Look like bug bites but I don't think they are. Poor dd is really itchy. Any ideas?

[TinkerTailorSoldierLibrarian]

This has been going on for a few weeks. DD is getting what look like insect bites. On her legs, stomach, back, arms etc. Sometimes they appear in clusters (so look like something's got stuck in her sock or waistband) and other times they're spread out. They itch intensely for a couple of days and then fade and disappear.

We thought the hot weather might suggest insect bites and as we have a cat, thought we'd treat it as a possible flea/other infestation too. So we have treated the whole house with stuff from the vet which will apparently kill fleas, dust mites, lice etc. We have hot washed every single piece of bedding, rugs, curtains etc. DD's bed has been scrubbed, hoovered and cleaned, every single item of furniture moved daily and scrubbed/hoovered. Her bed's only a few months old (including mattress).

It's made no difference. Nobody else has been bitten, we went away for 4 days over the weekend and she still kept getting these 'bites'. I haven't seen a single bug or flea anywhere in our house or on dd. Last night we went to a friend's for dinner and in a few hours she had 7 of them on her back.

What else could it be? They look JUST like bug bites and are certainly itchy. Raised bumps with a little head sometimes, mainly white in the middle but red towards the outside.

DD is otherwise happy and well.

I've made an appointment with the GP but just wondered if anybody else had seen a similar thing? I pondered an allergic reaction but to what? Nothing's changed and it's not a rash, it's distinct spots which appear with no rhyme or reason. Currently it's her lower back, side and left leg which appear to be affected.

I am not a dermatologist or GP, but you are describing the hives that I recognise. Mine tend to get worse when I go away as I'm in contact with different things, eating different foods & possibly a wee bit stressed!

Keep a gentle eye on them and try to get a proper diagnosis to put your mind at rest, but IME they are benign, and the itching reduces in direct proportion to the amount of worry attached to them! Good luck.

Ok. Hope not Tinker; just thought I'd mention it as I never would have thought to ask about it. It was the waistband thing that sounded similar and mine didn't look like any of the horrible pictures on the internet. Hope you get it sorted soon. Best of Luck.

Hi I know I’m years late on this, but did you ever figure out what these were? I have the same thing for 3 months now and no doctor can figure out what this is. I need help!

Thanks!

Hi, I'm going out completely on a limb here, as I see this was from 2011, but was this issue ever resolved? I am having the same issue right now and have found no answers. You are the only person I've found who has seen this. I am so confused and I have done absolutely everything imaginable to stop the bites but they won't stop. I've even taken allergy meds, steam cleaned the carpets with strong detergents and vinegar, bug bombed my place, vaccuumed my mattress and washed everything, and sprayed peppermint oil over my skin to keep bugs away and I still get more every day. It's been more than a month. It's winter too, so there aren't insects outside and I haven't even seen a single one inside. The weird part is that the bites aren't all the same but they've all been mostly on my left side. There has been a large variety of reactions. Some look like chiggers, some mosquito, some spider, etc. Some flare up to look like a bug bite and then calm down and look like eczema or rosaeca but I don't have either condition and those "bites" only LOOK like it but then they dissapear and scar the worst. I'm getting worried that my body is short circuiting or something.. Can you or anyone help me??

Hello, I am currently having this exact same problem. My doctor and my dermatologist thought for sure scabies, however no one else in the family has it- not even my daughter who sleeps with me every night, wrapped around me.

The other odd thing is that it started at knee level, just on one side, in the exact same pot on my knees (basically where my two knees would touch). It then spread down my calf, again on the inside-side of my legs- on both legs at the same time. Then it went up to my thighs in the exact same areas on both thighs at the same time. From there, it spread a tiny bit to my forearms, and then again at the exact same time, larger patches on my triceps.

There are times that I think it’s getting better, but by the end of the day, I have new spots and it’s all pinker than earlier in the day. I notice patches of these bite-looking things start out as the same color as my skin and just look like raised bumps (but not traditional hives), and then they get pink and look like mosquito/flea/scabies bites.

Even more perplexing, I had a biopsy done and it came back as a bug bite. But a bug bite does not make sense because of how it’s spreading up my body, mirroring itself on my left and right side.

It’s been going on for almost 2 weeks now. I am on 3 days of using Triamcinolone 0.1% cream twice/day and Zyrtec 1/day. Yesterday and today, I kept thinking it was getting a tiny bit better. I am not intensely itchy all the time; however, in the evening, when I’m on the couch, it gets bad and itchy again. My kids have watched movies on the couch recently and nothing is happening to them; my husband sits beside me on the couch and he has no bites on him, either.

My dermatologist is stumped and wants to send me to a rash specialist in dermatology and also see my allergist (I’m highly allergic to dust, so there is a potential for dust mites, but she doesn’t think that really fits either).