I want to share my mite ordeal — and a recent breakthrough — in hopes that it might be an avenue for others to continue exploring with respect to potential solutions to mite bites.

In the fall of 2019, I somehow was contaminated with head lice. The only thing I can think of was I attended a funeral where I hugged several people and possibly picked them up there.

Around the same time, I started feeling these pinprick type bites and they began getting worse by the day. I thought they were the lice, but I couldn’t see any lice on my skin where the bites were occurring. After a couple weeks of torment and trying to treat lice, I realized the bites were in fact not lice, but mites. (My husband found an article that discussed somehow a connection to head lice exposure and subsequent susceptibility to dog mite bites.) I have a dog, so it made sense that was the likely source of mites. Using over the counter treatments, I kicked the lice problem, but the mites remained.

I stopped petting my dog very much and that cut down on the bites a lot. However, I could still tell that I was getting bitten when I sat on surfaces like my couch or maybe sat on the floor while wearing shorts. At times, they were also in my car. I’d feel bites on my legs as soon as I got in and sat down.

Despite the decrease in bites, I was still getting bitten frequently enough to cause distress, pain and discomfort. I would scratch the itchy welts, causing more distress.

I addition, I realized I was not only susceptible to dog mites but bird mites, too. My Grandma has an outdoor swing with a sunshade. I would get bites on my legs when I sat in the swing. My Grandma doesn’t have a dog, so I finally realized I was being bitten by bird mites when I sat on the swing. … Doves walk on the top of the sunshade, and I’m sure mites make their way down to the swing below.

I had sat on the swing for several years prior to my new mite sensitivity, and had no problems. I’d also owned a dog for years prior, also with no problems with mite bites. It made me wonder what had changed with my own body to cause this new susceptibility. Secondly, my husband lives in the same house and has exposure to the same environment and our dog. He could feel a couple bites every so often but nothing like the torment I was experiencing.

I read a lot of forums and began trying every possible solution to my mite problem. I bathed in water with all kinds of essential oils (clove and peppermint oil seemed to work best) and Kleen Green (sort of helpful but also expensive). A doctor prescribed permythrin cream, which also seemed to help but not permanently (it’s also expensive). The bottom line seemed to be that the mites really were embedded too deeply in my skin and hair follicles for any of the topical treatments to reach them all.

After several months of torment, I had a realization that the mites preferred living in hair atop my head. And once a cycle of them started, it would take a day or so for those mites on my head to begin somehow drifting down to the rest of my body and biting as they went. By really focusing on treating my hair when this happened, I could knock them back for a day or so.

I also found a solution for treating furniture. … I’d put full strength acetone (from the beauty section of any big box store) in a squirt bottle and spray the sofas when I felt any crawling/biting by mites. (I have old, cloth-covered sofas, so I didn’t worry about damaging the sofas. Acetone can mess up plastics and foams, though. … Admittedly this whole tactic was born out of sheer desperation, but it worked.)

I found that eating raw garlic held the mites at bay on my body. Apparently they don’t like garlic. However, there is a practical limit to how much raw garlic a person can eat. Absent continuously eating raw garlic, garlic didn’t stop the problem because new mites were always around the corner.

I tested out all kinds of treatments on my dog, thinking that if I could cut down on his mites, it would help me by default. His monthly heartworm preventative, Ivermectin, was the most successful thing. After he took his chewable pill (which targets a variety of parasites), I wouldn’t feel mite bites for about 5 days. However, I didn’t want to seek that he be continuously on Ivermectin due to the cost and the likely toll that could take on his body. Near daily baths with medicated shampoos helped a lot, too, but it was hard to do this in the winter due to the cold. Plus, my dog really hates baths and it’s tough to give him even a weekly bath.

I sent my dog to live with my parents for a few weeks, thinking this could give some relief. That helped somewhat, but apparently enough residual mites remained to continue feasting on me. (My parents were unaffected by any mites.)

After a year and a half dealing with this ordeal, I was at my wits’ end in trying to come up with a solution. It was by sheer accident that I stumbled upon something that really helped me personally. …

On what I initially thought was an unrelated topic, I recently discovered that I have a progesterone deficiency in my body. In addressing that through supplementation, I discovered that my mite problem drastically diminished within the span of a day. I can still feel a few bites, but there are FAR fewer and the sensation is more dulled. I also haven’t felt that my hair on my head has become infested like it used to. I don’t think I’ve arrived at a total solution yet, but am MUCH closer than ever before.

After some quick Internet research on progesterone and parasitic infections, I found that scientists have discovered a link.

Here is one such article:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228866748_Role_of_progesterone_in_HIV_and_parasitic_infections

Here’s an excerpt from that: “During parasitic infections, P4 (progesterone) not only exerts its action upon the immune system, but also directly acts on the parasite …”

I think a lot of people, like myself, think of progesterone as a sex hormone, which it is, but apparently it also has key protective role in the body.

In addition to progesterone, I’m wondering if there may be more hormones whose imbalances also contribute to our immune system’s inability to fight off mites, particularly the mites coming from other species like birds and dogs.

I’m hoping this info may help other people explore avenues they haven’t yet to reach a level of permanent relief from mites. Hormones, and sex hormones in particular, may matter more than we widely realize in the fight against these terrible pests.