What are the symptoms of swimmers itch?
Sensitized people get swimmer’s itch when the cercarial stage (originating in specific snail species) accidentally enters their skin. Usually within 30 minutes, a small red spot appears at the site where the cercaria penetrated. This red spot will continue to increase in size for the next 24-30 hours. The raised, reddened spot is now called a papule. It will continue to itch for up to a week. Papules are limited to areas of the body that get exposed to water because cercariae can not live out of the water. For a few species of schistosomes that cause swimmer’s itch, toweling off may help; with most other species, it will not do any good because the cercariae penetrated the skin while the person was in the water.
