PERSONAL CHIGGERS TIMELINE

[melannen]

For future reference, since this is apparently a thing now, thanks, climate change.

Zero hour: Get overconfident, step in tall grass without adequate protection
+1-3: Shower really well
+3-24: Feel slightly itchy but not unusually for mosquito season
+24: Chigger bites start coming up. Get your affairs in order.
+24-72: Take all the Benadryl you need to sleep through it, srsly, some things are not worth being awake for.
+72: Welts start coming to a clear head. Once this happens it is safe to scratch. Itch is now "annoying" rather than "requiring 100% of mental capacity to not scratch skin off and worse if anything including air touches them". Try not to pick at it.
+72-168: Pick at it anyway. You didn't scratch for three whole days you have earned this.
+168: Itch now almost completely gone, but welts still very visible. Even the ones you have not picked at as a control group.
+192: Doctor says you 100% definitely do not have lyme disease. (Mosquito bite from same day as chiggers still very ugly.)

TBC

Comments

[elanya]

Could be worse... Could not be your legs...

Could be ticks D:

[alatefeline]

Ugh. Sorry.

[jesse_the_k]

Ack!

I love the indoor life ;)

[birke]

Yikes. D:

To me chiggers are "those things that happen to book characters unfortunate enough to live in the Ozarks."

[stardreamer]

I know they say it's an urban legend, but painting the damn welts with clear nail polish really does work for me. I think it might be because that keeps random air currents from stimulating the itch.

[amadi]

Ugh, you're the fourth person in my circles who's battling chigger rash right now. I wish you a speedy recovery from the misery.

[melannen]

Yeah, yeah it would be better if it was just my legs. If only.

And ticks are scary because of the chance of catching a Dread Disease, but I have never had more than three or four tick bites at once, and I have never had less than SIX DOZEN chigger bites at once. D:

[melannen]

Me too.

[melannen]

I have been disinclined to leave the house the last week or so, let's say.

[melannen]

Theoretically they have always been around here, but I've never had an issue with them until the last five years or so, and now it suddenly seems to be at least once a year. D:

I hope they stay a "thing from books" for you! It was nice when they were just "scary thing Mom uses to scare you into staying on the marked trail." :/

[melannen]

Ugh, thanks. It does seem to be that time of year.

[melannen]

I actually use colored nail polish, because I get irrationally paranoid that they are still infesting me and giving me new bites, and if I mark them at least I know when new ones are appearing (and can reassure myself that they have stopped appearing.) (And can horrify passers-by who don't believe me when I say no, I really do need to spend today lying very still taking lots of Benadryl.) I think it does help with keeping things from stimulating the itch, too, at least a little.

Luckily I am mostly past that point in this round.

[elanya]

I don't know how I read in just the legs, huh.

I know that chiggers are in theory more gross than ticks, but I find ticks way more squicky, though I have been lucky never to get one on me (yet). Chiggers fall under mildly annoying - they were pretty much inevitable when I was doing fieldwork in Texas. I think I just know and know of too many people who have had serious issues with tick born diseases.

I will also take chiggers over frickin fire ants though, too. they are The Worst.

I do hope your itches clear up soon though! Itching sucks :/ Stupid nature....

[melannen]

Yeah, the main thing with me for chiggers is that so far it's always at least 48 hours where I literally cannot think of anything but itching. I screwed up SO MUCH stuff those two days when I tried to actually do stuff because I was utterly incapable of holding a thought in my head other than "itch" before I gave up and surrendered to the Benadryl naps. This timeline is important because then I will know exactly how many sick days I will be taking next time. I cannot imagine if losing two days to bug bites was routine. :/ I am assuming that for people who do find it only mildly annoying, it's not that bad.

Of course I also cannot imagine anyone who has been out in the high grass enough to get chiggers repeatedly and has never had a tick bite! I have just decided for my own sanity that if I haven't had Lyme and/or a Mystery Spotted Fever yet, I'm probably not going to, because avoiding all tick bites just does not happen. (DEET has never had any detectable effect on bug bites for me, even though science says it does work. Covering every inch of skin and tucking pants into shoes helps some, until the bugs crawl in anyway and then I can't get at them to get them off, but I eventually get tired of treating The Outdoors like it's the surface of Mars. I am pretty good at checking and taking them off within a few hours, though, apparently that's fairly protective against disease.)

(mostquito bites and tick bites both last over a week of itch for me, and none of the topical treatments help noticeable, I just accept the fact I will be itching all summer at this point. Just. Not chigger-level itching.)

Luckily there are not fire ants here yet I am okay with that remaining true.

[lady_ganesh]

Ewwwwww.