This is pretty much irrelevant, but I just had to share.
I am one of those people that attract mosquitoes like a freaking magnet. During certain times of the year, I can’t be outside for more than a few seconds without getting bitten. I really can not believe I haven’t contracted West Nile yet.
In the past few years, my body has decided that it is going to be allergic to just about everything. This apparently includes reacting to those pesky mosquito bites about ten times more than it used to. For example, mosquito bites used to be itchy, but tolerable, and they used to get to about the size of a dime, if that. Now, every bite causes whatever part of the body it’s on (arm, leg, etc…) to swell, get hot, and turn red. They also itch like the dickens.
And yes, that was probably more than you ever wanted to know about me. But I’m getting to the cool part, I promise.
Tonight, I stepped outside for a few minutes, barefoot, because I’m a southern girl and I don’t believe in wearing shoes unless I absolutely have to, and guess what? I got three huge and extremely itchy mosquito bites on my feet.
Fearing that my only option for comfort might be to actually saw my own feet off, I suddenly remembered something I had glanced over on Pinterest. It was a picture of a spoon and it was captioned, “Take the itch out of bug bites.”
I’m the kind of person who will try anything once. Except food that I think looks like it could be gross or make me sick, but that’s a whole other kind of crazy.
Anyway, I Googled “Mosquito Bite Spoon” and sure enough, I found several articles that said that all you had to do to take the itch out of mosquito bites was to run a spoon under some hot water and press it against the bug bite. Now I’m thinking, This has got to be some kind of placebo effect, but I figured there was no harm in giving it a shot.
I grabbed a spoon and ran back to the bathroom, where I did exactly what the article instructed. It was soothing on the bites, sure, but I didn’t think it would actually get rid of the itch. And it didn’t, immediately. I decided just to forget about it.
Well, as I’m sitting here, watching Bad Ink, reading about marketing, and thinking it might be about time to go to bed, I suddenly realized, Hey… I can’t feel those bug bites at all.
I looked down at my feet.
Those bites are gone.
I can’t even remember where they were.
Astonished, I read through the article again. My allergist had told me that the reason that people react to mosquito bites is that we are allergic to their saliva. I’m sure that’s true. However, according to this article, it’s the protein in the bite that makes us itch, and pressing a hot spoon to the area effectively kills off all that protein. What does that mean?
No more itch. Ever.
I’m not gonna lie… I kind of feel like a Hogwarts student, because this is definitely some kind of magic.
Finally, I have dominion over those pesky buggers that treat me like their own personal all-you-can-eat blood buffet.
Well, not really. Technically, they’re still going to try to drain me every chance they get, but at least now I won’t have to suffer through the miserable after-effects!
Take that, you miserable little blood-suckers.
A Platform of Sorts 