When friends ask us about our experiences camping, they occasionally ask
us what we consider the least favorable part of RVing, our civilized version
of camping. You know, is there a part of RVing we really dislike? While I
don't care for the constant semi-truck trailer traffic on the
Interstate highways, or having three or four days of constant rain
while confined to a muddy campground, or especially inconsiderate pet owners
who don't leash or clean up after their dogs, there is one specific item we dislike that takes first place. The thing we dislike the most
is a result of one of the activities made attractive by camping close
to nature. Too close to nature as it turns out. Chiggers!
We have many camping friends who have never been bitten by chiggers. Many of my
friends have never even heard of them. In fact, the Germans don't even
have a word for them. They call them “sandfloh,' or sand fleas,
which they definitely are not! Chiggers are not even insects, they
are arachnids, the same family as spiders and ticks. We have sand
fleas in Florida – where we call them 'no-see-ums' – and they are
quite mild by comparison to chiggers. In fact, they are almost
pleasant next to the little, almost invisible, flesh-eaters that can
spoil a vacation faster than bad weather.
My mom used to call them redbugs. They were a normal part of
Blackberry picking on the family farm in North Carolina.
You don't need to be a camper to have one of nature's worst biters
chew up your ankle, all you have to do is walk in green, tall, wet
grass where the adult mite,
Trombicula
alfreddugesi,
has
laid her eggs.
Damp or wet grass happens to make a really great home for the little
stinkers. It takes high humidity or moisture for the larvae, and they
are normally found close to the ground, you know, foot level, or not
much higher than your shins. That's where their normal hosts,
rabbits, opossums, raccoons and just about anything else at ground
level, run around. Unfortunately, green, tall, wet grass can be found
on almost any overgrown hiking or bicycle trail. Especially the
trails that encircle most campgrounds. Especially summer campgrounds.
We've actually picked chiggers up in mowed fields.
 |
| Look Closely! At only 1/150th to 1/120th of an inch in diameter, they are barely visible |
Our pre-teen daughter called from a central Florida girls' summer
camp one year and said we would have to pick her up early as the camp
was being closed down early due to a severe measles outbreak. It
seemed every child in the YMCA run camp had been infected with the
disease and the camp medical staff had no choice but to send everyone
home. We thought that was really odd as our daughter had the measles
when she was in elementary school.
We met her several hours later at the pick-up point along with a bus
filled with scratching, red blistered young girls and realized they
weren't measles ridden at all, they were all covered with chigger
bites. The medical staff at the summer camp had never seen a chigger
bite and misdiagnosed the symptoms! They assumed they had a medical
emergency on their hands! They did, but not the one they thought.
Chigger bites are not fun. The insidious bites don't peak in their
horrible itching and pain for two or three days, and they take about
two weeks to heal past the scabbing phase. Even then they leave
blotches for another week or so.
Scratching the bites once they have
crusted simply starts another round of intense itching and the
healing process starts all over. The bites are insidious because you
don't have any idea you are being attacked while the little bugs, or
buggers, depending on your viewpoint, are busy inflicting wounds you
will regret for weeks to come. You can not feel them bite or even
crawl up your skin as they look for a soft, easy place to attach
themselves, so you have no idea they are there. You may be standing
in a field of them being attacked by the hundreds and not feel a
thing. Not for 8 to 12 hours anyway. And they seem to attack in
bunches. That's because the adult lays 3 to 15 eggs in a cluster,
usually under a leaf or a blade of grass, and if you brush against
the leaf or blade of grass and pick up one chigger, you probably get
them all.
Chiggers are almost invisible, being only 1/150th of an
inch long, and oddly enough, in the larval stage, have six legs,
making them look – under a microscope – like insects. The last
two legs develop soon enough to expose the true nature of the little
red beasts.
Chiggers are arachnids. In other
words, they are in the same family as spiders and ticks. They are
not flies or gnats. Technically they are Trombiculidae mite larvae,
and in another of nature's quirks, once they develop into adults,
they are harmless!
According to Wikipedia:
“After
crawling onto their hosts,
they inject digestive enzymes into the skin that break down skin
cells. They do not actually "bite" but instead form a hole
in the skin called a stylostome and chew up tiny parts of the inner
skin, thus causing severe irritation and swelling.”
Sound like fun? The little stinkers don't actually bury themselves in
your skin the way ticks do, and can easily be removed with soap and
water, even a brushing with a towel or cloth can remove them before
they settle in for dinner. If you give them a head start, however,
you are in trouble. Going to bed without getting them off is a real
treat as they then can wander over your whole body looking for tender
parts. Believe me, they will find them. After they find a nice soft
fold in your skin, like your groin or even your navel or a similar
tender target, they drill a tiny hole in your skin and shoot you with
a really ingenious chemical that causes another, really unique
reaction from you, the human recipient.
The digestive enzyme they shoot you
with is a meat tenderizer and no amount of clear nail polish will fix
the wound. Being protected from the air may give topical, temporary
relief, but in the long run nail polish is a remedy that doesn't
offer much relief from a chigger bite. That's because your body
builds a defense around the intruding enzyme that is destroying your
tissue and actually encircles the attacked skin cells as a protective
barrier. The result is a hard, crusted tunnel, filled with a
digestible mixture the chigger then happily feeds on. After 2 or 3
days, the now satisfied larvae drops off and enters its next phase of
life. You are no longer needed, but the feeding-tube reminder left in
your body will drive you crazy for the next two weeks. That remaining
stylostome
and your body's reaction to the enzyme are the problems.
Hydrogen peroxide has been recommended as a topical agent, but again,
the relief is only from the cooling liquid as the enzyme, or protein
doesn't dissolve or react to the Hydrogen Peroxide. Even common
bleach, such as Clorox, has been recommended as an agent to off-set
the enzyme, and may actually be one agent that helps diminish the
chemical reaction. I'll let you know by next week.
In the meantime, I
use a commercial product called Chiggerex®.
It has the anti-itching components recommended by all the
“experts,” such as Benzocaine, Aloe Vera, Chamomile, and a label
full of other chemicals. We find it offers the best relief for us.
[This NOT an endorsement! Find your own cure and don't bother me
about corrupting my amateur blogging status! On the other hand, if
you find something that works for you, let me know.]
Some people prefer
Ammonia based agents such as AfterBite®,
or different types of Calamine
lotion to get through the agonizing itching. The only thing we know
that works for certain is time. Two weeks of it. If I ever quit scratching.
[Post Script: In researching the
article on chiggers, it became obvious only several reference
articles formed the basis for the hundreds of web pages containing
information on chiggers. Much of that information was simply cut and
widely pasted across the Internet. I eliminated untested or
documented pages and “cures.” Apparently no ideal solution exists
for relief of chigger bites. There are “home remedy”
recommendations from fingernail polish, bleach, vinegar, petroleum
jelly, even applying a salt wrap. There seems to be no single
antidote to the chigger's enzyme, but plenty of mis-information about
the animal and its bite. I therefore add the following statement:
“Because chigger wounds are a
complex combination of enzymatic and the resulting mechanical damage,
plus allergy and immune responses, plus possible secondary bacterial
infection subject to local influences, no one remedy works equally
well for most people.” -
My
humble thanks to the University of Maryland, Iowa State University,
and many other formal institutions for their published papers on
chiggers. ] – George
