The Bites Of Mosquitoes And Other Insects
Posted by Owen Jones in Uncategorized, tags: animals, biology, diseases, environment, gardening, health, insects, mosquitoes, other, outdoors, recreation, science, travel, UncategorizedWe all get bitten by insects from time to time - we are just too plentiful a source of food for insects to disregard. However, some people react quite badly to an insect bite, while others do not seem be all that much troubled by them. The most common insect bites are from mosquitoes, ants, fleas and gnats or midges and now bed bugs are coming back too..
If you are not overly allergic to these bites there is no need to do anything about the bite itself although you may like to eradicate an infestation of ants, fleas and bed bugs. Mosquito and other insect bites normally produce an itchy, red swelling, which should go down within one to three days, although some people do have them for much longer.
We say that insects bite, but it is not always true. It is slapdash speech. Some insects bite (like ants), some insects sting (like wasps) and other insects suck blood (like mosquitoes, fleas and bed bugs). Most people are most likely to show a reaction to blood sucking although the stings are the most painful.
Blood-sucking insects squirt some saliva into you through a pore before sucking blood. This saliva contains an anticoagulant to cause the blood flow more freely and it might contain an antiseptic and an analgesic too to ease the pain of a possible infection or reaction to the bite. It is this saliva that causes the swelling and itching in most cases.
This is like an allergic reaction, but doctors do not consider it to be an allergy. Some people really are allergic to the bites of blood-sucking or stinging insects and they might need to be hospitalized. They suffer far more than an itchy swelling for a day or two. You will soon know if you are allergic. You might even pass out or go into a coma.
Anyway, the main concern for most of us after being ‘bitten’ is to alleviate the itching and reduce the swelling. It appears that some items work better on some individuals than on others, so it is a question of testing different things until you find one that suits you and the type of bite that is afflicting you.
Tiger Balm works on most insect bites for most individuals, but some individuals just have to rub a slice of lemon or an ice cube on the bite to make the bite more tolerable. If you are going to treat mosquito and other insect bites, you should do it as soon as you can after having been bitten. Try to get that saliva out so that it does not have time to trigger your bodies natural defences.
Some creams seem to neutralize the saliva while others seem to pucker the skin enough to squirt it back out. If the saliva is back outside it cannot cause an infection although most infections like this are caused by scratching with dirty finger nails
Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is currently involved with finding a home remededy for mosquito bites. If you would like to know more, please go to our web site at Getting Rid of Mosquito Bites.
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