How Do You Prevent and Treat Chigger Bites?
Chiggers are a summertime scourge. Here is helpful advice for how to treat itchy chigger bites, and expert tips for preventing and avoiding these annoying red bugs.
When you’re in the outdoors, you might also want to know how to avoid mosquitoes, ticks, stinging caterpillars and other itchy hazards.
WHAT ARE CHIGGERS?
Red bugs, chiggers, berry bugs, scrub-itch mites and harvest mites are all terms used to describe members of the family of insects known as Trombiculidae. These reddish-orange mites can be found worldwide, but they really enjoy hanging out in damp, grassy and wooded areas, especially at the edges of forests.
In the United States, chiggers are mostly found in the southeast, south and midwest. They are most active from early spring to early autumn, until the first frost.
HOW DO CHIGGERS BITE US?
Chigger larvae infest humans by crawling up our shoes and legs as we make our way through the scrub.
What’s kind of cool is that chiggers do not actually bite us. Likewise, they do not burrow into our skin, and they do not suck our blood. Instead, chiggers use their mouths to drill tiny holes into our skin through which they secrete specialized salivary enzymes designed to break down our skin cells from the inside. Then, the chiggers slurp up the mixture through a tube formed by hardened skin cells called a stylosome.
Basically, it’s like drinking a big “YOU” protein shake!
Your skin does not take too kindly to all of this drilling and parasitic digestion by chiggers. Consequently, humans typically develop intensely itchy, bright red pimple-like bumps or hives or a generalized skin rash in the areas where the mites were attached, even up to 24 to 48 hours after exposure.
Chiggers prefer to attach to skin at areas where the clothing fits tightly against the body, such as at the tops of socks or around the elastic edges of underwear, so a rash in these areas may be a clue to the specific cause.
HOW DO YOU TREAT CHIGGER BITES?
So, what can you do for a chigger bites or rashes? First, forget the old myth of applying fingernail polish to the affected areas. Chiggers do NOT burrow into the skin, so trying to suffocate the chiggers with polish makes no sense at all. Second, chiggers do not lay eggs in the skin, so stop worrying about that.
Chigger bites or wounds are a complex mixture of mechanical damage to the skin (the drilling), enzymatic disruption of the skin (the digestion), and your body’s own attempt to get rid of the parasite. Consequently, the most important thing to do is to prevent chigger infestation.
HOW DO YOU AVOID CHIGGERS?
Avoid camping in warm, moist temperate climates of high mammal density, including livestock pastures, with tall grass.
If the area is infested, get out of there quickly and wash your skin vigorously with soap and water. Itching is best alleviated through the use of topical corticosteroids (either over-the-counter hydrocortisone 1% ointment or prescription strength from your physician) and anti-histamines like Benadryl.
Watch out for severe chigger rashes that can become secondarily infected with bacteria; in these cases, consult a doctor immediately.
Now you know a “mitey” bit more about chiggers than you did before!
Okay…. so do chiggers attach themselves or not? Are they a sort of microscopic tick, then, if they do? And if they are attached, then why would nail polish not work? They are sitting there attached to the skin! This article begs a few questions.
Logic Seeker
Powdered sulfur works, but it’s also toxic. Use a Permethrin-based spray and get your clothes damp, then let them dry. The permethrin will remain and kill chiggers on contact and is safe for humans. You can even soak your clothes in Permethrin and it will remain through several washes.
Once you notice the rash from the chigger bite, the chigger is long gone already. There is nothing you can do to “suffocate” the chigger and kill it because it’s no longer there. All you can do is treat the symptoms. 10 % Hydrocortisone from Wal Mart, $2.50 for a tube. Apply as needed.
Sulfer doesn’t work worth a darn. I believed that fable and used powdered sulfer on shoes and pant legs. Vot really bad case of chiggers. Next time I’m sticking to deep woods off spray. And tuck in the pants legs.
Vinegar. Rinse after bathing. I spray vinegar water on me before I go out.
You have to put the sulfer on the skin under the areas such as socks, waste bands, and bras. Use this all the time and NEVER get chiggers. I also use quite a bit of deet too.
Well sulphur sure worked for me in south Texas. I bought it at the pharmacy in powdered form, dumped it into a sock and “puffed” it on the exterior of my long pants and socks.
I bought a spray from Walmart called Repel and it seems to work for chigger bites.
Thank you very much for your help
Do chiggars come from the Spanish Moss hanging in the trees. We live in Florida and these redbugs are biting our chickens, our dogs, and us when we go outside if chiggars are redbugs, would they not also fall from the trees where the moss is.
They dont burrow into the skin or lay eggs inside the skin. No suffocating needed.
Dusting your ankles and waistband and groin with powdered sulfur, which you can get from your pharmacist, before walking or camping in areas with chiggers, along with tucking the end of your pants legs into your socks, will greatly reduce chigger bites.
chiggers in underwear, you boil clothing with a dash of bleach.. That method will get rid of them best..
People, calm down. Chiggers are the basic stuff. Ticks are the ones you have to worry about.
Simple soap and water will do. They’re bugs, not superbugs.
Let me start by saying I am 42 years old. All my mother used when we were kids was fingernail polish and that is what I still use. It works every time never had it fail me yet.
I’ve used fingernail polish a few times before and it has never worked for me.
Fingernail polish does NOTHING. The chigger is already long gone by the time you notice the welt. All the polish does is remind you not to scratch the area.
When we get a Chigger bite ( can differentiate from mosquito bite by location) it will not quit swelling and itching until nail polish is used, several applications with hair dryer between) I cant believe there is not a culpret inside the bite, because, if the polish doesnt dry fast enough, a Airhole will appear, and more applications are required. Once you get the bug killed, with a few layers, the redness around, snd itching instanly stops!! Thishas been proved to my husband and me, many times!
Use liquid skin
Fingernail polish has never worked for me. two (2) Benadryl and cortisone cream provided my only relief.
Never thought of this. I grew up in the Ozarks and whether they burrow or not, nail polish always worked. I’m going to give liquid skin a try. Thanks!
Can the chiggers get in your bed and on furniture even if you have showered?
Yes. Yes they very much can. They are like any other bug.