posted
Still undiagnosed - 8th month in going through the "ruling out" phase. But I'm convinced it's Lyme. My major issues are multiple cranial neuropathy and leg swelling.
New symptom though for about a week or so now and it's driving me insane. I have these flea bite looking spots on my abdomen, not anywhere else. They are only red after I itch them, before that they are hardly noticeable flesh colored bumps. They are not clumped together. I have about 10 of them spread out on my stomach and chest. And they are god-awful itchy that I can't stop scratching. Anyone else have something like this?
-------------------- Tracy Posts: 24 | From NE PA | Registered: Feb 2007
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CaliforniaLyme
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This skin bumps thing is not a common complaint on here at all, but that doesn't mean anything in relation to your having Lyme or not having Lyme!!!
Sometimes when you do have Lyme people will assign EVERYTHING physical to it even if it is not related- people do that with many disease not just Lyme...
Multiple cranial neuropathies are definnitely Lymelike. Hope you get a good LLMD*)!*)!!
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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Tincup
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They are scattered. They don't seem to be around the bra or panty line - there's a few on the left, a few on the right, two near my shoulder....not any type of pattern. I didn't switch soap, shampoo, bodyspray, detergent, or anything.... Maybe its just from the heat - but that type of thing isn't usually itchy - not itchy like this.
-------------------- Tracy Posts: 24 | From NE PA | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
I forgot to mention - they are also checking for lupus and sarcoidosis....maybe if it is one of those - it has something to do with that.....hmm, I don't know.
-------------------- Tracy Posts: 24 | From NE PA | Registered: Feb 2007
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Tincup
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Tracy...
I've been thinking about this and trying to piece something together to give you some ideas to work on.. and of course I am not a doctor. Also not the brighest bulb on the tree.. so take that into consideration when reading the information below.
I am wondering if they are from a toxin release?
Or.. maybe from mites? Do you have pets? Have you been outside a lot?
If you have ever seen scabies.. it sounds a bit like that with the plain flesh colored bump then turning red when scratching.
Then there is shingles too... which is a viral thing.
I wish I had a right answer or something that would give you a clue .. but I am simply guessing and saying things I would look into if it were me.
If they spread or become worse... be sure to check with a doctor... ok?
Let us know what you found out as I am always interested in bumps and lumps.
I have those kinds of bumps too. Because of the Lyme infections my body isn't able to heal skin well. Some might say that my skin is one of the places where the infection lives.
I use a topical vitamin C cream on the itchy bite type spots. It seems to help the skin heal. It's pretty pricey in stores, but you can shop around. I buy it here.
Still have to treat the underlying infection but this lotion sure makes life more bearable.
-------------------- When I lost my grip on Faith in the maze of illness, Hope gently clasped my hand and led on.
RuthRuth Posts: 478 | From California | Registered: Jan 2007
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Mine aren't flesh colored & they are definitely bug bites. Maybe fleas from the barn where I am every day, maybe something else. They're on my hip, along the bra line, between my boobs, along my waist line, on my shoulders & in my groin. Pretty damn awful But this is NOT Lyme. It's a dratted bug. I saw some on my legs this morning, small, a bit bigger than a flea, shiny brown as if it had a little shell. I brushed off about 6 so maybe that's what is doing it. I'm treating with Calamine lotion, Benedryl, & cold cloths. And I'm scratching. I can't help it. If I can scratch until it bleeds then it goes away!
posted
It's strange - I wake up in the morning and there's nothing there - but my skin is itchy. If I itch or rub it, then you can see the bug bite type things where its itchy.
As long as I don't break the skin - they seem to disappear until it gets itchy again.
But if you feel one of the spots where it was itchy (less than half the side of a pencil eraser), even though its the same color of my skin, you can feel the difference, the skin feels scaly or harder.
-------------------- Tracy Posts: 24 | From NE PA | Registered: Feb 2007
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clairenotes
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I would check for mites, too.
Check and/or change pillows, and look into purchasing pillow protectors. Wash bedding in hot water. Washing in borax (24 mule brand) might also help.
