold it as close to the bite as possible without touching the skin. Hold it as long as you can stand it but don't burn yourself. A match works too if you don't smoke. Foolproof on mosquitoes. Give it a try

SE Kentucky you say, i would say you got chiggers or a very light dose of seed ticks. lots of people get in thousands of seed ticks but think ther covered up in chiggers. seen them so bad guys have had to scrape there skin with a pocket knife.

I'm thinking crabs??

The key to avoiding bed bugs is sleeping tight.

If you suspect bed bugs ....sleep with the lights on ..............unless you're in a 10 @ 2 & a 2 @ 10 situation !

Your pics and the description of the symptoms screams chiggers to me. The misery does not lessen until your immune system carries off the invading remnants of what they injected you with.
If you have gone into an area where you know that there are chiggers, seed ticks, and other ticks, and you did not douse yourself with deet while buck nekkid prior, when you get home, mix 50/50 bleach and water in a small bowl. Take a warsh rag and cover yourself head to toe until your skin starts to tingle, then take a shower.
Works every time. It seems to take a while for chiggers to do their damage, so you have a while to stop them when you get home.

Warsh rags never seem to work for me )))

Ya lay with dogs, ya get fleas

Lol, them legs ain't seen the sun in a while. And, when I do wear shorts people ask me if them are my legs or am I riding a chicken.

Thanks again for all your help everyone. Gonna try some things today as I woke up still itching, nasty little buggers!

chiggers

Was waiting for someone to mention....go to ER or Doc.

I am saying chiggers, if you don't spray your legs, shoes, socks, pants and all when you are in grass and weeds for an extended period they will crawl under your socks, underware you name it, then burrow into your skin. I was a phone guy and when we had a cut cable in a ditch and were there for a long time I got eaten up and they last forever. Try painting them with chigger rid or clear fingernail polish

This is after the fact but I got this from a logger. If I am doing something in the woods/weeds/brush in the summer I use bug spray but also duct tape. Duct tape around your ankles(pant-boot area), fly of pants, and front pockets. It may look ridiculous but it works.

I read to heat a nickel under hot water and apply it to a bite. The heat breaks down the protein that makes it itch then it don't itch no more. The same thing I'm sure. Pretty neat.

Could be oak mites. They are often misdiagnosed at chiggers, but are a more intense irritation than chiggers.

Chigger or seed ticks. Either one is the devil's spawn.

I had the same bites a few weeks ago and thought the worst, bed bugs, but only I had the bites not my wife and we sleep in the same bed. After some research I concluded it was chiggers. Couldn't figure it out because I only ware pants and boots, but had bites around ankles, back of knees and around underwear leg holes. Itched worse than anything I ever had. Never felt any bites. I had been working on a tile drain that ended in a shady, grassy, damp ditch. Had to have gotten them in that mess.

Works with mosquitoes. Growing up there were a couple of summers where the mosquito population was nuts, you could see clouds of mosquitoes. Working the fields in 105°+- was no fun dressed like that. Picking Chile and corn by hand was brutal

And meth that ate his teeth.

Keith

Lol, although I was in SE Kentucky I never run across anything that scary! And thankfully none of my dangly bits were involved.

Well I guess you're up a 'crick' then aren't cha?

The answer to your problem! Now I have a taste for chicken legs for some reason? Weird

Worst thing about chiggers is that by the time you know you have been sittin in a patch of them.....it's way to late to do anything but scratch. When I know I have the first one i start praying that the 100th one didn't come along with it!
I keep the chiggerex in my travel bag and at least 2 of those ammonia pens.
This last time, I had sprayed permithrin on my clothes. Guess spraying socks and shoes is a good idea as well. I figger the varmints landed on my shoes and just worked their way under and on up from there.

Back in high school some of the guys used a mixture called quell.
Never used it myself as I enjoy a good itch now and again.

Zim

Lol Zim, you can have some of my itch, I'll share. I'm gonna get some of that stuff Jerry showed and I have to say the bleach helped calm things some.

tuck pants INTO socks THEN spray with any DEET product from the armpits down before venturing into woods n fields...…..is what Dad taught/did to us to avoid the whole problem.
Hope this helps next time ya venture out

It seems that folks who have never had a "chigger experience" have a hard time believing that they can cause so much misery. A lot of folks in the north never even heard of them.
I hunted in S. Il. with a friend once who had never heard of them. He knew about them before we got back home. In fact, He eventually got staff infections at the bites and ended up on antibiotics over it.

