2023-05-28 16:30:00
Mosquito bites are one of the summer scourges. Besides the buzzing of these insects that keeps us awake, the threat of being bitten and the prospect of unpleasant itching worries us. Why do mosquito bites itch so much?
The saliva of female mosquitoes is responsible
Mosquitoes are pollinators that feed on the nectar of flowers. To obtain the nutrients necessary for female mosquitoes, which are the only ones to bite, to lay their eggs, they need another food source: blood.
When they push their proboscis into our skin, they inject saliva, which has an anticoagulant function: it facilitates the pumping of blood. It is this saliva that makes the body react. In fact, to protect itself from this attack by a foreign body, our immune system secretes a substance called histamine (as in the case of an allergy), which causes redness and swelling, as well as an itching sensation.
The peak of itching occurs following 2 or 3 minutes
The urge to scratch usually begins following regarding thirty seconds, peaks following two or three minutes, and subsides following ten minutes. So ideally, we must resist the urge to scratch to prevent the bite from really bothering us.
But this advice is not easy to follow because scratching reduces itching and relieves pain, at least for the moment. Of the American researchers demonstrated that rubbing the sting activates the pleasure and reward circuits of our brain. We become “addicted” to the relief that scratching provides. The problem is that the more you scratch, the more the itching persists and intensifies! There is even a risk of causing skin lesions.
How to prevent the itch?
To avoid this situation, there are some tips. The most famous is putting an ice cube on the pimple to numb the nerve endings. Other products are effective, such as lemon, cider vinegar, lavender essential oil or even aloe vera gel.
If you don’t have any of this within your reach, try scratching around the button instead of the button itself: this will relieve you without risking increasing its initial size.
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