Travelling this week, went to Denver to help out a friend recovering from a total knee replacement. My friend’s husband traveled to our farm to help my husband with farm chores in my absence. The guys were busy on the farm all weekend prepping the lavender fields for winter, to include seeding some grass, and covering the seed with straw. The pics below are of the new lavender field, those are baby plants from this year.
I was helping with this task a couple of weeks ago, and was covered with hundreds of itchy red bites the day after. The culprit was straw mites (Pyemotes tritici) a well known pest in the farming community. These bites are miserable, worse than chigger bites, and last for nearly three weeks. I had a few bites above my right eye, that resulted in my eye swelling shut for days.
Our friend Kevin was forewarned to cover up, shower after, and change clothes to try and avoid the bites. All was well until Kevin sent some pics in our group chat showing several hundred itchy red bumps that appeared on his torso later that day.
I won’t post a pic of Kevin’s torso, but it’s bad, really bad. Kevin returned to Colorado last night, and went to see a doctor on base (Kevin is active duty military) this morning.
The attending physician suggested Kevin had a virus, or herpes, or erythema multiforma. Prescribed Zyrtec and an antiviral, and had zero interest in hearing about straw mites. Later in the day Kevin consulted other physicians, who offered thoughts and prayers, and prednisone.