Early Friday afternoon I was chopping up some cucumber for my lunch when it felt like something was crawling on the left side of my forehead. I had the knife in my right hand and was holding cucumber parts in my left hand. I brushed the back of my left hand over the "tickly spot" on my head. As my hand left my forehead and was headed back to the cucumber, I felt a sting. Unfortunately, I reacted on instinct and immediately brushed the back of my hand against my hip without looking first. You know the "GET IT OFFA ME!" instinct. When I looked at my hand there was just a tiny gray smudge. I felt like I had been bitten or stung by something so I washed my hand and put some benadryl cream on it. I then continued making my lunch and went about my day.
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I forgot all about the whole incident until Saturday evening around 6:30. I was talking or watching TV or something when I realized I was scratching the hell out of my left hand. Once I realized what I was doing, I remembered the Friday event. I looked and sure enough there was a bump there. I put some more benadryl cream on it but it would not stop itching. Later, we were watching Children of Men and I realized I was having a hard time following the action because of the itching so I did my usual: I froze it. When I have a mad itch I hold ice on it until it becomes comfortably numb. Well that worked and again, I forgot about it. Until it woke me up after I had been asleep only two hours. I got up and applied more benadryl cream and willed myself to not think about it and go back to sleep. (That was a funny internal process!) Two hours later, the itch woke me up again. This time I got up and made another ice thing (one cube, with one layer of paper towel topped with one layer of cling wrap). I laid in bed and held it in place until I couldn't stand it anymore and went back to sleep.
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This afternoon I decided it might be a fire ant bite so I decided to treat it like one. I swathed it with alcohol, cleaned a needle with alcohol and stabbed it. And squeezed and squeezed. Then more alcohol. That's usually the end of the itching for me with fire ant bites. I went about my business of sanding my bathroom walls (yes, still doing that). As you might have guessed, the mad itching returned. Right now it looks like a Barbie boob - if Barbie were an A cup and had a really bright nipple. I am currently treating it with 2.5% hydrocortisone cream and that is helping. I'm leaning now towards some sort of spider rather than a fire ant. Next time I will look before I react. At least I'll know what I'm dealing with.
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7 comments:
I guess one advantage of living in chillier climes is 'no fireants' -- yet. Story is the little buggers are moving north,however,just like possums did a few years ago.
Glad you solved the problem, Barbie nipple and all.
Ian
No fire ants? How nice! Global warming will probably send them your way. Yeah the cortisone has helped. I was able to sleep last night.
At least you didn't whack yourself in the head with a knife. It sounds like it might be a spider. Was there something on the produce? You've heard that old urban legend about the tarantula in the bananas. Maybe something hitchhiked on the cucumbers.
A few weeks ago I had teeny tiny moths flying through my house, just one or two a day. I finally discovered that a bag of oatmeal I had bought was infested with meal moths. I had to disinfect my kitchen.
I have a new blog (sigh...) for now, anyway. You can link to it through this post.
Your Barbie description had me smiling ... full grill and all. Hope your itch goes away.
Josie,
It wasn't the cucumber. It was a half english cucumber that had already been cleaned and ziploced. It was excessively windy that day and I think whatever it was was blown onto my forehead. See you soon!
JR,
Really, that was the easiest way to describe it. The cortisone has helped a lot!
Gracious, fire ants! Eek!
Hmmm....
When I get spider bites they usually go really red and I can usually see the two little puncture marks. (Not TOO much itching though. Benadryl is a marvellous gift from the gods in my opinion.)
But we probably have different spiders here in west coast Canada.
I like spiders quite a bit. However, not when they're biting me so much. :)
Hope your bite is better whatever it was caused by.
Spider Girl,
Do all spider bites have two puncture sites? Maybe it was a fire ant after all. Stupid fire ant!
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