Sometimes I use a borax paste for mosquito and other bites and it seems to take the itching away if I use it soon after the bite. I leave it on the area until it flakes off. Not sure it would help, but it might not hurt to try.
Claire
Posts: 1111 | From Colorado | Registered: Oct 2006
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trueblue
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Tracy ~ I get these little hives that are pointy like flea bites. Usually they are random...
one on my calf, one on my cheek, one my abdomen or arm...
They last a few days or hours. If I scratch them they get red and puff up. I have no idea what they are. (I always thought recurring flea bites from past ones. My last exposure was from white footed mouse fleas.)
Also if I scratch anywhere on my skin I will raise hives and red marks.
I also get hives and horrible itchies from my own perspiration. Last week I was itchy below my arm pits and was scratching some and went to look in the mirror and had small hives (about 30-40 on each side) from below my armpit halfway to my waist. They were bright red and puffy.
In the morning the skin was normal color but I could see the bumps and they would start to itch at various times of the day.
Sorry, no good answers. I was thinking maybe something viral??? Antihistamines don't work on them for me.
Baking soda and water seemed to take the itching down considerably.
I hope you're less itchy soon.
-------------------- more light, more love more truth and more innovation Posts: 3783 | From somewhere other than here | Registered: May 2005
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CaliforniaLyme
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This mite just be what's itching you
By James Janega | Tribune staff reporter August 15, 2007
The mystery nibblers have interrupted a pool party in Bolingbrook and picnics at Ravinia. They've been blamed for itchy splotches from western Kane County to Michigan vacation grounds. They've attacked in Willow Springs, Chicago Heights and La Grange.
Nobody knows exactly what's causing the rash of rashes, but authorities think they've got a good idea of what they're dealing with, anyway -- and they warn that it's likely something small, invasive and really annoying.
Biting mites.
"We don't have positive identification on the type of mite that it is. We do know that it is a mite," said Kitty Loewy, spokeswoman for the Cook County Department of Public Health.
Scientists haven't been able to catch one yet -- they are incredibly small -- but the belief that mites have invaded Illinois is based on the telltale rash that develops after the bites.
Experts say the suspected mite probably is new to the area, joining a rogues' gallery of gnawing, invasive bugs that include the Asian tiger mosquito and the Asian ladybird beetle, all recent and probably permanent residents thanks to an increasingly interconnected world of shipping and transportation.
It will take at least another day to be sure, however. On Tuesday, authorities peered at dozens of sticky traps left overnight in forest preserves, golf courses and private wooded land, but had no luck at catching and identifying the exact mite in question. More traps were set out Tuesday night.
Still, investigators seemed to be narrowing in on an invasive variety of itch mite from Europe -- the oak leaf gall mite, Pyemotes herfsi -- a close relative of the straw itch mite. It feeds on midge larvae in oak trees, but happily falls onto unsuspecting people passing by when it runs out of food. It can blow in the wind and land far away. On people, it probes and chews and causes powerfully itchy reactions to a potent toxin in its saliva.
It was last seen in Kansas in 2004, where it appeared in equally mysterious and sudden circumstances. People there still have the heebie-jeebies.
Mites are tiny critters that make up one of nature's most diverse groups. They are more closely related to spiders than insects, squeezing into untold ecological niches, where they thrive because of their diminutive size. They're so small they aren't noticed until too late.
More a public nuisance than a public health threat, the current mystery mite apparently arrived in the Chicago area sometime in recent weeks. Residents here have seen the worst it has to offer -- a rash of irritating wounds that last for days and spread in angry red profusion on exposed necks, shoulders, arms and backs.
In frustration this weekend, they sat scratching in area emergency rooms and neighborhood pharmacies, seeking relief. The medical world responded with tubes of hydrocortisone cream, antihistamine tablets and advice about bug repellent.
"I'm itching every way, and the medicine isn't helping," lamented Lydia Armalas of Western Springs, who suspects the bug attacked her and her husband as they trimmed an evergreen tree in their back yard. "My worry is whether I can go outside again. Or do I have to stay inside all summer?"
"I can't stay inside," she said. "I live outside."
