BSK's 100 percent right. The chigger's puncture of your skin and enzymes help create the itchy welp, and "covering the chigger" with polish or something doesn't work because there's nothing alive in your skin to cover and smother.

Benadryl and some kind of ointment probably will be best.

X3 on the way they bite... not burrow in and stay. If any of you try the Listerine, it has to be Fresh Mint... the other types don't do as well (must be an ingredient). I think I've tried everything suggested on this thread and more... and the FML is the only thing that kills the itch for 8 hours.

I had about 6 chigger bites from the last time I was out at the club and I tried cortisone cream and nothing, I had the lady go pick up Benadryl cream and oh Lordy it worked wonders! They went away in about 5 days. I also had poison oak at the same time on my legs. A good time overall

Considering it's ingredients, Benadryl should work.

Geezz guys. It's a friggin chigger. Suck it up. All this whining over a chigger. When you get bit by a black widow then you can complain.

Hey I've had a brown recluse bite. And I put the pain right up there with a recluse bite.

I'll take a black widow bite over 100 chiggers any day.

Be my guest. Most venomous spider ounce for ounce and more deadly than a rattlesnake. I've treated wounds on victims. They say it was the most excruciating pain they ever had. Most who say they've been bit by one really is not confirmed. Just speculating.

Black Widow Spiders – Bites

The adolescent and male Black Widow spider is harmless; leaving the female as the only one that is venomous. The female Black Widow spider’s venom is not only more venomous than any other spider, it’s actually deadlier than a rattle snake bite!
The danger of being bitten by a Black Widow is that the victim most likely will not feel it. However, there are some symptoms to look for, which may include but not be limited to: abdominal pains, sore muscles, especially on the feet, a dry mouth and paralyzed diaphragm, excessive sweating, and swollen eyelids. If a Black Widow spider bites somebody they should seek medical attention immediately. The victim is usually given antivenin or calcium gluconate.

I always called them redbugs. Either way i hate them. Little bastards itch forever.

I thought I held the world record at 162 bites. I got into them in a pine thicket between Auburn and Camp Hill about 20 years ago. I had them from my belly button down to my ankles. Luckily for me a nice young co-ed would put salve on them every night. She counted them all too.

Interesting. I just had a conversation with a couple of ER Docs and a medical geneticist over the weekend, and the topic of conversation was how HIGHLY over-rated the venom and bite of black-widow is. Both Docs have treated many black-widow bites and treat rattlesnake bites on an almost daily basis (desert Southwest).

I worked in the wound care center in ttown for 5 years. Treated many spider, snake and even one shark bite. Fella didn't have insurance and DCH was closest not for profit hospital that would take him. Anyway. I've debrieded spider bites and snake bites down to the bone. They are both bad but when you look at the amount of venom that is administered through the bite the spider is microscopic. If it delivered the amount the snake did you would die from respiratory distress in 10 minutes.

I first got introduced to chiggers when I was a 12 yr old boy. I walked a half mile through a grass pasture wearing sneakers and shorts to go fishing at a pond. Them bastards got all over my private parts. I swole up bigger than John Holmes and had to go to the doctor because my mom thought my opening was going to swell shut. Hands down the most miserable I've ever been in my life. I had so many chigger bites on my pecker and nut sack that you couldn't count them all. Oh, I still shudder at the memory.

True, in theory. But when it comes to actual bite cases, the ER Docs told me they don't worry about lethality of black-widow bites or the massive tissue damage rattlesnake bits often cause. They see snake-bite victims lose limbs and their lives. They don't see the same from spider bites.

I wish I could have counted all the ones when I had 'em bad but there were too many.

Probably in the range of FurFlyin and Fatboy. I was hog hunting in May or early June, sat against a tree on the edge of a grassy edge while watching a little muddy corner of a field and fell asleep for almost two hours.

Didn't even think about chiggers until waking up at 2 a.m. in agony, covered from neck to ankles in bites.

Terrible critters. Satan's little handmaidens.

I have so many scars on my ankles, legs, and waist-line from chiggers you can hardly see any unscarred skin.

Y'all must be allergic to them. They itch be but not that severe. Make a little red spot. Just don't scratch em and they'll go away. Now poison oaks a different story. Got cellulitis from it one time had to get iv antibiotics.

Black widow bite. Seen them not as bad and worse, all the way to the bone.

All reactions to chigger bites are "allergic" reactions (involve the histamine system). Some people are not allergic at all and are bitten but their bodies produce no itchy welt. Others are highly allergic. I'm highly allergic and a chigger bite will itch like fire and stay for 4-6 weeks, leaving a scar afterwards.



I'm completely immune to poison ivy. I can literally roll in the stuff and no reaction. Although western poison oak was a different story when I lived out West.

deet always kept me good