Recovered Friend Who Had Bird Mites

[Guest guest]

Before we got mites, a good friend, someone I have spent a lot of time with, had bird mites. She is an older woman from Germany and she travels extensively all over the world. She also swims every morning at an exercise club. She only had the mites for 6 months, almost unheard of... she got the mites from being at a women's retreat where 20 women stayed in a large room of an old building. There was a bird's nest in the rafters near her bed. Many of the women at the retreat carried mites home after this particular retreat. The building is a big open wooden high ceiling structure and the birds could fly into the open ceiling, or build nests around the tall ceiling. The retreat structure had to be left empty for a long period of time and had to be tented. I have no idea who they used for the tenting. They removed furniture, cleaned furniture, etc. Some of the people who came to clean ended up with bird mites too. I don't have contact with them, so I do not know if any of these other women still have mites. I did have contact with one woman by telephone several years ago once, but she did not seem too willing to talk to me.

I've often wondered why my friend was able to get rid of the mites in her home and on her body so quickly. She did not get Morgellons from the mites as I did. She did not end up with Lyme Disease, like I did either. She works in the garden much of her week and is out in the sunshine a lot. I am not. She told me about all the symptoms she was getting, but she was not sick with this like I have been. After having the mites for several months she left for one of her trips, staying in Asia for over 2 months at a time in various places. She has gone on many trips since then too. When she returned home she started back into swimming at the club (probably chlorine put into the swimmine pool). She used the usual shampoos (Selsun Blue) that we've all used and washed her clothing frequently. She did not do any spraying of ammonia or Windex all over the home, she did not have PCOs come to her home as we did. Her floors are hardwood with no cracks between the boards with area rugs throughout the house. Those rugs were never sprayed, nor thrown out. She told me at the beginning of this to limit the areas of the house that I use. Since she lives all alone, it was easy for her to use kitchen, bedroom and bathroom and that was it! Her laundry is in the garage.

All I can say is that she may have had a very mild exposure to mites, but she also didn't go overboard doing anything, but continued to conduct her life more or less as usual. She does housesitting regularly and did not spread this to the house where she house sits either.

Another thing interesting about her is that she does not need air conditioning in the summer because her house stays cool. During the winter she rarely puts on the heat and keeps windows open during the winter.

I'm trying to think of anything else that would give all of us a clue as to why she got rid of the mites so quickly and most of us have not. Could it be that the mites did not go internal on her? She had terrible time with the mites going into her nose and eyes. She frequently had buzzing sensations.

There is always the possibility that I got the mites from her, but I'll never know. She is still a good friend and she has gone back several times for retreats to the same big house for women who go on retreats.