help!! Why are me and DH itching?

[greyriver]

we have just come back from holiday (cyprus) with NO bites from insects etc....since getting home (we did start to feel VERY itchy on the plane..) we have numerous little bumps/bites appearing....
they are very itchy but seem to appear in the most random places, they are very small lumps but VERY raised on the skin. Surely if they were bites from an insect on the pane they wouldnt keep appearing no thou? Its 2 days ago??

the cats have also been in a cattery - could it be fleas? I have checked them thou and they have a flea spot on applied religiously every month.....argh....whats causing these bites?????

if it started on the plane, then it wont be the cats.

scabies?

"...insect on the plane they wouldnt keep appearing now thou?..."

I have clearly had too much wine - medicinal purposes of course

Do they come in clusters? Are you still getting them? I'd worry (a bit) that they might be bedbugs? (Particularly as some of my family have had them lately, and they're quite brutal.) You can bring them back in your luggage and/or dirty clothes ...

I expect and hope it's not bedbugs, as they're a total hassle to get rid of, but I thought I should mention the possibility.

don't think scabies as the bites are only on our arms calves, DH fingers, knees, elbows, my lower back.

NQC They are not in clusters on me or DH, except on his little finger he has 3 bites altogether? Does this count as a cluster? I am stumped...

thats so weird when we travelled back from Cyprus on the 16th July, i was on the plane and my legs started to itch(while in Cyprus a friend had bites all over her, but rest of us were fine)but when i got home to scotland my legs had started to really itch and i had lots of little bumps and some were bigger than others, dh and the kids were fine, i had these for 2 weeks before they settled down, i honestly just thought it was my body reacting to the heat on the way home back to a freezing country

thanks for posting kidstrack, I honestly cant work out what it is, maybe there is a weird bug that lives on planes?!?!? DD is totally unaffected though i have to say and fingers crossed it stays that way. I guess we have to grin and bear it for 2 weeks then!!!!! someone did mention sand flies....but i thought that would be a more immediate reaction to a bite?

Hate to say it, but I really think it might be bed bugs. I have been researching recently due to my own problem with very itchy bites following a hotel stay 5 weeks ago. 3 bites in a row is common with bed bugs (apparently known as breakfast, lunch and dinner ). I am the only one being bitten in our house - thank goodness they don't appear to have got into DD's room. I am telling DH that he obviously doesn't smell tasty enough . Apparently they are very hard to shift and our local council won't come out without a sample 'bug'. So I have contact private pest control company today and am awaiting a response.

oh my god now iam panicking, what do i do regards bed bugs???? And if i go to our bed will i see them (am i being naive? Do they live in other places than beds????)

or do you mean we were bitten on holiday? Or could we have brought them home with us?? sorry - am panicking a bit

used to work for an airline and most of them are crawling with bugs!

probably why DD is unaffected then thankfully we bought her a seat and put her in her own car seat the whole journey

They mostly live in beds, as they bite at night. I'd wait a few weeks, and see what happens. It might be just an allergic reaction to something on the plane. Bedbugs are pretty hard to find these days - you can find them in the mattress maybe, or on the headboard?

mandymac, there's at least one MN person in the UK with bedbugs. I can tell you about the methods my sister is having great luck with (councils in Canada don't send people out). Your DH may still be being bit, but not coming up in bumps - some people just don't.

Was it a beach holiday? Could it have been sandflies? It takes 2 or 3 days for the bites to come up and they are insanely itchy when they do.

yep beach holiday, every day for for at least 7 hours per day, i did wonder about sand fly bites but a local told me they would give you a fever

I got bitten by sandflies in New Zealand and it didn't give me a fever. You may have just passed through a cloud of them a few days before you left. Do you remember feeling little sharp pinpricks at all or seeing any flies?

greyriver, I had scabies years ago and I only itched on my forearms and upper thighs. Wouldn't rule it out!
SIL also caught scabies on holidays, she thinks from a not-quite-clean bed!

Any advice on getting rid of bed bugs gratefully received NQC (or anyone else). I react badly to any bites - but these are by far worse than any mossie bite I have ever had and each one is itching for literally weeks! Also no matter how

oops - got distracted by the tweenies there .

No matter how much I tell myself that it is just bad luck that we have them - can't help feeling grubby .

My sister has had a reasonable amount of luck with pesticide spraying, combined with lots of cleaning and vacuuming, and (particularly) steam cleaning.

You need to wash things at 60C to get them off clothes, the real gotcha is of mattresses, and corners and walls and so on, for which steam cleaning is good. You can also bag a mattress to suffocate them, but it's not a v appealing prospect.

I say "a reasonable amount of luck", I mean, she seems to be clear now, after months of infestation. She runs a sort of boarding house upstairs from her apartment, which appears to be how they got in.

I'm getting DH to be careful with his suitcase and clothes while away, as I've heard tell of quiet nice hotels having problems with this ...

Thanks for the info NQC! I think I am going to get the professionals in before it really takes hold.