By Diane Mapes
We’ve all had that creepy feeling that something is crawling on our skin, scurrying across our scalp, scuttling around the base of our neck. Usually, it’s our imagination, but for a woman in Levittown, N.Y., that creepy feeling was all too real.
Nina Bradica, 45, was quarantined June 6 after she became infested with bird mites, tiny insect-like parasites that normally live on birds.
The mites entered Bradica’s home through a wild bird’s nest in her bathroom vent. The nearly-invisible bloodsuckers took over her bathroom and swarmed onto Bradica when she took a shower. Before long, her body was covered with red bumps and welts from their bites. The bugs crawled into her nose, her ears, her mouth and “other places,” according to her daughter.
While bird mite infestations in humans are rare, they do happen, says Dr. Richard Zack, associate professor and chair of the department of entomology at Washington State University. The most common infestations occur in people who work in the bird and poultry industry, but the creatures will flock to anybody if the circumstances are right.
“Nesting birds or small mammals carry their own set of parasites and although those parasites don’t normally feed or interfere with humans, if something happens to the mice or the birds that are nesting in your house, the parasites will look for an alternative food source,” he says. Unfortunately, that alternative food source can be you.”
When it comes to pesty infestations, Zack says humans can play host to chicken mites, northern fowl mites, tropical fowl mites, tropical rat mites and house mouse mites. For more information or tips on dealing with mites, contact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or visit birdmites.org, bitingmites.org, or buginfo.com.
Dust mites can cause serious problems for those with allergies, although they live in our bedding rather than on our bodies, says Zack. But watch out for the itch mite, Sarcoptes scabei, better known as scabies. Also of note is the face mite, or follicular mite, a microscopic bug that lives at the base of hair follicles – including, shudder, our eyelashes.
“Upwards of 90 percent of all people have these mites living on their body on a permanent basis,” says Zack. “As far as we know, they don’t cause any problems. There’s even speculation that they’re a beneficial parasite.”
Not so beneficial — or easy to ignore — are lice, the scourge of mothers everywhere.
Head lice stick to the head and the nape of the neck, while pubic lice (commonly known as crabs) live anywhere there’s coarse body hair – beards, moustaches, armpits, and, of course, points further south. The body louse is more of a “commuter” bug, says Zack. It feeds on your body but actually lives – and lays its eggs -- in your furniture or carpeting.
Another popular drop-in guest is the bed bug, which crawls out from behind pictures, peeling wallpaper, or wooden molding in order to feast on its favorite midnight snack: human blood.
Ticks and fleas will jump aboard for a quick meal, as well. Chiggers, too, will live on our bodies temporarily, although they don’t feed on our blood, but rather inject us with their spit which liquefies our skin cells which they then suck up through a tube.
All of which itches like no tomorrow.
The creepy crawly contingent doesn’t stop there. Millions of Americans, primarily in Appalachia and the South, are currently infected with worms and parasites, according to a new study.
The most common human worm infection is ascariasis, caused by a parasitic roundworm that lives in the intestine and can grow to a horrifying 12 inches in length. Human infection takes place after the accidental ingestion of ascaris’s egg-infected feces. Once the eggs hit the host’s stomach, they hatch and immature worms are carried to the lungs and then to the throat where they’re swallowed. The larvae travel through the body to the intestines, where they develop into adult worms, lay eggs, and the whole cycle begins anew.
Other “helminth” or parasitic worm infections include toxocariasis, a roundworm parasite which infects between 1.3 and 2.8 million Americans, and strongyloidiasis, a type of threadworm that lives throughout the body and infects 68,000 to 100,000 Americans.
Platyhelminth infections (i.e., flatworms or tapeworms) also love to make themselves at home in the human body.
Although these infections can wreak havoc for many, particularly those living in poverty, the majority of Americans don’t have to worry about the yucky squirmers. However, they may encounter "worm therapy" in the near future. Some scientists now believe worms may actually help the human body fight off allergies and immune diseases. Researchers are conducting tests with various parasites in the hopes of developing alternative treatments.
But that’s a whole different can of worms.
