{"id":3634,"date":"2010-07-27T05:02:47","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T10:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/?p=3634"},"modified":"2021-09-12T10:10:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T15:10:36","slug":"bedbugs-and-a-ps-on-ticks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/27\/bedbugs-and-a-ps-on-ticks","title":{"rendered":"Bedbugs! (and a PS on Ticks)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I could sense anxiety in her e mail: These\u2026things\u2026on my skin. I don\u2019t know what they are. Red itchy blistery things. They just appeared. Because they\u2019re all in a line up my leg, a friend said she thought it might be shingles and to contact you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the e-mail came with no photo, I couldn\u2019t actually see what she was worried about. And because all crises seem to occur on Saturday evenings, I suggested she stop by on Monday. On Sunday, she wrote again that the lesions had spread to the other leg, with a few on her tummy. And the itching was driving her crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This spreading completely eliminated shingles as a diagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I finally saw her skin on Monday, I had to break the news that these were bedbug bites. She blanched. \u201cBedbugs?!\u201d I knew without asking that she thought her tenth-floor apartment on Lake Shore Drive, already adequately protecting her from roving gangs of lumpenproletariat <\/strong><\/em><\/a>seeking to cross class barriers, should also be adequate against bedbugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bedbugs, however, are astonishingly democratic. Manhattan hotels are filled with them. The four monolithic Presidential Towers west of Chicago\u2019s Loop are packed with young attorneys, stockbrokers\u2026and bedbugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny foreign travel?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, though my husband does travel around Europe. Be he only stays at good hotels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think he may have inadvertently brought you some souvenirs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut my husband doesn\u2019t have any bites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is definitely unfair. Some people simply aren\u2019t allergic to the toxin bedbugs inject into the skin. They get bitten and nothing happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s an epidemic of bedbugs in the US these days, many of them likely brought home in the suitcases of people who have been traveling abroad. Here at home, one study traces bedbugs to workers in immense poultry processing plants<\/strong><\/em><\/a> carrying them in their clothes to urban areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bedbug habits<\/strong>
Bedbugs gravitate to the warmth and smell of humans (fresh blood!), making their homes in mattresses, cushions, and stored clothing. They look like small beetles. Once, when I was on a boat somewhere in China, I awakened with a line of incredibly itchy bites–far itchier than mosquito bites–and, like my patient, thought I had shingles. \u201cBoat beetles,\u201d said the guide, his accent straight from \u201cTerry and the Pirates\u201d. \u201cYou\u2019ve been attacked by boat beetles.\u201d Weeks later, I realized these were bedbug bites. Fortunately, I didn\u2019t bring home any souvenirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bedbugs get hungry generally just before dawn when you\u2019re still asleep, climb aboard, and travel to where you\u2019re warmest. When ready to eat, they pierce your skin with two hollow tubes, one to inject a toxin that acts like a blood thinner, the second to suck enough blood to engorge themselves. Sometimes they\u2019ll pause and bite two or three times, referred to as \u201cbreakfast-lunch-dinner\u201d bites. The bites and the toxins don\u2019t pose any health risks but (speaking from experience) lying in bed waiting for the march of the bedbugs can definitely interfere with sound sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a short film about bedbugs. If you think you\u2019re feeling a little itchy somewhere on your body just by reading this health tip, wait \u2018til you see this<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you\u2019re bitten, any good over-the-counter anti-itch cream (usually containing some cortisone, wintergreen, or Benadryl) will ease your discomfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting rid of bedbugs is another thing altogether. The only chemical that wipes them out (and which almost completely eliminated them altogether) is DDT, now banned. Most of the pesticides used by exterminators kill roaches and other pests, but bedbugs are immune. At least exterminators are good at finding bedbug nests, especially when they use specially trained dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve got bedbugs, there are three basic steps to take:<\/strong>
1. Buy a mattress bag to encase your mattress.
2. Get out your vacuum cleaner and thoroughly clean your house.
3. Call an exterminator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, and if you happen to be one of these people who are attracted to great looking furniture that someone just happened to throw out, resist the temptation. It might be sitting at the curb because of\u2026bedbugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P.S. on Lyme Disease<\/strong>
I\u2019d very much like to thank one of my patients for correcting my naivet\u00e9 about Chicago being relatively safe from deer ticks. Now that you\u2019re feeling itchy about bedbugs, in actual fact deer ticks are quite prevalent in the Chicago area. I\u2019ll let my patient speak to you directly here, and while privacy issues preclude me from identifying her, please know that I\u2019ve thanked her. Also: click here<\/strong><\/em><\/a> for more on how to protect yourself from ticks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your health tip on Lyme disease<\/strong><\/em><\/a> might give people who live in the Chicago metro region a false sense of security. Both deer ticks and deer ticks carrying the Lyme disease-causing organism are very much present in the Chicago area, including the city itself. They\u2019re a threat to anyone who ventures into tick habitat, including the urban parkway along the North Branch of the Chicago River, where ticks are routinely found, and the dunes in Lake County (Waukegan Beach and Illinois Beach State Park are major deer tick habitats).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/strong><\/em><\/a> for a 2009 Illinois Natural History Survey report on deer ticks in the greater Chicago area and here<\/strong><\/em><\/a> for another report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution is to be vigilant and use adequate tick prevention measures before hiking or working in these areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I do part-time contract work outdoors as a field botanist, I’m very aware of this myself. My preference for tick prevention, when I have to work in an area I know has a large deer tick population, is a product called Permanone (synthetic permethrin spray, used to treat clothing the night before\u2014not the skin), which for me works far better than DEET. For your highly chemically sensitive patients, it and DEET probably aren’t options, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People should also know that juvenile deer ticks are extremely tiny and can be easily missed even with close inspection. Also, there are at least occasional cases of Lyme disease in dogs contracted in the immediate Chicago area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I could sense anxiety in her e mail: These\u2026things\u2026on my skin. I don\u2019t know what they are. Red itchy blistery things. They just appeared. Because they\u2019re all in a line up my leg, a friend said she thought it might be shingles and to contact you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2087,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,2,531,130,3,314],"tags":[1183,1184],"class_list":["post-3634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b","category-blog","category-case-studies","category-integrative-medicine","category-knowledge-base","category-l","tag-bed-bugs","tag-ticks"],"yoast_head":"\r\nBedbugs! (and a PS on Ticks)<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is definitely unfair. Some people simply aren\u2019t allergic to the toxin bedbugs inject into the skin. 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