Hey everyone!
So I noticed that my body became abnormally itchy about 2 1/2 weeks ago. I put up with it a couple of days to kind of see where on my body I was most itchy and when I was itchiest. I am a male and sleep in just my underwear, I noticed that the majority of the itching was on my upper thighs, around the pelvic bone, and on my bladder, and on my butt with minimal itching on other various places.
At the beginning there weren't any bites, just itchiness. I researched my broad symptoms and came to the conclusion that I either have bed bugs, scabies, heat rash, or am an allergic reaction to fabric softener.
some backstory, I recently relocated from Nashville, Tennessee to Santa Barbara, California about 3 months ago. The itching didn't start until the end of september. I am currently living in a student housing apartment complex where I live with 4 other people, one other person in a room with me.
So I switched laundry detergents in hopes that it was either my detergent or someone had happened to use fabric softener when I did laundry, however my symptoms did not go away.
I do not show any scabies specific symptoms (the common S tunnel, as well as itching between the fingers & toes), so I fairly certain that it is not scabies.
I am without health insurance so I went to the Nurse Practitioner at my school and told her my issues and she prescribed atarax to help with the symptoms and suggested that I search for bed bugs. I looked the other day in the seams of my matress in the corners and on my sheets with a magnifying, to which I could not find any bugs of any kind, I also lack the 3 bites in a row characteristic of bed bug bites, and only within the last couple of days did bites actually show up as opposed to the itchiness which started two weeks ago. The bites are typically very small and disappear after a short period of time.
My roommate, who sleeps 5 feet away from me, nor do my housemates appear to show any symptoms of bed bugs.
So, am I going insane? Any tips, feedback, help etc. would be greatly apperciated.