When I was a kid growing up in Southern Indiana, I spent a good deal of time running around in the woods.  There I was attacked mostly by ticks and poison ivy.  Ticks were a minor problem, (that was before the infestation of the tiny ticks that now call Indiana home and can cause lyme disease).  I did have a lot of pretty nasty bouts with poison ivy as a child.

    I seemed to be very sensitive to poison ivy, and would often rub my ankles raw trying to relieve the terrible itching caused by the plant.  I remember Dennis, one boyhood friend, who came to church one Sunday, with his faces very puffed up and swollen.  When I asked him what happened, he said someone had told him that if he ate a poison ivy leaf, he would become immune to the plant.  That’s what he had done, with pretty terrible results, I never did find out if he was immune to poison ivy afterwards, but if it was a “cure”, it was one I was never willing to try.

    The chigger, a microscopic spider mite, was another pest that lived in the woods.  I remember when we would go out to pick blackberries, we would sometimes dust with sulphur powder around our wrists to prevent chiggers from biting and causing the very itchy bumps.  While I am sure I received many chigger bites as a child, I don’t remember them with the same agony, as I do the poison ivy.

    Now, it seems something has changed.  In the trips I have taken to Indiana over the last few years, I generally spend some time exploring the family forests, and later, I have been tormented with very itch bumps around my ankles.  I suspected it might be chiggers because it was more like a bump than a rash.

    When I returned to BC, my doctor, who grew up in Iowa, confirmed my suspicion.  I was surprised chiggers were still around in the fall, but he said they were until they were killed by a heavy frost.

    The photo shows the bites I got on my ankle, and if you are grossed out by the photo, feel fortunate.  The photo shows bumps that are healing.  I spared you the photo of what they looked like when they were really inflamed and tormenting me. 

    I was saddened to remember how our dog Mac used to chew around on his legs during and after a trip to Indiana.  We thought he had some kind of rash or that being stressed out was causing skin irritation.  Now I know he probably was suffering from chigger bites just like I was.

    I guess chiggers don’t really bite, they just inject a enzyme into you skin which starts to dissolve the skin.  Its this dissolved skin that they eat.  When you start scratching, they may well have already disappeared, it is the damaged skin that continues to itch. 

    Hopefully, now that I know how vulnerable I now am to chiggers, I will be a bit more prepared next time I venture out into the Indiana woods.