A Mite Story With a Happy Ending.

Everyone who has suffered from bird or rodent mites knows the distress and agony that one goes through. These mites infest the person, clothes, bed, carpets, cars, work places, and homes entirely and are extremely difficult to eradicate. In addition to this, the scientific community often prefers not to research the matter further and because the issue is unfamiliar, they allow the people to suffer and cope on their own. The person feels isolation due to avoiding friends and family so as not to infest them and also from the fact that while this disease is common, it is still quite unknown and poorly understood by society at large.

This brings me to the tale of a young mother of two children and the wife of a minister. She lived happily in a Northern Virginia town, attending to her children's needs and assisting her husband in any matter that needed her attention.

Then, one day, she began receiving bites and a crawling sensation. No one else in the family felt these sensations, but her loving husband believed her. This crawling was intense and went all around her body, in her hair, back, legs, and arms. They researched the condition on the internet and did everything they could to stop it. They were convinced it was bird or rodent mites, although they were not entirely sure.

The young couple decided not to talk about what was going on with the children. They didn't want the children to be afraid or too worried. One day, as the mother was taking the curtains off the window as part of the cleaning protocols fighting the unknown and unseen mites, she had the children assist her take down the curtains. It was at that moment that she received confirmation that the mites were real as the children complained that it was as though something had pricked them with pin-like pricks. The curtains were infested with mites and as they took them down they bit the children.

When the woman went to a dermatologist, surprisingly the doctor believed her. He prescribed a lotion that begins with an "L," although the woman does not remember what it was. It was a lotion she could apply daily and it changed the Ph of her skin. She found some relief from this lotion, although now she does not remember the name (not Lindane as Lindane cannot be applied daily and does not change the Ph of skin).

This battle lasted from the beginning of October to the end of December, for three months, and one day the bites and crawling simply ceased.

Since this incident occurred, three other similar mite infestations have occurred in the same area--two are known to have involved rodents.

Considering the time of year, fall, and the fact that only one person in the household suffered from the mites, it was most likely rat mites as infestations by this species of mites are most common in the fall and winter and are known to affect only one or a couple people in a household--most likely through pheromone communications that allow large numbers of mites to communicate concerning a chosen host.

While this mite invasion was likely due to an animal abandoning its nest as it did stop on its own, many other people suffer from rodent and bird mites as the host animal is still present and many others have discovered that not only are the mites difficult to eradicate, they can use a human as a host for extended periods of time--perhaps even reproducing off of humans (while scientists deny this can happen a reasonable scientist should at the very least allow for such a possibility, there are many things that are not fully understood in biology and even rare or non-existent cases of disease can appear and become prevalent--simply denying that something can happen and refusing to research or study some phenomenon is not responsible science, it could be called laziness or arrogance).