What's Eating You?

Or more to the point- what’s eating ME? I am itching as I write this, and after some research, I not only know who the perpetrator is, but it’s entire life cycle. So, of course, I am going to share it with you. Anyone who has lived in the South or West, or probably even the Midwest, will start to itch along with me as soon as they hear the answer. Chiggers (Trombicula alfreddugesi)- those omnipresent, microscopic, aren’t-felt-until-three-hours- later, flesh eating, members of the mite family.

Not a Cape Cod issue, for they aren’t fond of winters, but welcome to Texas, they LOVE it here. And by letting my grass and wildflowers grow I set up a pretty perfect habitat for them. How kind of me. At first, I thought these random red welts were from spider bites. We are all quick to blame spiders, aren’t we? Yet, I don’t know too many microscopic spiders so, how I thought they might have snuck up and bit me, is a bit of a mystery. Actually, a chigger is a mite, which puts it into the same family as spiders, so I was close.

Of course, everyone and his mother here knows about chiggers, but it is interesting how many false facts are involved. No, they do not burrow under your skin, nor do they drink your blood, and really, painting the bite with nail polish isn’t a medically sanctioned cure. What they DO do is pretty fascinating. Ready to hear more than you ever wanted to about chiggers?

They actually only feed on living things when they are in their larval state, and this, just one little, three-day meal is all they ask. Then they will be on their way becoming nymphs and adults who are happy to eat plants and other insects. Really, just one meal, not a lot to ask, is it? And that one meal is obtained by looking for a tender little spot in say, a pore or a hair follicle where they can inject you with saliva that dissolves your skin cells. See, they aren’t eating blood; they are sucking up your dissolved skin tissue. Think of yourself as their favorite Slurpee.

Your skin, however, is pretty put out by the effrontery of this and quickly hardens the cells around the bite. That is what makes the welt you see, your own body did that. “Thank you very much” thinks the chigger, for now, it can sit there alternately injecting its enzyme and slurping up your cells through this straw your body so helpfully provided. After about three days it is sated and drops off going on its way. You however, continue to itch for up to 10 days because of those hardened cells your body made and until they dissolve and get reabsorbed into your skin you will know they are there. Especially at 2 am.

So what is an outdoor-lover like myself to do? We did cut more of the grass back trying to limit their habitat, but many wildflowers are still blooming, so the edge along the path is still left high for their sake. God bless Google for it gave me a whole retinue of things to try as a preventative. Such a retinue that it becomes another major reason my time is so limited.

Each time I come in from gardening, which I now do in long pants, work boots with socks pulled up a la, Cape Cod tick prevention style, I first use a towel to briskly wipe down arms and legs. Did I mention they are 1/150th of an inch wide? One would think a towel could brush them off. Then I remove all of those clothes and wipe down arms and legs with a cotton ball with alcohol on it. Then, if time permits, shower, change into all new clothes and go about the day. And although I have faithfully done this each day, each night I have discovered new bites. Not legions of bites as I see in the rather disgusting medical pictures, which by the way, I am having the good taste not to include here. Mine don’t coat my body, but do make a nice dot-to-dot pattern.

Here is something else I love, one article said the tricky part is they could get on you and zip all over the place reaching your head in a mere 15 minutes for, and I love this “they have long legs”. Now I am trying to picture how anything 1/150th of an inch could have LONG legs. But they are right for they do seem to get around- I have bites everywhere. They seem to especially favor those hard to get to areas where the “sun don’t shine” and no one should itch in public.

So, I guess I exalted too quickly on the lack of ticks. And retroactively, I can see that picking off a mere thirty ticks a day from my dog wasn’t quite as time consuming as my new regime. Ah well, there really is no paradise this side of the real paradise so I shouldn’t be surprised and really, just like my first scorpion bite, it is all sort of fascinating in a “your not in Kansas anymore” way. OK chigger lecture over, back to your previously scheduled life.