Fleas,Lice,& Bedbugs

[Cpo1944]

I had to treat a poor 73 year old woman in the hospital a few days ago with all of the above critters.
I wore all of the protective garments etc and observed all precautions & have showered a zillion times and scrubbed off half of my skin.
SO WHY AM I STILL ITCHING !!!!!!

 

[Rustyt1953]

I have learned all I ever want to know about bedbugs as I went through that nightmare.

Like you, Ruthie works in a hospital that frequently admits patients with head lice and bedbugs in their clothing.

She will stay in "creepy-crawly defcon 1" for days.

 

[BigBill]

I went fishing and the edge of the water was sandy. When it got dark the fleas bit me. I went home took a shower and washed my clothes. I went looking at a trailer a modular home for my camp. Getting bit again. Wash everything again.
I fear traveling because of bed bugs.

 

[DeathGrip]

Scabies maybe?

My Dad got them and they misdiagnosed it as Grover's disease. He got real bad to the point of septicemia. I'm pretty sure it was his final straw.

Guess who got it next? My skin doctor knew what they were as soon as he saw it.

 

[J.R.Bauer]

Put ammonia in your wash it will kill them.
John

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Cpo1944]

I know I`m clean its just ,
Psychosomatic!
At least that is what I keep telling myself.
I sure hope I don't have to go back to see her again!

 

[Stevens]

Chigger bites are the worst bug bites I've experienced but they aren't common around here.
Steve W

 

[Comrad]

Sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite.

 

[BigBoy99]

Sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite.

This is a reference to when beds were made of rope. The bed ropes had to be tightened each night before you went t to bed. You wanted to sleep in a bed with tight ropes, hence "sleep tight." And back when rope beds were in vogue, insects were rampant so one would expect to get bitten by bed bugs.

 

[muddocktor]

I know the feeling, Cpo1944. I work on drilling rigs, mostly offshore and have been out there twice when someone came out with the crabs. Even though they weren't in my room on the rig, I felt all itchy the whole hitch out there after the guy discovered he had crabs. The first time wasn't too bad, as nobody else caught them. But the second time, the guy shared them with the other 3 fellows in his room and they had to call the exterminator to the rig. They sprayed down all the rooms, sprayed down all the linen and blankets on the rig and then washed them and everyone had to take a shower with crab shampoo. And everyone, and I mean everyone out there went around for the rest of the hitch scratching themselves even though the problem had been taken care of.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

My last maintenance job was in mentally ill/low income housing, The men on my team had a signal to let you know of the presence of bed bugs. They would raise their hand to mid chest and slowly scratch about a half inch out from the body.

The company's annual extermination budget went from $75,000 to $400,000 in the last two years I worked there. There was so much bedbug spraying going on, that roaches were almost unheard of. (didn't seem to affect the spider populations at all!)

As a step toward keeping from spreading the pests to our homes, we would take abandoned electric dryers, and hook them up in storage rooms we had all over town. Slip in, strip, tumble dry on high for 15 minutes, and you were ready to go. When I left we had 20 or so dryers, that I knew of, there were most likely 10 to 15 more.

Ivan

 

[woodsltc]

Same thing happens to me if I find a "tick" on me.......I feel things crawling on me for the next day or two.

Don

 

[Cpo1944]

I wonder how much extra money that Patient cost the hospital to decontaminate and clean up. She came in to the ER with a broken back, then up to an in-patient room, then to pre-op, surgery, post-op, another in-patient room. Then there were her family members/poor care givers contaminating everything they came into contact with when they came to visit her.
It goes on and on What a Mess!!!
And I`m still scratching!

 

[BigBill]

Had a tick on my arm once running in circles looking for a spot to bite got him just in time. Gave him the flush(toilet). Now after flushing so many ticks I have visions of my septic tank spewing out big ticks. Lmao

Not too bad with tics this year the wild turkeys and there brood are here twice a day eating corn and bird seed plus ticks too.

 

[jag312]

This brought back so many memories of my first few years in law enforcement. No bed bugs, but it was common for a certain class of people to be infested with fleas and lice. There were a couple of people with things crawling on them that weren't fleas, lice, or bedbugs, but I'll be damned if I knew what they were. There was a real problem keeping the county jail from getting infested. The booking procedure involved disinfecting these people and their clothes. Now you have me itching just thinking about it. I'm going to nightmares tonight just remembering about the lice crawling all over these people and their clothes. Disgusting.

 

[SW MP15]

But, I thought everyone liked pets?

 

[BigBill]

But, I thought everyone liked pets?

No problem with pets we take care of them no fleas or ticks here.
No lice or bed bugs too. We do gun maintence so why not do pet maintence too.

 

[shouldazagged]

Many years ago I had a patient, a cute little stripper who was just as country as they make them, basically a nice kid who was trying very hard to stay off of drugs.

She was faithful about keeping her appointments; but one week she called in and told our receptionist she couldn't come in because she was having cramps. Maggie, the receptionist, was a tough little Irish lady who had raised eight kids, and she made no secret of her opinion that cramps were not a sufficient excuse.

Later, however, the girl called and said a doctor had given her some medicine and she would be in after all.

She arrived and sat down in my office, chatting away about her week--and I suddenly realized she hadn't said she had cramps, she had said she had crabs.

Instantly I began to itch. It was all I could do to get through the hour without scratching vigorously and inappropriately.

When she left, housekeeping staff sprayed my office, but I itched the rest of the day. The power of suggestion...

 

[k22fan]

Most of us only have the problem of pets bringing in fleas. Historically most winters here have been cold enough to kill at least the adult fleas outside. Unfortunately we did not get a hard freeze last winter. Despite regular treatment with Frontline flea drops and flea baths the dog's fleas got out of control to the point where I took her to the vet. The vet said there is a big problem with fleas that are immune to Frontline. They obviously are also immune to Hartz shampoo. This is the old flaw with vaccinations and the like. The tiny number of bugs that are immune to the insecticide reproduce to refill the available habitat and become the predominant bug. The vet prescribed chew-able monthly tablets that are even more expensive than Frontline drops. Of course I had to spray the carpets.

Before flea drops displaced flea collars on the market I never had a good old flea collar fail to do the job. Now I can not find one.

 

[italiansport]

I had problems with a different pest way back when I was in college and spent one Spring and part of Summer installing boat piers on lakes in the MidWest. The problem was leeches which you couldn't avoid since we spent a lot of time mucking around in the mud near shore. Sometimes you'd come out with a half dozen on you. We used to remove them by holding a just extinguished match to their back sides as this would cause them to back out. A disgusting but necessary thing that went with the job.
Jim