Immunity to mosquito bites

[darkness]

Out of curiosity, is anyone here immune to the stuff that mosquitoes inject into your body to stop you feeling them when they bite you? By this I mean that when bitten, you do not get an itchy bump at all, or only get a small red mark that looks like a pin prick, which disapears quickly. I have realized that as if this spring, I seem to be immune. The only other person I know that has this is my father, who stopped a few years ago. It is nice, I guess, but I don't know why it happened, and I can't find anything on the internet about it.

[Bruce WillPete7]

You lucky lucky individual. As i speak im itching my many bug bites. Ive heard of some myths about that nothing fact based as they are myths. I heard that asians may be immune to it if they have fish as an every day supplement. Im sure you can find something offline just by googling in anything that has to do with the anatomy of a mosquito.

*itch *itch

[Skeptic 2004]

I might be wrong, but I don't think what you're experiencing is some kind of biological immunity. I think it's a thing called "out of sight, out of mind." The same thing that happens to you and your father happens to me if I'm not paying attention when traversing through a mosquito infested area. I've hiked through a rainforest type area and got bit about 14 times before I realized anything was wrong (my skin was beet red on all the places I got bit). If you don't touch the area where you get bit, it doesn't itch at all, and the red bump goes away. Now, if I see one of the little critters on my arm, I know I've been bit, and I wait for the itching sensation...sure enough it comes. And if I scratch it, that's all she wrote.

[Bruce WillPete7]

No No i think your on to something Skeptic 2004, are you a psychologist? Because that is pretty accurate ive heard/seen documentaries on things like that. For example if you cut yourself it doesnt start hurting until you see it, and other matters like that.

[ncole_91]

For example if you cut yourself it doesnt start hurting until you see it, and other matters like that.

Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one. Its like when my sister gets hurt, but she doesn't notice and keeps on playing, then when someone points it out, she starts whining because it hurts. Its happened to me before, I always have bruises and some cuts that I never knew I had, I mean they don't hurt hen I notice them because the "pain stage" would have been gone. I do not know if this post even made sense to the reader’s lol.

[kenpo_fighter]

You lucky lucky individual. As i speak im itching my many bug bites. Ive heard of some myths about that nothing fact based as they are myths. I heard that asians may be immune to it if they have fish as an every day supplement. Im sure you can find something offline just by googling in anything that has to do with the anatomy of a mosquito.

*itch *itch

dude, if only that were true. i'm half filipino & half white american. i eat fish as often as i can. i actually prefer it to beef. but, i've been doing a lot of my training outdoors lately & i've got misquito bites up the ying yang! totally kills when i'm trying to run kata and i can't think of nothing but scratching. good thing sensei's not watching me. he'd turn to the darkside and blast a "dark hado" on me for losing focus. lol.

[Menjo]

For example if you cut yourself it doesnt start hurting until you see it, and other matters like that.

Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one. Its like when my sister gets hurt, but she doesn't notice and keeps on playing, then when someone points it out, she starts whining because it hurts. Its happened to me before, I always have bruises and some cuts that I never knew I had, I mean they don't hurt hen I notice them because the "pain stage" would have been gone. I do not know if this post even made sense to the reader’s lol.

I think so too, also I find people react on what they think it will be like and not what it actually feels like. When I was a little kid, my sister was trying to hit a punching bag while i moved it around(which kinda defeats the whole purpose but thats not the point). anyway i got punched in the face and started to cry and a minute later realized it didnt hurt.

[Martial_Artist]

I lived in the Philippines for around 4 years. At first mosquito bites would wake me up. Of course, mosquitos in the Philippines are about the size of small rodents. Get too many bites and your body goes into blood-loss shock. After around two years mosquito bites stopped waking me up. The really bad ones used to the be the bites on my toes and the bites on my eyelids. I'm not sure if an immunity was developed or what, but I just adjusted to the bites and they didn't bother me after a couple years. It took two years before I could get a good night's rest.

Mabuhay!

MA

[Menjo]

Sounds disgusting, here in Canada its a matter of numbers. In the rural areas the skies thick with them.

[niel0092]

Ah time to put my wildlife biology degree to good use! The itch caused by a mosquito bite is due to an allergic reaction so it is conceivable that one person could have a lesser reaction than another. The raised bump is still an allergic reaction however so if you see that but it doesn't itch you are infact still allergic, just to a lesser degree.

As a side note, take a moment to consider poison ivy (toxicadendren radicans or rhus radicans in Latin). This is a plant that many of us are allergic to, somewhere between 80-95% of the US population. I've read, but cant verify, that Native American peoples are not allergic to this weed at all. In fact, some groups are reported to have used poison ivy to produce a type of black dye among other usefull things. Poison ivy is also a valuable food source for many birds and animals, It seems only people are allergic to it.

Ok, that's enough science geekery for now so I'll leave you with a joke: What's Minnesota's state bird? -The Mosquito