The other day I noticed that I had a really itchy patch on the bottom of my foot, I thought that it was just another mosquito bite so I applied some anti-itching cream, unfortunately that didnt really seem to work! so a couple of days later it still hadnt gone away and by this time I coulnt walk at all on the side of my foot. The spot was all red and then whitey/yellow inside...I just presumed it was puss or sthg inside. so anyway I went to ask the nurse what she thought it could be, she said it was probably a spider bite or sthg! YUCK! she wanted to ask Mama Maggie what she thougt it could be. turns out its a jigger! definition "The female chigoe, jigger or sandflea bores into the skin, usually of the feet, causing extreme irritation. If Tunga penetrans is not removed, it can cause an infection, which may become gangrenous"
So Mama Maggie - the jigger expert gets a syringe needle to poke the 'spot' and try to extract the jigger whole, unfortunately it's too thin! so she gets a safety pin and sticks that in twisting and turning it trying to get the jigger out, unfortunately the jigger is burrowed to deep into my skin to get it out with a safety pin, so instead she uses a scalpel and cuts around the jigger (into my foot) and then once she had a big gaping hole she pulls the jigger out whole! YUCK! and yes it hurt, she gave me a piece of wood to bite down onto so I wouldnt scream and wake all the babys up! So yes, I am now a true Ugandan!
3 comments:
Other definitions include.....
jig·ger
–noun 1. a person or thing that jigs.
2. Nautical. a. the lowermost sail set on a jiggermast.
b. jiggermast.
c. a light tackle, as a gun tackle.
3. any of various mechanical devices, many of which have a jerky or jolting motion.
4. Informal. some contrivance, article, or part that one cannot or does not name more precisely: What is that little jigger on the pistol?
5. Ceramics. a machine for forming plates or the like in a plaster mold rotating beneath a template.
6. Mining. a jig for separating ore.
7. a jig for fishing.
8. Golf. a club with an iron head intermediate between a mashie and a midiron, now rarely used.
9. Billiards, Pool. a bridge.
10. a. a 11/2 -oz. (45-ml) measure used in cocktail recipes.
b. a small whiskey glass holding 11/2 oz. (45 ml).
And on Wikipedia....
The term jigger may refer to:
A Jigger (bartending), a measure of alcoholic beverage ingredients, and the tool used to measure them.
A jigger flea or chigoe flea, a kind of chigger.
A jigger mast or jiggermast, the aftmost mast of a four-masted sailing ship.
A machine used in the production of ceramics such as pottery
going on to....
Chigoe flea
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Siphonaptera
Infraorder: Pulicomorpha
Superfamily: Pulicoidea
Family: Tungidae
Genus: Tunga
Species: T. penetrans
Binomial name
Tunga penetrans
The chigoe flea (Tunga penetrans) is a parasitic arthropod found in tropical climates, especially South America and the West Indies. At 1 mm long, the chigoe flea is the smallest known flea. Breeding female chigoes burrow into exposed skin and lay eggs, causing intense irritation. After this point, the skin lesion looks like a 5 to 10 mm white spot with a central black dot, which are the flea's exposed hind legs, respiratory spiracles and reproductive organs.
If the flea is left within the skin, infection and/or other dangerous complications may ensue.
The free-living flea is a poor jumper and can only reach a height of around 20 cm; therefore the use of closed shoes (as opposed to sandals or slippers) is an effective way of preventing infection.[1]
The parasitic flea lives in soil and sand, and feeds intermittently on warm-blooded hosts such as humans, cattle, sheep, dogs, mice, and other animals. In order to reproduce, the female flea burrows head-first into the hosts' skin, often leaving the caudal tip of its abdomen visible through an orifice in a skin lesion. This orifice allows the chigoe flea to breathe while feeding on blood vessels in the cutaneous and subcutaneous dermal layer. In the next two weeks, the flea releases about 100 eggs through the orifice, which fall to the ground. The flea then dies and is sloughed by the host's skin. Within the next three to four days, the eggs hatch and mature into adult fleas within three to four weeks.
All this talk of fleas is making me itch and scratch!!!!!!!
thanks for the added description of the flea Greg, although I'd much rather not have read that at all!!
I just hope I dont get another one!
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