OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Apparent mosquito bites are leaving people in Oklahoma with odd symptoms, including swollen hands and intense pain.
Among those affected were a youth soccer coach and her team who said they experienced intense symptoms after being bitten by mosquitoes at an Oklahoma City park.
Coach Laney Singleton said her hand was heavily swollen for several days after she says a mosquito bit her. She said the pain felt more like what she’d expect from a bee sting rather than a mosquito.
“It leaves a feeling of almost like a flu shot after you get a flu shot,” she said.
Medical experts say the symptoms aren’t normal, and some doctors aren’t sure what to think of it.
“It doesn’t look like your typical mosquito bite,” Dr. Melinda Cail said of Singleton’s symptoms. “Usually people will get a little bit of swelling and maybe some redness. But if people are consistently having a big reaction to it, it makes me think that it’s probably something else… or maybe some different strain of mosquito. But I think that would be more widespread, and we would have seen bites more like that around.”
The bites reportedly have resulted in swelling, burning, itching and slight pain. Some symptoms even last hours, with others lasting days.
“I freaked out,” said Tara Morgan, whose daughter had a bad reaction to a mosquito bite. “My biggest fear was it’s swelling to the point where it could have problems with her arteries or closing her throat up or causing breathing issues because it was huge — very, very big.”
Morgan contacted NewsNation affiliate KFOR after seeing a previous report on similar bites.
“I was like, ‘That is crazy,’ because I thought we were the only ones this is happening to,” Morgan said.
Her pediatrician told her it’s an allergic reaction, but she, her husband and their kids have never experienced something like this from a mosquito bite until the last couple of months, and they aren’t alone.
“I’ve never had a reaction from a mosquito bite before,” said Rick Jackson, who also reacted to a mosquito bite. “That, of course, makes a normal little lump, but I’ve never had a severe reaction from anything like that.”
Jackson lives in Tulsa, which made him think this isn’t an isolated issue.
“What was going through my mind is what kind of, you know, virus or disease that thing could be carrying, you know, to cause that,” Jackson said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, signs of mosquito bites include a puffy, reddish bump, small blisters instead of hard bumps, or dark spots resembling bruises. The CDC says that more severe reactions can cause swelling and redness of larger areas, fever, hives or swollen lymph nodes.
KFOR reached out to multiple health agencies, epidemiologists and bug experts. Each said this was the first time they had seen or heard of something like the symptoms seen in Oklahoma.
“That just absolutely blew my mind,” Jackson said. “I just saw that article today, and it was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s happened to others.’ I just thought, you know, it was an isolated thing.”
Both the Oklahoma City-County Health Department and the Oklahoma State Health Department say they will continue their normal mosquito testing efforts and keep an eye out for anything abnormal.
