No, I’m not describing my appetite lately! I’m describing the *itching* that accompanies my latest bug bite! Aarrrggghhh!!
I woke up with it yesterday. A simple red bite on my wrist, and I have no idea what bit me or when. Great.
Sometimes I wake up with a mosquito bite from the day before, which I know is weird--to have such a delayed reaction, but this doesn’t really look like that. And I don’t even want to think about a spider crawling on me at night, biting me. Horrors and yuk!!! J
Now, if you do get a mosquito bite and you know it right away, you can do the Heloise trick: hot water.
You dab a washcloth in VERY hot water, as hot as you can stand without burning yourself, and press it onto the bite for as long as you can tolerate without burning yourself. (At first, you dab lightning fast, and then you can press longer and longer.) Do this for a few minutes, and the bite, and its itch, promptly goes away.
I have made up that the heat and subsequent blood flow dissipate the proteins deposited by the mosquito, so the reaction isn’t localized. But I don’t really know that. I do know that it works. As long as the bite is fresh, that is. It doesn’t work on bites that you discover the next day, but I may be the only one who has that happen.
As for this bite, it was itching so much, I got out all my anti-itching creams and lotions. (I even got out some for pain relief. When you’re desperate, you try anything.) Nothing worked, as usual. Duh.
I know, I know, I have all the usual creams from the pharmacy, and none of them do anything. Ditto for all the home remedies I’ve tried. I guess I’m just lucky to have such extreme reactions.
I did buy something new this year, a neat gel from the compounding pharmacy that has hydrocortisone, aloe vera, lidocaine, and a Benadryl-type antihistamine in it. It sounded *wonderful*! But after I used it, I couldn’t even tell that I had even put it on. :( Of course, I’ve even had Rx steroid creams that didn’t work for me.
Yup, good ol’ duct tape. Okay, technically it’s Gorilla tape.
But even scotch tape may work. Sweet, instant relief!!! Yay!
If I had to make up why it works, I’d say it was a counter-irritant, fooling the nerve endings. But who cares?? Relief from itching is a beautiful thing. Being able to sleep at night is, too.
Ahhhhh…..
Sweet dreams, everyone!
XOXO,
Lucky Dog
♥
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