Thug Bugs

[buggedout]

I've recently contracted an infestation of bugs that look like flakes of salt or pepper. they are barely visable at first but bite right away.  They behave like fleas in the sense that they jump and pop between my finger nails when I kill them.  In their adult stage they look like a cross between friut flies and mosquitos.  I went to see several docors and dermatologists about this problem.  One doctor told me it was scabies, another told me it might be fleas, although they refused to actually look at the bugs to be sure of what they were.  One doctor told me to go home, take a bath, and hire someone to clean my house.  She reccomended a phsyciatrist and proceeded to ask me if I was on drugs.  None of the above are true in my case.  I have found that cold baths seem to either kill or paralyze them.  I clean the floors with a rag and cold water regularly.  I also clean the counter tops the same way.  air conditioning (the colder the better) seems to kill or paralyze them as well.  I wash my clothes and bedding in cold water every day.  The mattresses and furniture are wrapped in plastic and completely sealed in packing tape and I wipe them completely down with cold water everyday.  This has been a nightmare for me.  Its cost me a small fortune to buy natural and chemical remedies that don't work.  I hardly sleep.  I hardly eat and I spend the entirtey of my day hunting the bugs down.  I've read on the net that applecider vinager may help.  You mix 3/4 applecider vinigar with 1/4 water and spray everything down with it.  I take about three cold baths a day.  They only seem to like me.  They multiply rapidly.  On me they seem to prefer living under my fingernails, bottoms of my feet, in between my toes, in my genitals.  They don't bite me in those places though.  They like to bite me mostly on my arms and legs, cheeks and back.  Prior to the cold baths, I used to feel them crawling in my ears, on my head and on my eyelashes, feet and genitals.  Don't listen those negative responders.  I've seen them and I know they are real.

                                       good luck


This discussion is related to I definitely have some sort of bug/mite/flea infestation..

[jharry]

It sounds as if you might have an itch mite problem.I've found the key to ending this problem is sulfur.  Sulfur has a low toxicity and it kills mites.  Combine sulfur with other treatments, for example permithrin, ivermectin. I use an 10 percent sulfur with mineral oil solution to combat mites. It stops the itching and helps heal wounds. See Maxim Hurwicz's "Workingsheet for Treating and Curing Scabies" for a thorough explanation.

[CIMKO]

Also want to report that I live in Los Angeles where there is not extreme heat or cold which seems to be the only that I have seen so far that gets rid of these things.

[CIMKO]

Amazing...so my family and I have been dealing with the grainy biting bugs for a month now, well infested for a month, after realizing what has been going on we actually have had them for a couple of year but just recently infested.

My family and I have recently gotten into meditation and we all went to the park to meditate outside. After about 40 minutes when we got in the car (which is also infested) we didn't feel one bite! Now I'm not saying that we are rid of them by any means just wanted to mention it.

After finding a small nest of them, instead of vacuuming them up right away, I doused them with a cinnamon/peppermint oil concoction. I checked 24 hours later to see if they were still alive AND THEY WERE!! So either cinnamon and peppermint do kill them or the solution I had was too weak.

We have been getting relief from Tea Tree Oil Shampoo, Conditioner, Lotion and TTO essential oil. Still trying to figure out what KILLS them!

[CherokeeTeddybear]

