Ever since I was in highschool I have had a fairly simple policy towards any unidentified swelling or inflamation on my body. I cut it open as much as I can possibly stand to- often enough this requires little more than running a shaving razor over it to get the first layer of skin off, but sometimes requires rather meticulous and painful work with my pocketknife. Then I squeeze the devil out of it, in particularly stubborn cases I've been known to resort to the use of a pair of visegrips, although this is rare.

It's painful, but I feel justified by this thread. I'd rather have a nasty cut than an unidentified bug-inflicted wound. So, my standard advice: cut it, squeeze it, put alcohol on it, repeat as necessary.

On a side note, a black widow got me three times last week. Talk about a nuissance. One of them was right behind my knee so that my jeans would irritate the heck out of it. Vise-grips material there I'm sad to say. i just could not get all of that dang fluid out of there and make the swelling go down. OUCH.

can u say "scorpion stinger" *coughs*

I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to my own thread, I just wasn't sure what to say. As of right now, it reminds me of that giant claw thing in the commercial for ... the title escapes me! There's a movie coming out about some cave, the claw is in the commercial, it moves.

OK so mine doesn't do that. It's still sitting on my desk. I haven't had it checked out or anything. Nothing more than an ingrown hair has come out of the wound (I'm part Scottish, so the hair is everywhere :p). I think everything is fine still, but I also still want to know what the heck it is/was.

The parasite things were creepy but didn't look like it. I've felt heart pains and stuff that normally just happen, thinking like "Oh no, the parasites are in mah blood!" Maybe they're just love pains :p:p It's been 8 months today T_T

So anyway, would people still recommend getting it checked out? Can I send it off somewhere? Where in the western Chicago 'burbs can I take it? Maybe I ought to wait a year for college and have a professor check it out. Since nothing has developed, it's more annoying than important, eep! I haven't taken it out from it's little haven since I took the pictures, but I'm pretty sure it's still in good condition.

...to be continued ... ??? *bad movie ending music*