Tuesday, April 10, 2012

I is for itchy

I used to know who my enemies in the bug world were.  Blackflies, bees, wasps, hornets, mosquitoes.

I've had to add a few in the past couple of years.  Cockroaches, red ants, termites, bok-bok, mosquitoes that actually carry diseases like dengue and malaria, and unknown bugs with big mouths.  

Sometimes when I wake Miss Muffet up in the morning her little legs look like this with big red bites all over them:



Sometimes it happens to us too, but we don't know what causes it.  The bites are different than a mosquito bite.  A thorough investigation of the bed doesn't lead us anywhere.  We can't find any sign of anything.

When Filipinos see the spots they say it is caused by "surot."  They say it is a little bug too small to see but that it leaves marks like that and is very itchy.  The remedy, apparently, is to sun the mattress outside, which is all fine and dandy if your mattress isn't too big.

Usually I just change the sheets and, if it is Miss Muffet who is getting chewed, I wipe down the walls of her crib.  Then we wait for another few weeks until we wake up with more bites.

These are some of our itch weapons, but sadly I don't really use any of these on our baby so she just has to deal with the itch from the terrible, invisible bug.


Maybe someone has some ideas on how to combat invisible bugs and how to ease the itchiness for a baby?

6 comments:

Java with the Johnsons said...

laughing....cuz our I is for insects. :)

Jean said...

You can try bathing Miss Muffet in an oatmeal solution. Instead of buying Aveeno I just put some oatmeal in the blender and ground it up finer and then put some in the bath water. Let the film remain on the skin after the bath. Andrew says it works for a while. I doubt if the oatmeal film could hurt Miss Muffet if she took to licking her skin.

Bill Davis said...

Poor baby. "Surot" is "bedbug," but those should normally be visible if you really are looking for them. If no one else is getting them, it's probably something in the bed, rather than airborne (like the niknik gnats, etc.) or throughout the house (like little biting ants).

Dennis and Valerie said...

Brooke- that is so funny! I hadn't checked your blog yet... great minds think alike! haha!

Aunt Jean- that's a good idea. Maybe I'll try that next time she has bites on her.

Bill- I didn't know that translated to bedbug. Happily, I'm pretty sure it isn't real bedbugs since they are pretty obvious and leave lots of evidence on the sheets. Must be little ants or something, but whatever it is, we cannot find it.

MynameisEarl said...

Or you could get some little baby pajamas for her for good measure. I had that when I first came back from the UK to the Philippines. The room that was given to me by my grandparents wasn't used for a while and neither were the sheets so who know what could be living under there.

True to it's mystery I got a few red bites the following days. I was suggested to wear pajamas and change all of the sheets. Plus I used some 'Off' lotion before bed, didn't get any more bites the following days.

So yeah, pajamas and a change of sheets should also help - unless you've done that already.

Quasi51 said...

Hey Val,
This is Lori Anderson. We had a lot of bites too. I made a paste out of baking soda and water. Really helped me. Thinking about you guys often