As investigators continued trying to capture and identify the offender, Cook County public health officials released data Tuesday afternoon that showed at least 288 cases of suspicious rashes reported in suburban Cook County since Aug. 1. More have been reported elsewhere, state officials said.
The reports seemed to peak Sunday, when more than 50 cases were noted in Cook County and in ZIP codes from Island Lake near the far northwest suburban border with Wisconsin to south suburban Will County, bordering Indiana.
Since the outbreak began, the most reported cases -- 27 -- came from Chicago Heights, followed by 18 cases in Streamwood and 17 cases in Palatine, according to Cook County data broken down by ZIP code. More than two dozen ZIP codes throughout the suburbs and Chicago have been affected.
It was clear there was a mild epidemic as early as Friday, when emergency room doctors started trading notes about a strange irritation with an eerie resemblance to the Lyme disease rash that develops around infected tick bites. A few patients got preventive doses of antibiotics to be safe.
By the time Dr. George Tsoutsias arrived for his shift Saturday in the Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital emergency room, he said, more than a dozen people a day had been lining up to be treated, comparing symptoms before they saw doctors and sharing a growing sense of worry.
"Patients were actually comparing their lesions out in the waiting room," Tsoutsias said. He saw 18 cases on Saturday and another 13 cases Sunday.
Though the wounds seemed like infected tick bites, there were too many of them, prompting doctors to seek advice from public health officials and more information from patients.
Increasingly, the culprit seemed to be biting mites.
The little that is known about the chief suspect in this case comes from the lower Midwest, where bites of a similar nature first sprouted up in northern Kansas in 1994.
A full-blown outbreak enveloped eastern Kansas and Nebraska in 2004, and other reports of similar bites followed, reaching as far as Missouri, central Texas, and western Kentucky. The culprit in the Kansas outbreak and the main suspect in the others was the oak leaf gall mite.
For the last three years, scientists in Kansas and Nebraska have studied its life cycle and behavior, said James A. Kalisch, an entomologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
It seems to emerge and thrive from late summer until early winter. The mite uses a powerful neurotoxin in its saliva to paralyze and kill soft-skinned critters as large as caterpillars. To humans, the bites aren't toxic, but they are devilishly itchy -- something Kalisch discovered after dabbing some mites into the damp crook of his arm to see what would happen.
Within 24 hours, he said, it grew itchy, then slightly painful, as if bruised. He got a mild fever and a tinge of headache. The worst of it took four days to develop and more than a week to blow over.
Nowadays, people in Kansas and Nebraska blame the mites for random itching even in years when the mite populations don't seem to be healthy, Kalisch said. Scientists still aren't sure what else the oak leaf gall mite eats or how it is spreading. Or if it is spreading.
Whatever its origin, the Chicago area's mystery biter came out of nowhere and did its worst on a delightful late-summer weekend of pleasant breezes and falling temperatures.
In Bolingbrook on Sunday, it surreptitiously joined 51-year-old Tim McClelland and his wife as they hosted one of their regular summer pool parties. Ten neighbors splashed in the pool from midafternoon until dinner time, then sat on patio furniture to eat grilled burgers and hot dogs before a backdrop of swaying hardwood trees.
It was a good time, but didn't become really memorable until Monday morning.
"Our neighbors that were at the party, she and her daughter had similar bites and were wondering what was going on," McClelland said. "It was kind of unusual because we had the same bite marks."
"Everyone else had the same bite marks," he learned a few phone calls later. "We were prime for the pickin'. Dinner was on us."
Since Monday, the Bolingbrook friends have been concentrating on trying not to scratch, he said.
And as he looks at the woods behind his house, Tim McClelland swears the once-lovely trees stare back at him with a new kind of menace.
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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treepatrol
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-------------------- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Remember Iam not a Doctor Just someone struggling like you with Tick Borne Diseases.
But being you have barn I would think Tick? or mites. I would get the animals out and have them doused with a good insectiside and the barn fumigated but cover there food sourses.
-------------------- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Remember Iam not a Doctor Just someone struggling like you with Tick Borne Diseases.
-------------------- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Remember Iam not a Doctor Just someone struggling like you with Tick Borne Diseases.
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