Insect bites, etc.

[Protimenow]

I had an interesting (to me, at list) thing happen to me yesterday. I had a pain on my back, and was in my car, so I could do nothing but reach over my shoulder and scratch or touch it.

When I took my shirt off, I had a big bruise. I know that there are certain insects that suck blood and that inject an anticoagulant so that the flow of blood into their nasty little mouths is unimpeded. My wife looked at it, and it DID appear to be a bite.

My theory is that some kind of parasite had an early dinner at my expense and, because I'm taking warfarin, the anticoagulant that it injected caused a lot of bleeding around the bite.


It's still pretty sore, and still, of course, quite bruised.


Here's my question:

I know that I can't be the only person on Warfarin to which this has happened. I'm just curious to hear from any of you whether or you're familiar with this kind of event, or if it's ever happened to you.


(I tested my INR last night, and it's at the top of my range, but the overall INR may be unrelated to the 'injection' that the bug gave me)


Any thoughts?

 

[dick0236]

I can't recall this kind of problem, but I can see that a big insect bite could cause a slight bruising. I've sometimes wondered about a possible effect of anti-coagulated blood on biting insects as I seem to have little problem with biting insects, as others, like my wife, has with them.

 

[chaconne]

I recall that this happened to me a few months ago. I got some kind of bug bite that got a lot bigger than I would have expected. Since I'm always scanning my body for a re-occurrence of Melanoma, I was concerned, but it went away in a few days. I speculate that it could have been a result of being on Warfarin.