Posted by Mel on August 08, 2008 at 21:33:46:
I have been getting these unidentifiable bites for about the past week. At first I thought they were mosquito bites, because they start out like that - I first notice them when they start to itch, at which point they're about a pencil eraser-sized portion of slightly raised skin that's about the same color or very slightly lighter than normal, and itchy. They don't really spend that long itching for the most part, maybe half a day or so. Then they shrink down a bit, get pinkish and more volcano-shaped. After about 2 days they turn into a small pink dot that's slightly raised but doesn't itch anymore. They don't develop any kind of white or red dot in the center.
I first started noticing them this Monday, and by now I have had 4 on my lower back (2 locations of 2 being right next to each other), 2 on my left arm, 1 on my right arm, 1 on right shoulder, and just a few hours ago one on my foot.
Now, on Sunday I spent a good part of the day sitting around in the grass (in NJ), and when I found some on Monday I figured it was just something that had bit me the day before. But I was visiting someone else during that time and now I have come back to my apartment and I am STILL developing new bites.
I have noticed that there's either 1 very active small flying black bug (fruit-fly sized, I don't know what it is) in my apartment, or several of them, because I keep seeing it flying around. Either the bites from 2 locations are a coincidence or I picked something up and brought it with me (I hope not!). I don't think they are mosquito bites because from what I remember (it's been a while, actually) they usually last a lot longer and are a lot bigger and itchier. These bites are pretty hard to see unless you look very closely, and from what I can tell they don't fit the pattern of fleas or bed bugs either.