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Flea Bites 

Fleas. Of course everybody knows, small wingless, jumping insects. Vectors of disease worldwide. Plague, a lot of things in other countries. Dog tapeworm. Feeds on domestic animals and humans, but it would rather feed on a dog or a cat. They don’t like to feed on you but if there’s no dog or cat. The cat flea is the most common in the flea bites, fleas, bite 

We also have the dog flea. Again, it’s a delayed hypersensitivity reaction to the flea bite. You’ve got to have them for awhile, you’ve got to get allergic to them. You get multiple hemorrhagic papules, they get indurated, they get urticarial and you can even have blisters if somebody is allergic to them. You can also get papular urticaria from flea bites. So when the mother brings in the child and it looks like 800 bites, it could be that they are getting flea bites every once in awhile and they are having the papular urticarial response and the other three children aren’t. Secondary infection is common. The main concern is trying to eliminate it. You treat it, of course, with antihistamines, topical steroids, sometimes antibiotics. The main thing though is the suggestion of when you make this diagnosis. One is a child with multiple pruritic lesions on the legs and the history of a new dog or a cat. So when you

The other thing is, in an adult or in children with multiple pruritic lesions of the legs and the history of a recent habitation in a house or apartment that used to have a cat or a dog, you know the fleas stay around. They would love to have the cat or they would love to have the dog but if you’re there and there’s no dog, that’s good enough for them. One thing I like to tell the people to do if I think they have fleas and they want to check is to wear white socks in the flea infested area. That will demonstrate the fleas on the white background of the socks and a lot of

This child came in last week. He was referred to us from another doctor, with these itchy bumps on his legs. He is ten months old and is crawling around. Here is a characteristic one. I thought he had flea bites and the mother said, "No he doesn’t have flea bites." I said, "Do you have a dog or a cat?" and she said, "No, there’s no dog or cat" and I said, "What about