Got The Itch?

By Jeff Berti
Got an itch? It might not be what you think. Step aside, ticks. Move over, poison ivy. Get out of the way, mosquitoes. You may have thought those were the chief causes of summer itching, but nothing generates more irritation than the chigger.
Chiggers are more than a periodic annoyance. Some folks will have little red welts somewhere on their bodies all summer. From early May until October, many people will have at least one chigger bite they can’t keep from scratching.
The itching caused by chiggers is well known, but the creature itself isn’t known as well. Chiggers are the larval form of a type of of mite. Chiggers are close relatives of ticks, but are much smaller. They are less than 1/100th of an inch in diameter, making them virtually invisible. People who say they’ve seen a chigger very likely have seen clumps of these tiny creatures. When several chiggers cluster together near an elastic waistband or other snug-fitting area, their bright red color is visible.
Humans are actually accidental hosts for chiggers. The itching reaction skin has to a chigger bite occurs because we are not their proper hosts. Although most North American chiggers feed on mammals, their preferred hosts are reptiles and birds.
There are misconceptions about what a chigger does once it finds itself on a human. Contrary to popular beliefs, chiggers don’t burrow into our skin, and they don’t suck blood. Chiggers attach themselves by inserting specialized mouth parts into the skin, usually at skin pores or hair follicles. A chigger’s piercing mouth parts are short and delicate and can penetrate only thin skin.
It’s not the bite that causes the itch; it’s your skin’s reaction to the chigger’s feeding process.
Here’s what happens: The chigger injects saliva into its host after attaching to the skin. This saliva contains a powerful digestive enzyme that dissolves skin cells. It is this liquefied tissue, not blood that chiggers ingest for food.
A chigger usually goes unnoticed for one to three hours after it starts feeding. After a few hours, your skin reacts by hardening the cells around this saliva path. This eventually forms a hard tubular structure called a stylostome. Your body’s defensive reaction to the stylostome is what irritates and inflames the surrounding tissue and causes the characteristic red welt and intense itch.
The longer the chigger feeds, the deeper the stylostome grows, and the larger the welt will eventually be. The welt does not grow and engulf the chigger. The small red dot seen at the center of a welt is the stylostome, not the chigger’s body.
If undisturbed, chiggers commonly take three or four days and sometimes longer to complete their feeding. In a perfect chigger’s world, the chigger completely gorges itself, then drops off the host and continues to develop to the next stage of its life. On humans, however, chiggers seldom get the chance to finish feeding. They are usually brushed away, scratched off or washed off before they’re finished feeding. A chigger that is removed before it has fully engorged cannot bite again and will eventually die.
The best cure for chiggers is to be proactive. When you come indoors from an outing that had chigger potential, take a warm soapy bath with plenty of scrubbing as soon as possible. Warm, soapy water is all that is necessary to remove chiggers. There is no need to apply kerosene, turpentine, salt, cleaning fluid or any other home remedy that may have been suggested to you by a friend.
Attached chiggers are removed by light rubbing. If you are on a camping trip and are removed from the comfort of your home, frequent rubbings with a moist towel or cloth should keep you chigger free.
Lotions and other types of over-the-counter remedies may provide relief from itching, but no substance is completely effective. Since there is nothing you can do to dislodge the stylostome, which is the true cause of the itching, the ultimate cure is time.