Chiggers, anyone? (How do you spell relief?)

[Just Lou]

Wendy, I lived in the eastern Rockies of Colorado for several years and I don't remember the gnats coming over there.  Of course that wind coming off the Flatirons didn't stop 'till it got to Kansas. 

 

[Wendy]

We never had problems with the pinon gnats in Colorado Springs. I think they hang out in the high desert, pinon/juniper areas.

Wendy

 

[ArdraF]

This thread brought back a childhood memory.  Some of you will remember back to the early 1940s.  For you youngsters, women wore things called girdles back then.  When I was in first grade we lived in Nashville in a lovely house with a nice yard.  Mother enjoyed working out in the yard UNTIL she discovered CHIGGERS which were a total unknown to her having grown up in Pennsylvania.  They apparently moved up her legs under her slacks and got under her girdle (yes, ladies wore them doing yard work too).  My poor mother was miserable and everyone in the neighborhood was telling her how to deal with the itching.  I don't know what she finally used, but I know that until the day she died Mother cringed when she heard the word chigger.

ArdraF

 

[mfolsom]

This thread caught my attention because someone at work said they saw a bunch of chiggers on our building. 

I just did a search on chiggers and this was the first site that was listed.
http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/arthopo/chiggers/

Missouri Department of ConservationFishingHunting & TrappingForestryNaturePrivate LandEducationChiggers!
by Nina Bicknese, Natural History Biologist

Enlarged approximately 1,500 times, this chigger looks like the latest sci-fi movie star. In life, chiggers are red, but not from dining on blood as many people think. The larval form of a type of mite, chiggers are barely visible to the naked eye. Courtesy Dr. W. Calvin Webourn and the Ohio State University Acarology Laboratory.
The worst thing about the Missouri summer isn't sunburn, heat or humidity-it's chiggers.

Chiggers first show up as annoying red bumps. An itch begins. It grows. More hard red welts surface. From your feet and ankles upward, and especially at those tender locations your mother told not to scratch in public, a maddening itch takes hold.

Savage scratching begins. Every welt becomes a persistent, exquisitely itching preoccupation that continues to irritate for days and even weeks. You probably recognize these symptoms of chigger bites. Yet we never see the culprits responsible for this summertime agony. What are chiggers? Why do they bite us? How can we stop that horrible itching?

Myths about chiggers are widespread. Many believe chiggers are some type of bug. Folklore tells us they burrow under our skin and die, that they drink our blood and that they can best be killed by suffocation with nail polish or bathing with bleach, alcohol, turpentine or salt water. Surprisingly, all these popular facts are just plain wrong.

There is more on the site including pictures and what to do about the bites. 

Mark

 

[Mc2guy]

"The chigger sits with its mouthparts attached to the stylostome, and like a person drinking a milk shake through a straw, it sucks up your liquefied tissue. Left undisturbed, the chigger continues alternately injecting saliva into the bite and sucking up liquid tissue"

I'm pretty sure I didn't want to know that.  I'm a little sick just reading about it.

 

[Jackliz]

Didn't want to hijack the "Tick" thread, but need relief remedies for chigger bites.

'Tis the season........

  Medicated Chigarid works, manufactured by C&C Laboratories, Dallas , TX.  Put a little of Chigarid on each bite, let it dry, kinda dries like nail polish. We have a lot of experience with this because Jack is allergic to the chigger bites and gets really sick. Sometimes he even will run a fever. To relieve itching, frequent applications of Benadryl Anti-itch cream.

To prevent said bites, a good application of Deep Woods Off works for us. Avoidance of high grasses, brush is a good preventative. Hope this helps.

Regards,
Liz
 

 

[Just Lou]

Liz, thank you, thank you.......  that's it!

I googled every name I could come up with and could not remember Chigarid.
I know I've used it and it works better than anything I've ever tried.

I'm going out tomorrow and buy every bottle I can find.

Thank you again...

 

[KodiakRV]

I tried the nail polish route with chiggers several years ago and ended up with a very bad case of contact dermatitis. 

 

[mdbass]

All are great suggestions. I believe in Avon Skin so Soft (you'll smell like a French ???) but it's effective and the polish does cut the air off to them. I always recommend after a day in the outdoors to partially fill a tub with a splash of clorox and water; then thoroughly cover yourself. Rinse off immediately. (If you don't have a tub take the water/clorox mix into the shower with you and do the same). Good Luck. Oh; by the way, the sooner after you come indoors that you use the clorox mix, the better it will work.

 

[Mc2guy]

If you read the links in the above post, you will see that chiggers to not bore into your skin, that is a wives tail.  It's the anticoagulant/digestive acid they inject you with that causes the irritation.  They are long-gone by the time you feel the irritation (just like mosquitoes).

I would not recommend exposing yourself to chlorine bleach or nail polish as they will not cure the problem (unless you have fleas, maybe ;D) and may cause other dermatological issues.

 

[geodrake]

You do have a few hours to get rid of the chiggers before they crawl all the way up and begin their feast.  If you come in from a chigger infested area and bath you can get rid of them before they do any harm.