I read through most of the comments...I have been going through this since 2009 since going on a vacation for 2 weeks, boarding our cat at a vet and thinking that is where these horrible things came from, and having some unknown person camp out in our house while we were away being the stove was coated in a lake of oil when we returned, not to mention other tell tale signs of someone being there, ie missing things, etc. Like most of you know ... it isn't a picnic. I noticed no one mentioned the use of vinegar and a way to control the little critters.  I did get the little buggers under control (I actually thought they were gone it was that nice) but we went on a trip to see my grand son graduate and we were gone for a week and all I can say now is "THEY'RE BACK'. I can always tell by the sticky webby feel I get when walking across the carpet. Now to see if I can remember what all I did to get rid of them or control them. I know we went through 3 steam type carpet shampooers, what seems like a million gallons of vinegar.(Costco sells it cheap, 2 gals. for 3 dollars plus....windex didn't work, besides I questioned the safety of using it around my dogs...I ruined one steam cleaner using straight vinegar in it (it rusts the metal parts-I should have run plain water though it before putting it away)...we put in new carpet (that was laid out in the street to cut ) and I didn't care what happened to the carpet as I know vinegar will weaken the fibers...anything was better then these bugs...it worked...and then I would spray the carpet daily with a light misting of vinegar....all clothes are washed in super hot water with vinegar in the bleach receptacle and also used in the rinse cycle.  I found a body wash with tea tree oil in it and it seems to work well..I'd rinse off followed with a spray of vinegar before finding that body wash....and the alcohol sprayer was a god send when getting into bed...spray the legs and feet and also the sheets (as it evaporates) The dogs get 2 baths a week with a shampoo with tea tree oil in it...just glad I have medium sized dogs as it is not safe for many small dogs. After reading one persons comments about working in a shelter and having a similar problem I wonder if my housemate isn't part of  the problem. When I do his laundry I itch for days afterwards. This week I came in and immediately washed down with the tea tree body wash and the itch only lasted a day. Now to work on that. The mattresses and box springs are still encased in plastic. I fogged the house to bring them to the surface of the carpets before shampooing with a vinegar solution..going to try 50/50 this time as I'm using a new shampooer. The carpets already feel like 'dried snot' is on them and they are damp feeling so it is time to shampoo. Just hope it works...now to go mop floors with vinegar as well.

[allbubbles]

I believe yo

[Normanred]

I have some strange symptoms related to what you are talking about. The fibers are all around. Besides the itching and black specks, do any of you have sleeping issues, tinnitus, long thin white hairs growing out of random places.

Also, do any of you with children notice cognitive problems with your child? ADD ADHD autism, or memory problems. These may progress quite slowly so it may just seem natural.

I have many of your symptoms and more ridiculous ones. I am lucky to get 4 hours of sleep a night for the 9 months I have had this. My brain is always in a complete fog.

Whatever it is, it is real. I think the physical evidence that everyone is seeing very much the same thing while experiencing the other symptoms is a point to think about. How can I have the same physical artifacts ( black specks, white hard grains on skin, fibers in skin - urine - or feces as someone who lives in Germany, the UK, Canada, US and while experiencing many of the other symptoms. Psychological explanation to this conditions are about as helpful as the Inquisition telling you are possessed by demons. I think it has been going on for a long time.  If you look back on historical accounts of skin/neurological conditions even those stories hold close to what some are experiencing today. I am an atheist, which means I am really screwed but I found the punishment of Deuterotomy to match many of our symptoms. This does not mean I believe god could be punishing us but I do think some people back in those days suffered from a similar syndrome.

The difference today is that the internet has allowed us to connect and share our stories with each other. As soon as we do this, some psychologist states that it must part of some internet meme where we all read something start getting itchy then start seeing things....etc. The only flaw in this argument is that most of us started getting itchy, started seeing  things, started suffering other unusual symptoms --- went to many health care practitioners well before we went to the internet to search for our conditions.

For what it is worth --- none of you are crazy. However, the sad part of this illness is for many it does affect the mind causing unusual mood changes and noticeable neurological effect. It does seem to be contagious but the contact has to be prolonged and effects may not surface for many years to come. This means your children most likely will contract it. It also seems clear that the condition is not the result of something modern science can test for. Fungi, virus, bacteria, protozoan infections do not fit the build. Interesting though that some of the people who get this sickness have had some kind of infection in the past that they have tested positive for.

I hope all of you can find some relief. The best you can hope for is to mask the symptoms but the condition will always be there. If you have a chance to see the Mary Leito video interview from ABC, I would find it hard for any person to not think some very strange happened to that family. A true horror.