Can anyone help? My adult daughter and I are desperately trying to figure out what has caused her rash. It first appeared on my daughter when she put on some leggings that she had just bought that day. They are furry on the inside and she happened to wear them in bed. (The leggings are polyester and elastane.) When she woke up, there was a horrible red rash along the elastic of the waistband and ankles (i.e. under the clothes, so less likely to be bed bugs). There were also isloated bite-like spots on other parts of her body. Over the subsequent 10 days, she has had odd "bites" every night. She had just one on her eye lid, some on her forearms, some on her ankles.
There are a number of possible causes, but none of them match the history and evidence. We have considered: carpet beetles, fleas, bed bugs, allergy and none of them fit. Yesterday she went to the doctor, who said "don't worry about it!" This morning, she had slept with an elastic hair tie around her wrist and, when she took it off, she had nasty bite-like redness and swelling exactly along that line. Research suggests it could be bits of carpet beetle attracted by the static caused by the elastic, but that seems improbable. And the only evidence of carpet beetles is possibly one wing. The three other people in the house have no problems. We don't have pets and we don't spend time around animals. Nor is there any evidence of rodents or birds nesting anywhere in or near our house. The bites are not in a row like bed bug bites are supposed to be, and there are no blood spots on the bedding, nor evidence of insect faeces.
We have changed all of the bedding, cleared her room of clutter, changed the duvet (from feather to synthetic), taken out all soft items from the room, bagged up the leggings and put them outside, sprayed the mattress with permethrin, put down diatomaceous earth on the (completely synthetic) carpet, changed all the pillows (and bagged up or washed the old ones but not put them back in the room). We have searched everywhere for any signs of bugs. Using a microscope, I have examined every possible suspect, but only found bits of fluff and just one wing that could have been from a brown carpet beetle. I have just put down some glue traps on the floor and on the bed but haven't caught any yet. She was visiting for the holidays and stays in that room irregularly throughout the year. The last visitor to use that room had no problems.
Has anyone any ideas or experienced anything similar? We would be very grateful.
Thank you!