Walking Hazard Zone

Well, I have to say I am a walking hazard zone. Sunday afternoon my left leg was itching and I saw I had a bug bite. It seemed normal so I just ignored it. A few hours later when my parents arrived, I had numerous bites and some were starting to really swell up. I can only think I got them at the park (a concrete one mind you) before I went (indoor) swimming on Saturday, or perhaps Saturday night as the doors were open at the bar I was at, though nighttime doesn't seem like a big time for mosquitoes to be out. Anyway, I ended up not sleeping at all on Sunday because my legs were so itchy I was debating ripping the skin off of them. By Monday, the bites had gotten pretty big and were swelling up my ankles and feet. I rang the doctor, who was not in, so there went that idea. The nice pharmacist across the street told me to use Benadryl at night and a cream that has an antihistamine in it during the day. I found that helped more than the cortisone I had been spraying. Witch hazel also seemed to help a bit.

This is what the biggest bite looked like on Monday (my inside right leg):



Monday night I took two Benadryl and went to bed by 9pm. I woke up once around 2am, but thankfully fell back to sleep pretty quickly. Tuesday morning I woke up to this lovely picture (same bite as in last pic):


It's lovely, I know. I've been wearing trousers all week because I have a few that look this red, though thankfully they're not all this big. I am documenting this because for the last few summers I get bites out of nowhere, they get all icky and gooey, and seem to get infected immediately. This all started after my trip to Egypt in 2005. I was eaten alive there by bugs and ever since, about once a spring/summer, I get bites like this, and then (touch wood) it doesn't happen again until the next year. The first time it happened I woke up with huge bumps all over my legs, and had such a big bite by my ankle that I couldn't even bend my ankle properly and had trouble walking. I went to the emergency room that time, and the doctors were all stumped. They thought it might have been spider bites, and even drew circles around the infected bites. If the bites got bigger I was to go back to the ER. I didn't want to so ended up going to my regular doctor. She also was shocked. No one seems to know why this happens. My own personal theory - and granted there is no factual basis for it - is that the Egyptian bugs poisoned me and now I am really allergic to the American bugs. It doesn't make sense but it's the only thing I can think of, as I can't recall this ever happening beforehand, and especially not on an annual basis.

Here is what it looks like today (same spot), thankfully they seem to be improving. My motto is definitely "never a dull (medical) moment!" :-/