My first experience with a black fly bite (photo contained in post)

First, a word of warning, the photo of the bite is enclosed at the bottom of this post. If that is not your thing - don't scroll down to the bottom! Second, I was - very fortunately - not who was bitten. My poor youngest daughter was the victim. We had never had a black fly bite within the family before, so this was our first experience with a black fly bite. Even my husband, who has lived in Japan his whole life, had never seen a black fly bite before.

My daughter got bit on Monday. By Tuesday night she was complaining of itching and I put over the counter itch relief cream on it. On Wednesday morning, the area was raised a little and pink. My eldest daughter used to get exactly the same after a mosquito bite, so at this point we were thinking she just had a delayed reaction from a mosquito bite. But by Thursday morning the area of the bite was red and more swollen. By the time she got home from school on Thursday, it was purple. I had never seen anything like it before.

I brought her to the dermatologist straight away. In the car on the way she told me that she had visited the 'Hokenshitsu' (nurse's office) in school to get some itch relief cream. The nurse told her that it looked like a black fly, BUYO in Japanese, bite, and that it was nothing to worry about but not to scratch it. The Doctor confirmed that it was most likely a blackfly bite, but he couldn't rule out a tick either. So, to watch her closely for fever or increased swelling.

However, having heard the term black fly twice that day, later that night she asked my husband what they look like, because there was a fly like insect in the playground when she got bit. She hadn't felt the bite at the time - which it turns out is very common - but wondered if that might be what it was. He didn't want to plant any ideas in her head, so instead of him describing it, he asked her to describe the insect she saw to him. He was certain it was indeed a black fly.

What I learned from the Doctor is that both black fly and tick bites often take days to appear. It also turns out that the swelling and large purple discoloration is very normal. By all accounts, including hers, the bite site is both itchy as well as painful. And unfortunately, it takes about a week, sometimes two to heal. The Doctor came her a steroid cream to apply and an antihistamine to ingest. Both seem to be working well.

Have you ever been bitten by a black fly? Had you ever seen what the bite looks like before?

Photo hereafter, four days after she was bitten, before she started the cream and tablets.