Quote:
Originally Posted by Skiploder
My daughter had an allergic reaction to carpet beetle larvae hairs and it resulted in welts similar to those pictures.
We immediately thought bed bugs, but the exterminator checked and found the carpet beetle larvae in a wool blanket. No sign of bed bugs. They actually used a bed bug sniffing dog!
The rest of us did not show any symptoms. Allergist said that some people react violently, some mildly, some don't react at all.
Said same thing about bed bugs. It is not uncommon for one person to show bites and another person none. All depends on sensitivity.
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That is good info.
So, while unlikely, it
is possible for the beetles to cause this sort of reaction.
The other thing that should be considered is the species of the beetle; were those that caused your reaction the same that her girl may have been exposed to? (the ones from Fluker's?)
The last consideration that would confirm or rule them out is a simple allergy test: hold a larvae and adult beetle against the skin to see if there is a reaction (similar to an allergy test of a new sunscreen; applied to a small area of the arm to test).
If there is a reaction, then yes, it was the beetles; if not, something else is in play here. Just to be clear, there is no way of telling what did it by looking at the bite, so saying it is definitely this or that would still be speculation. The next logical culprits could be fleas or bedbugs, but it could have been something else entirely.
Had Fluker's ever been contacted regarding this? If so, what did they say about the beetles?