The New England Summer Mascot

Being that I grew up in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, I never had any problems with mosquitoes. I was in my late 20’s before I was ever bitten by one of these pesky little creatures.

I was 28 and my boyfriend at the time lived in South Florida. I flew out for a visit and returned with over 100 mosquito bites. I suppose the little buggers had a meeting about the “fresh meat” in town and I became a glorious buffet. Now, had I just had a normal, healthy, red-hive type of reaction to the bite all would be fine. But NO….I like to excel at all that I do. It was on this trip that I discovered a new and exciting fact about myself.

I am allergic to mosquito bites.

Now in some way, shape or form we are all obviously allergic as the little itchy red bump is a form of an allergic reaction. But for people who are actually severely allergic to these bites – a phenomenon known as “skeeter syndrome” – they react differently to a mosquito nibble.

First you realize almost immediately that you have been bitten. It starts out as in incredibly itchy tiny little red dot. You fight every urge to scratch but the itch makes you want to rip your appendages off. You try and ignore it and hope that you have hydrocortisone or Benadryl cream nearby. Unfortunately, all this will do is soothe the itch for brief periods of time.

After a while the area of the bite spreads and swells and bruises and gets, for lack for a better term, a fever. Your skin is blazing hot to the touch but only in the affected area. The redness now becomes like a rash and if you have any other bites in the area they sort of have a meet-and-greet and join up to spread the joy of the allergy as far as it may go.

I looked like a leper when I returned from that trip to Florida and I headed straight to the allergist.

I am actually allergic to the anticoagulant that the mosquito releases when it bites. Aside from the basic over the counter anti-itch remedies there is not much I can do about the reaction. The allergist recommended that I try to not to get bitten.

RIGHT!

Well that was pretty easy in L.A. The mosquitoes couldn’t penetrate the ever protective layer of smog. However, I had a moment of pure insanity and I packed up and moved to the northeast where the summers are wet and sticky and the mosquito should be the summer mascot.

I take all sorts of precautions. I cover up. I try and avoid heavily populated mosquito areas. My summer perfume is DEET.

It seems to have worked. I have been in New England for almost 4 years and have avoided the dreaded allergic reaction.

Until now……

I was in Rhode Island this past weekend and we were getting ready to catch the tail-end of a hurricane. The weather was hot, sticky and verging on unbearable. It was a dressy occasion, a wedding, and I decided against using my “l’eau de DEET”. Apparently, this type of weather is a breeding ground for these evil critters and in the 3.5 seconds that I was actually outside one of them got me on my leg – my shin, to be exact.

My little bite started to itch and burn in the middle of the reception. I did my best to ignore it but managed to help the allergy on its “spreading journey” by swing dancing and running all about. The next morning my leg was double the size.  It was swollen, hot, bruised and red. I drove back to Boston and did all my home remedies to try and calm the reaction. Nothing worked. The mosquito had won.

This bring us to today. Here I sit, at work, limping through my day. My leg is so swollen that I can’t put any pressure on it. I called the doctor and begged and pleaded for some sort of magic pill that will make this allergy go away.

She recommended, and I quote, verbatim – “Why don’t you try and get bitten more often and maybe you’ll develop an immunity to the bites”.

I am seriously considering having my leg removed – 1) to stop the insane amount of pain and annoyance associated with this allergy and 2) so I can wallop my doctor over her head with it!