More and more people are reporting unusual rashes and itchy bites from oak itch mites, which feed off cicada eggs.
“We have seen a significant increase in our suburban locations compared to our downtown office, and this is presumably because that’s where the cicadas were,” said Dr. Jordan Carqueville, medical director of The Derm Institute of Chicago. “They can take 10 to 16 hours to show up on your skin, so it can be confusing to know where did this bite come from?”
Not only can it take hours to notice after an oak itch mite bite, but the rashes can last for a couple of weeks.
“You can probably see that red rash with the bump for up to two weeks with symptoms of itch, and we recommend people use the over-the-counter anti-itch treatments,” said Carqueville. “Despite how itchy they are, do not scratch. Because if you scratch a lot, you can get breaks [in] the skin, and that just creates a port of entry for bacterial infections.”
You should avoid being under oak trees, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health, which also recommends keeping your windows closed because the mites are so small they can “pass through window screens.”
The Illinois Department of Public Health’s website also states “DEET and other insect repellents may not work” on the oak itch mites… and they could even bite you through loosely-woven clothing.
“They are microscopic pests originally from Europe. So they were first found in the United States in 2004 and then the first time in Illinois in 2007,” said Spencer Campbell, plant clinic manager with The Morton Arboretum.
The oak itch mites are much worse this year because of all the cicadas and their eggs.
“It takes 6 to 10 weeks for those eggs to mature and then return back to the soil, so there’s still some eggs hanging around that these oak itch mites are consuming,” said Campbell.
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The oak itch mites are expected to last into the fall.
