Mystery Diagnosis

Skeeter Syndrome

I went home and called to make an appointment with the Pediatric Allergist. Their soonest available "new patient" appointment was 8 weeks away.  Eight weeks!  I am not nor have I ever been a very patient person... 8 weeks seemed like an eternity.  I scheduled the appointment and marked it on my calendar. I decided to start researching mosquito bite allergies in the meantime.  I had previously made several attempts to research J's symptoms on the internet never having much luck.  Knowing that mosquito bites were the cause of his symptoms made all the difference.

 My search lead to pictures other people had posted of their own severe allergic reactions to mosquito bites.  I ended up on a blog where a 23 year old young man had written a post about growing up with a severe allergy to mosquito bites called Skeeter Syndrome.  I had never heard of Skeeter Syndrome before but the description of the symptoms he gave sounded very familiar.  The picture he posted looked very familiar as well.

The top result after a google search on "Skeeter Syndrome" was a link to wikipedia.org and some basic information on Skeeter Syndrome.  The paragraph and a half description provided by the site was quite disappointing.  While I was very happy to finally have a name for J's condition, I was quite frustrated to find there was limited information available.  I quickly realized I was better off browsing through blogs and forums to find the details I was after.  This information was typically being given from the author's own personal experience.  Furthermore it was disappointing to realize the lack of resources available on effective treatments and/or preventative measures.  I spent many many hours gathering what info I could during the next several weeks while we waited for J's appointment with the allergist to arrive.

It was the day of our long awaited appointment with the Pediatric Allergist.  Our Pediatrician suggested I bring along the photo journal I'd been keeping of J's symptoms for the Allergist to review.  He confirmed my suspicions of Skeeter Syndrome as we discussed J's history.  He reviewed the pictures we'd brought and examined J.  He recommended I continue giving J a daily dose of allergy medication like Claritin or Zyrtec.  He advised me to use Benadryl and Ibuprofen to treat a reaction.  I explained we were already doing this but it seemed to do little to help with the reaction or the pain.  He responded by saying the most important part of managing Skeeter Syndrome was to be diligent in taking preventative measures like keeping him indoors during peak mosquito times (dusk and dawn) and keeping him sprayed with repellents.  He told me to spray him as soon as he got up in the morning, throughout the day, after a bath or swimming and after he changed into pajamas before bedtime.  

He instructed me to use a product containing DEET as it would be the most effective to repel mosquitoes.  I raised concerns about the constant chemical exposure that would cause and possible side effects of following his advice.  He warned that it was likely for the severity of the allergic reactions to increase as time went on and said that the possibility of anaphylactic shock was more of a threat to J's health than the possibility of side effects from using the chemical repellents.  In other words it was the lesser of two evils.  I wasn't thrilled with this rationalization at all.  I asked about putting J through a round of allergy shots to desensitize him to the mosquitoes.  I explained that my sister had found success with the shots in treating her environmental allergies.  He explained that allergy shots were not an option for J as the serums for insect allergies had not yet been developed.  Shots were only being manufactured for treating food and environmental allergies.  Basically the bottom line was that there were no good treatments or even preventative measures available for those who suffered from Skeeter Syndrome.  I packed up my pictures and we headed home... completely discouraged.