When Life Gives You Chiggers...

Immediately take a scalding hot bath and wash all your clothes and linens!


I'm suffering from a mild infestation of chiggers. This infestation stemmed from my heading, unawares to the fact that I'd soon find myself traipsing through knee-high bursh and bramble in the dark in flip flips and a calf-length summer skirt, to a tailgate party Saturday night at a concert in an outdoor venue near where I live.


Now, I've never had a chigger infestation before (and hope never to have another one!), so initially I figured it was just mosquito bites or something. But these seemed like worse mosquito bites than ever. They woke me up two nights in a row (I wanted to itch right down to the bone) and the bumps were large and unsightly. Someone at my gym this morning (well, actually it was yesterday morning, given the time of night) told me they looked like chigger bites, as did others when I went to work in my skirt (sans nylons - are you kidding me? In this heat AND with bumpy, itchy bites on my legs?). So, I bought some Caladryl on my lunch break (they make it in CLEAR now! When I was a kid, we always had the tell-tale pink dots wherever we'd applied the pink lotion) and slathered on my 20 or so bites. I figured that would do it and eventually the itching would go away completely. Wishful thinking...


So I get home and post my misery on Facebook and nearly instantly, I get feedback from friends telling me that the chiggers "dig in" and you have to get them out and giving me a variety of remedies: nail polish, "Sting Kill," Benadryl, and I see my closest friend has posted a link full of information for me to check out. Having faith in my Caladryl (it was always so good to me as a kid), I slather it on (really thick!) and hit the hay.


Fast forward to 1:30 am...I'm itching my legs...digging, scratching, just hoping that one major scratch will cease all the itching post haste. No such luck. So I get up and apply more Caladryl and decide to check my Facebook again. I'm curious as to what is in that link my friend sent now, especially since she also posted

Hope you can sleep tonight. Hope the larvae aren't in your bed waiting for you. Ewwww.

Now, THAT grossed me out. A lot. And, after having gotten woken up a second night in a row by these buggers, my curiosity is aroused and I clicked her link, where others were talking about them "digging in" and about remedies such as toothpaste, listerine, some kind of butt paste, meat tenderizer, nail polish - the solutions ran the gamut. So, immediately, I slather my bites in nail polish and think of things to do while it dries before I go back to sleep.


And what do I wind up doing, but more research online. Rather than a "home remedies" link, I decide it might be a good idea to see what the professionals say about chiggers. Which is when I found the Missouri Department of Conservation link. Where I learned that chiggers are mites (arachnids) and that they don't "suck your blood" or burrow under your skin, but that they attach on and inject your skin with saliva to feed on you. And that humans are not their primary or ideal source of nourishment, which is why we have a reaction to them. They only "eat" flesh in their larval stage; they become vegetarians when they mature. And that their saliva once they've latched on and bitten you creates a "stylostome," a straw-like apparatus that helps them suck up liquid flesh. Yuck, right?

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.


- Missouri Department of Conservation

So, like any good information consumer, I read on to see how the MDC recommends treating chiggers. Warm, soapy bath and topical itch cream. And time. (It takes 10 days for the body to absorb the stylostome.) And, of course, washing all clothes and linens which may carry the little buggers.


And, so here I am. 3:31 am on a Tuesday morning. After a scalding hot bath, my sheets now in the dryer.


I do believe there's a lesson in this story (other than "When life gives you chiggers, don't coat yourself in nail polish)...There are things that will happen to you in this world that you can't control (like a chigger infestation). What will make or break you is what you do about those things.

1. Your attitude in responding to what life throws your way. I could've whined and cried about the itchy welts...which I guess I did a little with the Facebook page and by showing all my friends at work (c'mon, big ol welts on the ankles...they're like a "medal" of a weekend well-spent), but I didn't make it the center of my life today.
2. Your perspective on locus of control. Does the world "happen" to you, or are you an equal player? Go ahead, world, throw them chiggers on! I can deal with it! I gots me some friends who care enough to provide options. I gots me the internet to do more research. I gots me the gumption to DO SOMETHING to level the playing field here.
3. Finally, common sense comes into play, too. I let the itching bug me until I started to learn enough about chiggers to know that Caladryl alone might not cut it. I also remembered (although a little late in the game) that it's good to do research prior to just jumping into solutions (like slathering my legs in nail polish). A lot of times I go for the seemingly quickest, easiest solution that's thrown my way and forget that I can (and should) learn more about the situation prior to committing to a solution. And, that's okay - we learn from our mistakes. Next time I am bitten by chiggers, or think I may be bitten, I'll immediately wash all my clothes and take a hot bath.