How To ID Mites?

[Guest guest]

I can't figure out exactly what I've got going on here. At first, I

thought it was fleas from a stray cat that was here a few days. Well,

I got rid of the fleas easily enough. But I kept itching in places

fleas don't generally visit. Then I thought it might be scabies. But I

have no burrows. Mostly, I have lots of crawling sensations all over

my body and pinprick bites, and annoying itching where my clothes fit

tight. Sometimes the bites are more piercing. I have them crawling in

my nose, ears and eyes. They're on my scalp, too.

A few months into the infestation, I suspected birdmites, as I found

some dead chicks and abandoned nests near the roof.

I went to the doctor and the idiot couldn't find anything with a skin

scrapping on my face. she had never even heard of bird mites, but she

didn't think it was scabies either.

It gets worse after a bath. Today, I took a long bath with olive oil

and epsom salts. About an hour later I had increased crawlies,

especially on my face and around my eyes. Do baths drive them to the

face, or wake up the eggs/larvae? Why don't they drown in baths?

I can't see anything with the naked eye, or even with a spy glass. How

do I catch these buggers for an ID? What mite do you think this is? If

it's a wild bird mite, what would it look like?

[Guest guest]

Hi buggeredbymites,

I got my bird mites from my cat, who got them from sleeping in

abandoned chicken nests on my mother's property. She was babysitting

him for a week and he slept in the dirt most of the time and got

infested. When I brought him home, I had no idea he was infested with

poultry mites and when I felt bugs and started to get bites, I thought

they were fleas too. I wasted several weeks trying to kill fleas, not

knowing I had mites. By the time I figured it out, my home and my

body were both badly infested.

I never got my mites identified. Due to the circumstances, I'm pretty

sure they were poultry mites. The bites were piercing, like yours.

My two cats got bit by them too, and would sometimes jump up in the

air or jump up from sleeping when they got bit.

It was a slow learning process for me. I had to learn not to use

infested towels to dry myself after a shower, because I was constantly

reinfesting my self with my bath towels. I started using a hair dryer

to dry myself off, then switched to micro fiber kitchen towels as bath

towels. I had to learn how to do laundry in such a way to kill most

of the mites, however my clothes were so badly infested after a few

months that I ended up throwing out everything except my polyester and

nylon clothes (which wasn't a big part of my wardrobe) and buying

polyester clothes, which do not infest.

I have heard that the mites will float on the bathwater, and when you

get out of the bath they will still be on your skin. It's a good idea

to shower and sanitize the bath tub before you bathe. Sanitize the

tub after the bath too, and don't leave any splashed water. Squeegie

it and wipe it away. It's also a good idea to pour something down the

drain to kill anything in there. I use Orange Guard in the drain,

others use bleach and other things I cannot recall.

I have heard of people collecting specimens of the mites by spraying

rubbing alcohol on their sheets as soon as they get up in the morning,

and then collecting the dead mites on a clear piece of packing tape.

I think Tim also has a procedure for collecting specimens on his

website. http://birdmites.org/strategies.html It's in one of the

blue boxes further down the page.

myrtle

>

> I can't figure out exactly what I've got going on here. At first, I

> thought it was fleas from a stray cat that was here a few days. Well,

> I got rid of the fleas easily enough. But I kept itching in places

> fleas don't generally visit. Then I thought it might be scabies. But I

> have no burrows. Mostly, I have lots of crawling sensations all over

> my body and pinprick bites, and annoying itching where my clothes fit

> tight. Sometimes the bites are more piercing. I have them crawling in

> my nose, ears and eyes. They're on my scalp, too.

>

> A few months into the infestation, I suspected birdmites, as I found

> some dead chicks and abandoned nests near the roof.

>

> I went to the doctor and the idiot couldn't find anything with a skin

> scrapping on my face. she had never even heard of bird mites, but she

> didn't think it was scabies either.

>

> It gets worse after a bath. Today, I took a long bath with olive oil

> and epsom salts. About an hour later I had increased crawlies,

> especially on my face and around my eyes. Do baths drive them to the

> face, or wake up the eggs/larvae? Why don't they drown in baths?

>

> I can't see anything with the naked eye, or even with a spy glass. How

> do I catch these buggers for an ID? What mite do you think this is? If

> it's a wild bird mite, what would it look like?

>