My fellow hikers/cachers came through for me. Chigger bites. Ugh. The things are so tiny they just walked right through the nylon parts of my old hiking boots. I'm glad I bought all leather this time. Hard to believe in all these years I've never had this problem before. Perhaps it's just the old hikers were wearing too thin.

I went over to the pharmacy and the pharmacist confirmed it was definitely chiggers. He recommended alternating cortisone cream and benedryl cream every two hours, along with continuing to wash the bites with alcohol to prevent infection.

Thanks. Yeah I was leaning towards fleas myself. It just bothered me a little because insect bites rarely ever cause me any sort of reaction. Most insects don't bite me at all, especially mosquitoes. No idea why, body chemistry I suppose.

From what I was told this is an especially bad year for chiggers in many parts of this country, especially the Midwest where I got these.

Yeah poison ivy doesn't bother me either, I've always been very glad of that fact as I see it all over the place.

No kidding on them being hard to find. Very tiny little buggers, but capable of inflicting a lot of misery

I knew as soon as I saw them that they were chigger bites. I got bitten badly a few years ago and mine looked exactly like yours.

I got bitten by a spider 3 weeks ago. I dunno what kind it was, but the botes were very red and inflamed for a couple of weeks - you could see the fang marks in the middle of the bites. It didn't itch, and whilst they didn't ulcerate in a typical brown reculse kind of way, they did have a little bit of a deterioration in the center of each bite. Now the skin is peeling off of them - but they look a hell of a lot better. I'm reluctant to speculate exactly what bit me because I don't want to be melodramatic. I do know, however, that it wasn't a black widow. I got bitten by one of those summer of '04 and I felt pretty fucking unwell for a couple of days - these were nothing like that. I did feel a little off color, but no terrible.

Anyone got any ideas about what got me?

Could have been just about any kind of common spider. They are all poisonous to one degree or another.

I have a friend who was bitten on the back of the hand by a Brown Recluse. He lost two of his fingers because of it. Nasty critters and make chiggers seem pretty harmless by comparison.

But the bites still itch like a mofo.

Yeah the pharmacist mentioned that any sort of topical anaesthetic would help some, but the effect wouldn't last long enough to make it worth bothering.

The creams and alcohol combined with frequent washing with hot soapy water is helping. They are finally showing signs of starting to dry up.