On 29 Jun 1995, Kathleen Anderson wrote:
> A friend returned from Mexican beach resort in March, and since then has
> had persistent pruritis that's been dx'd as fleabite allergy. However,
> the doc admits that itching severe enough to awaken the person from a
> sound sleep (after 2-3 hours sleep) every single night is considered
> quite unsual for this diagnosis. I suspected chiggers, since the itching
> greatly increases in severity in the evenings, but the doc has done
> "scrapings" to rule this out. Approximately 150 foci ("flea" bites) have
> been counted.
Have you considered "swimmer's itch" which is the result of
percutaneous penetration by cercaria of non-human schistosomes. These
would superficially resemble a "good" case of chiggers and appear as
discrete foci of inflamation, each focus being the location of a single
cercaria. Good luck, and let us know the outcome of the diagnosis,
treatment, etc..
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* Charles T. Faulkner * Get your facts first and then you
* Univ of Tennessee, Knoxville * can distort them as much as you please.
* (ctfaulkn at utkvx.utk.edu) * Mark Twain
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