Scabies is found worldwide and a doctor in any country can help you. The important thing is to persist in seeing doctors until the problem is gone.

There is no way that scabies and bed bugs have mutated into a hybrid. Bed bugs are insects, scabies are mites. Besides, they are wildly different in size and behavior. You may be being bitten by some other kind of mite and you absolutely need a doctor and perhaps eventually an entomologist to help (but the doctor will know if that is needed).

I know this is frustrating, but please do persist with the doctors.

Actually, I’m sorry that I have not been more helpful to you, to be honest and that all the reasonable explanations I offered you were not useful to you.

If I may be frank, the sooner you start thinking in practical, problem-solving ways, and the sooner you move away from a persistent belief that you, and you alone, are afflicted with a strange, unique, hitherto unknown burrowing/hybrid bug–the characteristics of which are NOT based in fact or science–the sooner you will get better.

I know this is very hard to comprehend in your situation but I will repeat: a crawling sensation (or indeed any other kind of skin reaction) does not, does NOT equal a bug infestation that is unidentifiable. These are normal, again, NORMAL responses that are caused by something real, including a real bedbug infestation where your skin is constantly reacting to current and previous bites or other known and perfectly understood biting pests, or a medical condition, or an allergic response to something in your environment–and you can investigate and find the cause of your troubles, with the assistance of professionals and scientists. Further, if you continue to use and abuse pesticides in your environment and on your body, your problem will likely get worse.

If you persist in these various thoughts, the road to getting better will be difficult. I hope that is not what you actually want. I hope that you want and hope to be healthy and active and to have your life back.

My best advice is to continue to seek medical and professional advice (dermatologists, entomologists, pest control professionals) and to keep an open mind to the solutions, explanations and counsel that such people may offer.

And, as far as the internet, there are a lot of scary sites out there that peddle fear, paranoia, and outright lies. Please do not seek them.

regarding the burrowing and living on me sensation, just today i was in the movies and my arms started flaming up like crazy (on the old bites that are already there, plus two little tiny new bites) while i was sitting in the dark watching the movie. as soon as i left the theater this flameup ceased.

so he’s treating me for scabies, and gave me instructions of what to do, wash, vacuum, etc, like i don’t know how to do that already…. i’m still not sure what to do about my hosts. he suggested not getting them worried until i see how this treatment effects things….

thanks for your good thoughts, hopelessnomo and nobugsonme! i hope this is really the end of this nightmare.

But we also know they do not burrow in your skin. You can see a photo of a first instar nymph feeding on an entomologist’s arm here. It IS small. But it is as small as bed bugs get and not small enough to go inside the skin. Lou Sorkin is the man with the finger, and he studies them and we trust him.

I hope you will see a doctor as hopelessnomo suggests. Lots of things can cause such itching and marks. Pesticides can greatly irritate your skin. So can drying skin by washing in hot water a lot (as many people in such cirumstances do). Scabies is not always between the fingers. Folliculitis can look and feel like bed bug bites.

I don’t think doctors in other countries would have trouble with many of these diagnoses. Please keep trying to find the real source of the current problem, and please stop using pesticides.

Talk to your doctor about any possible symptoms, prickling, crawling, numbness, irritation, itching, blisters, or things that look like “bites” and resist making everything worse by scratching or using inappropriate remedies… and keep an open mind. Do not assume bedbugs or some kind of infestation. Just investigate and see where the evidence and medical advice leads you.

Even in the normal course of a real bedbug infestation, skin responses vary, and people can have immediate or delayed reactions or immediate plus delayed reactions. So you can see, if your original infestation (which I do not doubt was real) was eradicated but you continued to have some skin reactions and symptoms and you therefore mistakenly believed that your infestation continued… In short, I can understand how it might be possible for someone in that situation to make everything worse by continued and ever more despairing and even irresponsible self-treatment and especially by not consulting doctors and others qualified to help.

Any number of things could be happening in your situation and the best possible thing is to consult a doctor and disclose the entire history of your symptoms and what you have done and/or taken in an attempt to alleviate them.

Go see your doctor before your trip. Then, proceed from that advice.