Check this page out …. https://www.orkin.com/other/bed-bugs/bedbug-bites sure looks the same as you show …

Garry-

When I was a kid grandma would have us put powdered sulfur on our jeans to pick blackberries. The minute you came in the house you took a Clorox bleach bath.

If you were not out in the brush/grass then it's a no brainer you would think!

Oh the joy of Canadian health care.( took two pages)
Sure glad in our parts of Canada there are no chiggers.

Your immune system has been re-activated from years before exposure. Be care full of secondary bacterial infection now.

As I look at the 25 or so chigger bites on my legs I'd probably go with chiggers. If you haven't got any more bites since returning home, bed bugs are probably not the cause as they would probably still be biting you. Chigger bites also ooze after about 2 days and continue for several days to a week or so.

My yard is loaded with chiggers this year for some reason. The grass is cut low and its in full sun but my daughter, wife, and I are covered with bites. I've pretty much got use to them and they don't itch near as bad as they used to.

Garry, there is a difference in the bed bug bites and chigger bites. Chigger bites are mostly round, similar in size and with very little to no unusual inflammation or discoloration beyond the central area. The bug bites show unusual shapes with varying degrees in the size of the inflammation. This is mostly due to the fact that chiggers ingest skin cells while bed bug ingest blood.

We go to Missouri several times a year canoeing and camping. I always get from 5 to 20 or so chigger bites. Found the best thing that worked for me was Benadryl. Stopped the itching and dried them up in a few days. Chigger X does help too.

DDT was banned for very good reason. Affected reproductive capacity of fish and the birds and animals that ate them. Bad stuff !

Well said.

I ended up with chiggers because of a brain fart, I knew better and didn't follow my regiment because I was caught up in being with siblings and taking care of our kin's graves. It was precious. I quoted this because I think star flakes is right.

What regiment were you serving with ? Where did your regiment go ??

Ohhhh The battle of Mountain Gravesite Chiggers !! I remember now !

The MGC is for a select few and although I respect them, I am a member of the NCA, No Critters A Loud. Very strict, as to not allow critteristic beings on our persons. WE use both Permetherin and Deet and of course duct tape, color optional to accommodate gender neutrality. We are about killing all critters but we do not kill them according to gender.

Kill 'em all and let the LGBTQ sort 'em out !!

Ain't it funny how twist comes in threads lol. I just want the itching to go away!! Day 4,712 and I'm still itching lol.

You might have your pics mixed up. The pics of catch22 do not look like the ones in the orkin ad.

I like the chigger song.

Great, thanks for bringing this thread back up. Now I'm itching again, I got the ghost chiggers.

You can be rich and well off and still have bed bugs. My son worked as a pest tech....and said , never put your luggage on a bed. Those critters can jump in your luggage....and you take them home to your house.

Did Run regurgitate this thread .......? He’s good like that...

Catch22, having the poor luck to have experienced both types of vermin, I lean to Chiggers as your culprit. They tend to be on the ankles and legs. Bedbugs nail you all over your carcass. Bedbugs are notorious for spreading via victims clothes and effects. The time I was bit up by them was after spending a night or two with my nephews (both close to my age) at their grandparents home. My mother recognized the bites when she came to pick me up. When we got back to our house my mother made me strip naked before going in the house.....she disposed of all my clothes!

Buwahahaha!!!
Another sucker falls for that old lie.
So sad.

Looks like flea bites.
Why does a few bug bites throw everyone into a tizzy?
Bunch of sissies.

We had a terrible problem with cat fleas in our home and we never owned a cat or dog. The neighbor across the street had many cats that ran loose. They were in the lawn and in our house. We had numerous bites on our ankles and legs that looked like the ones in the pictures. They itched badly and took a while to go away. Cost us a lot of money and time to finally get rid of them. Had to spray the front lawn with some flea eating creatures and bomb the house constantly. It was like living in helllll for a month.

AND, on top of that, you likely brought some home with you! Heads up, and be warned.

I say cat fleas!

Catch u need some of that blue soap to get rid of them!!!

Lol, Run brought this thread back up from the dead. It was chiggers and they are long gone now, except now I have the ghost chiggers. They itch worse.