Ladybugs

Excerpt from the memoirs of Pat Otterness

Ladybugs

?????????For many years I have been plagued by a most unusual allergy.??I had no idea, when my house first became a haven for ladybugs, that they would wreak such havoc on my life.??If I noticed a gradual worsening of my breathing, I put it down to sinuses.??But every year, around the same time, it grew worse, and I began to see a correlation between the ladybugs and my badly-stopped-up nose.??Eventually, I dropped by an allergists office to ask them if ladybug allergy was actually “a thing.”??They said they had no treatment for it, but that they knew of someone who was researching the subject.??They gave me his name and his email address.

?????????Very late one Saturday night, I emailed Dr. Tom Platts-Mills, telling him about my plight and asking if there was anything I could do about it.??(This is where it gets weird.)??Early the next morning, I got a phone call.??A man with a very British voice asked me if he was speaking to lostpatty (my email moniker).??And yes, it was Dr. Platts-Mills, calling with an unusual request.??He wanted to know if he and his wife could drive out to my house that very day to see my situation and take some blood from me.??Remember, this was the head of Immunology at the University of Virginia, a real, important physician, asking if he could make the hour’s drive from Charlottesville, unpaid, to help me.??Naturally, I said yes.

?????????So out he came, with his wife, to look at my ladybug infestation.??He checked my house, inside and out, and asked if he could get a blood sample from me.??Sure.??No problem.??And thus began my long interaction with this great man.

?????????He asked me to capture ladybugs for him and store them in jars in my refrigerator until he could come to fetch them, and I did this for years, using a device that sucked the ladybugs up but didn’t injure them.??(I think it was intended for wasps.)

?????????None of this helped the plague of Asian ladybugs that made an earlier-than-usual assault on my living space in 2006. October 18th was like something out of Alfred Hitchcock. Swarms of ladybugs filled the air as far as the eye could see, making the first of their fall pilgrimage’s into homes in Eastern states ... mine among them. Each year their numbers grew. Apart from me, they seemed to have no natural predators in the United States. Year after year I’ve battled them from October until April with all the tools at my disposal ... to little avail.

?????????When I saw them coming, I sealed my doors and windows with duct tape. It wasn’t enough to keep them out, but it slowed them to a trickle. I stood guard with my suction powered BugZookaTM, catching as many as I could and storing them in jars in the refrigerator for the immunologists at the University of Virginia. I was feeling in control, on top of the situation, in the catbird seat, until I happened to glance into the bathroom. Augh!!! Thousands, if not millions, had found a way in through my bathroom window. The walls were black with lady-bugs. I stared for a long moment, mouth agape. Then I firmly shut the bathroom door and walked away. A Scarlett O’Hara moment:?I’ll think about this tomorrow.

?????????I only mention this yearly invasion because I am extremely allergic to these harmless-looking creatures. From October until April, they shared my home, fell into my food, got inside my clothing, entangled themselves in my hair, and drowned in my dishwater. They congregated on the floor, in the windows, inside crawl space and attic and every hidey-hole you can imagine. Don’t laugh! They may be coming soon to an area near you. Needless to say, constant nasal congestion from October ‘til April, coupled with itchy eczema, conjunctivitis, and coughing made me a poor winter companion, and left me with a dismal outlook on life. These pesky beetles are classified as?Harmonica axyridis. The name will be changed to?Horridus obnoxia?when I take over the world - which won’t be soon. (I have so little energy when I can’t draw in air through my nose. Go figure!)

?????????Eventually, I discovered an exterminator that sprayed a noxious chemical that would kill ladybugs.??Sprayed around windows and ceilings, it helped to cut down on the numbers sharing my home.??Even so, I must be careful to keep my house tightly protected from invasion, because even the spray of one ladybug could lay me up for an entire winter, and might be life-threatening.

The Asian ladybug,?Harmonia oxyridis,?was first introduced into the United States in 1916, intended for ecological control of aphids. It was believed that cold winters would keep the beetle populations under control. Instead, ladybug populations began to swarm and invade houses along the East Coast in early fall. These infestations have become worse over time. Hundreds, if not thousands, of these beetles can be (and are) collected each week in a single home (such as mine) during the winter months. As spring arrives, populations over-wintering in homes become more active and flock to sunny windows, seeking a way back outside.

Increasingly, reports of allergy related to the beetle have presented symptoms including asthma, rhinitis, conjunctivitis, and chronic cough. The Asian ladybug can (and will) bite, causing local reactions at wound sites. The beetles vary in color – generally shades of rust-brown and tan, with a varied number of black spots. They spray a yellow “blood” which has an unpleasant odor, and leaves a residue on walls and windows.

Happily, the last introduction of these beetles to the United States was in 1990, and I believe it is now illegal to do so. Still, the populations continue to grow and spread. For several years I caught home-grown Asian ladybugs for use in immunological research in cooperation with Dr. Tom Platts-Mills and Dr. Takuya Nakazawa, immunologists at the University of Virginia. Both of these learned gentlemen have spent hours personally collecting ladybugs in my home, and returned in May to enjoy my iris garden (back when I had one). A skin test for allergy to the Asian ladybug is now available, thanks to the many ladybugs I captured for Dr. Platts-Mills.

(In 2010, his research earned Platts-Mills election as a?Fellow of the Royal Society, the first allergist to be named to this select group. - Wikipedia) This was for his overall research, not just his work with ladybugs.