Sincerely,

Shannon

The tragedy of your situation, from my perspective, is that if the PCO familiar with bird mites had been available to you at the early stages, your experience may have been so much better and more quickly resolved.

There are national resources for getting bugs identified. If anyone needs information on that, it is given in the bed bug fact sheet of Harvard (which charges a small fee, but I expect most bird mite sufferers would pay to find out what they really had). Bird mites and other mites are treatable, and unfortunately all PCOS are not experienced at identifying bird mites, bed bugs, and other issues. UNtil they are, I encourage anyone who has a mysterious problem not to give up–there will be some doctor or PCO or entomologist who can ID bird mites, rodent mites, bat bugs, etc. and most other conditions.

I can say that I definitely understand the desperation and I am very sorry that you did not find professional help. (Having read your post about your dermatologist consultation, I understand a little of what it must have been like.)

I think it’s easy to forget how far-reaching whatever we write on the internet may be. I hope your readers are able to exercise discretion in the face of the very difficult experience of an infestation and don’t have to fight alone.

However, the reason we posted our information was because after we’d consulted with pest control operators, seen our doctors and sought identification, we hit a dead end as many other people with a similar problem have. The doctors said it wasn’t scabies. The PCO said it definitely wasn’t bed bugs, but strangely, he had not in 20 years of experience even heard of bird mites! So we waited and didn’t treat and things got worse and worse. It was a nightmare I could never have imagined and no one seemed to know what to do to help us. No one denied what we were experiencing, but they had no answers.

Finally, we followed a mix of ideas and advice from professionals and lay people alike and stumbled upon our answer. Later, we met a PCO who was very familiar with bird mites and who said the things we experienced were entirely consistent with their behavior. The PCO we spoke to was from a different city, but for an extra fee would have traveled to our city and treated for us. Fortunately, by then, this really didn’t seem necessary, for we were doing so much better.

When we posted our information, we truly wanted to help others in the same situation as we had been in, those who just couldn’t find anyone to help. We also imagined that readers would have read the prior posts that explained our first steps, our “journey” of sorts. But we never wanted anyone to recklessly follow our solutions who hadn’t taken all the reasonable first steps! I hope nothing we have shared ever causes harm to anyone.

Deep down, it distresses me that the bug information on my site even exists. I never wanted my site to contain any such thing, as I had originally planned the site to be a place to share the joys and educational experiences of my everyday life, not miserable problems that I had never envisioned befalling me.

But when things happened the way they did, I made an internal commitment that if God allowed us to find an answer, I would not hide our solution (it seemed everybody and their brother had a poorly written not-so-helpful ebook that you had to pay for, for example). I just wanted to make available what had worked for us. I truly hope that everyone who reads will use good judgment. And that they will take into consideration warnings such as those you’ve written above.

Sincerely,

Shannon

When people describe “invisible biting mites” that can’t be seen that are “constantly crawling and biting on the skin,” I think it is fully possible they may have bed bugs. We know bed bugs cause formication, the sensation of bugs crawling on skin, and that bed bug bites often feel like one is being bitten–but not when one actually is being bitten.

If you think you are being bitten by something you cannot see, have the doctor rule out scabies mites and other medical issues. Then have a PCO search thoroughly–both for bed bugs, and bird mites and anything else that might be causing this. The treatment needed for bed bugs/bird bugs/bat bugs vs. bird mites is quite different, but they can be treated by a PCO.

(Frightened and seriously appalled!)