Mites and Lice and Parasites, Oh My!
Leon and I think that Louis, our guinea pig, has mites, but we can't possibly come up with a good reason for how he got them. Supposedly, guinea pig mites can't survive on humans and humans are the only creatures he ever encounters. I'm beginning to wonder if he hasn't had them since we first got him in July and only now are the symptoms becoming noticeable.
The symptoms of guinea pig mites: Louis has a couple of small hairless spots on his back. Around those spots, there's a dandruff-like substance. When someone touches him on his back, he seems to be having a fit. This is apparently because he's in so much pain. Another symptom is that excessive scratching and biting can cause open sores, but he doesn't have those yet.
Leon and I are going to take him to the vet tomorrow, so that he can get treated. We're also going to have to clean out his cage and thoroughly clean the apartment, because we sometimes allow him to run around on the floor, monitored. It does make me feel somewhat better knowing that Leon and I can't be carrying these parasites (although, to be honest, I don't understand why a mite would specialize), but I feel bad wondering how long Louis has been suffering. Poor pig.
This also reminds me of the time that I had lice. I had lice when I was a sophomore in college and, believe me, that was pretty damn unexpected.
Caroline and I were enrolled in a human evolution course, and I guess we were pretending to be monkeys. I started grooming her like a monkey would, and I immediately saw three black bugs in her hair. They were decent-sized, too. I had always imagined that lice were really small, but not those suckers. It turned out that those were the females.
Anyway, I picked the bugs out of her hair and didn't know what to say. I tried to be polite about it: "Umm, Caroline there's a bug in your hair. And there's another one."
Naturally she freaked out, but she and I didn't go to health services until she officially saw that these little black bugs hadn't randomly fallen in her hair that day. She noticed them in the shower and another time when a group of us were hanging out in her room. She was severely upset, as she had hoped that the problem would go away on its own. Nope.
So she and I went to health services, and the nurse confirmed that Caroline had lice. The nurse showed me the eggs so that I could help Caroline get them out of her hair and looked through my hair but found nothing.
Anyway, Caroline and I had to tell our other two suitemates that she had lice and we had a shampoo party, washing and combing each other's hair to see who else had them. Our other two suitemates' heads were clean, as was mine. We didn't detect lice in my hair for another couple of weeks.
We then had to spray down the entire suite and wash all of our linens in hot water. Then, Caroline (and eventually I) had to brush her (and my) hair out every night and search for eggs. I will always find it funny, though, that Caroline completely deloused her thick, long hair and then cut off 12-14 inches just weeks later. It would've saved a lot of trouble had she just cut it off to begin with, but then she couldn't have donated it to Locks of Love.
As for me, I was never convinced that I was louse-free until I bleached my hair several weeks later. Thankfully, I haven't had a problem since. But it does distress me to know that there are similar parasites in this apartment right now. Ick.
Of course, while I cannot answer the question about how Louis got his mites, I can answer how Caroline got her lice. When she and I returned from health services, she called her mom to let her know. Her mother responded, "Oh, really? Your sister Catherine had lice too but just got rid of them. We think she got them while she was in Hawaii." So, Caroline's mother knew that Catherine had lice and had spent time with Caroline and borrowed Caroline's hair products but didn't bother to let her know. Caroline's lucky to have a chimpanzee for a friend.
The symptoms of guinea pig mites: Louis has a couple of small hairless spots on his back. Around those spots, there's a dandruff-like substance. When someone touches him on his back, he seems to be having a fit. This is apparently because he's in so much pain. Another symptom is that excessive scratching and biting can cause open sores, but he doesn't have those yet.
Leon and I are going to take him to the vet tomorrow, so that he can get treated. We're also going to have to clean out his cage and thoroughly clean the apartment, because we sometimes allow him to run around on the floor, monitored. It does make me feel somewhat better knowing that Leon and I can't be carrying these parasites (although, to be honest, I don't understand why a mite would specialize), but I feel bad wondering how long Louis has been suffering. Poor pig.
This also reminds me of the time that I had lice. I had lice when I was a sophomore in college and, believe me, that was pretty damn unexpected.
Caroline and I were enrolled in a human evolution course, and I guess we were pretending to be monkeys. I started grooming her like a monkey would, and I immediately saw three black bugs in her hair. They were decent-sized, too. I had always imagined that lice were really small, but not those suckers. It turned out that those were the females.
Anyway, I picked the bugs out of her hair and didn't know what to say. I tried to be polite about it: "Umm, Caroline there's a bug in your hair. And there's another one."
Naturally she freaked out, but she and I didn't go to health services until she officially saw that these little black bugs hadn't randomly fallen in her hair that day. She noticed them in the shower and another time when a group of us were hanging out in her room. She was severely upset, as she had hoped that the problem would go away on its own. Nope.
So she and I went to health services, and the nurse confirmed that Caroline had lice. The nurse showed me the eggs so that I could help Caroline get them out of her hair and looked through my hair but found nothing.
Anyway, Caroline and I had to tell our other two suitemates that she had lice and we had a shampoo party, washing and combing each other's hair to see who else had them. Our other two suitemates' heads were clean, as was mine. We didn't detect lice in my hair for another couple of weeks.
We then had to spray down the entire suite and wash all of our linens in hot water. Then, Caroline (and eventually I) had to brush her (and my) hair out every night and search for eggs. I will always find it funny, though, that Caroline completely deloused her thick, long hair and then cut off 12-14 inches just weeks later. It would've saved a lot of trouble had she just cut it off to begin with, but then she couldn't have donated it to Locks of Love.
As for me, I was never convinced that I was louse-free until I bleached my hair several weeks later. Thankfully, I haven't had a problem since. But it does distress me to know that there are similar parasites in this apartment right now. Ick.
Of course, while I cannot answer the question about how Louis got his mites, I can answer how Caroline got her lice. When she and I returned from health services, she called her mom to let her know. Her mother responded, "Oh, really? Your sister Catherine had lice too but just got rid of them. We think she got them while she was in Hawaii." So, Caroline's mother knew that Catherine had lice and had spent time with Caroline and borrowed Caroline's hair products but didn't bother to let her know. Caroline's lucky to have a chimpanzee for a friend.