My son showed similar reactions as shown in the pic in the article during the first two or three years after the Asian Tiger Mosquito arrived in our neighbourhood.
During Jule and August he couldn’t get outside without getting severe reactions to every bite (and this species bites a lot, as they use multiple sequential tiny bites instead one huge bite).
Luckily, his immune system seems to have adapted by now and effects of the bites is again in a normal range you would expect…As someone who is a mosquito magnet, I’ve always thought that people adapt to their local mosquitos. I used to get lots of bites, and they would itch, but not leave much of a welt. Then I moved across the country, and started reacting more to the local mosquitos here. Now I dont react much to my local mosquitos, but when I visit where I grew up (or visit another country) I react much more substantially.
I’ve had the same experience - when people came from places with less mosquitoes, they were much more susceptible to them than I was. Sometimes they would be eaten alive and I would be like, “what, there are mosquitoes?”
I just went to South America and found a special type of hateful mosquito…and given South America, it’s probably barely a 1 on a 1.-10 scale of terrible mosquitoes I didn’t experience
I do think Aedes bites are worse. At least they itch way worse than Culex bites for me. I am not sure if this is a function of differences in their venom, or just their love for the thin sensitive skin around the ankles and elbows. But either way, they tend to leave a sharper, localized red welt where they bite, rather than the large, wide but less pronounced bites I get from Culex mosquitoes.
People seem to certainly react differently to different types of mosquito. I never had much with Aedes, I mostly find them really annoying. I do react a bit more to Culex, though.
Other people I know of started to react a lot more from the beginning, but many seem to have adapted by now.
I had a medical assistant tell me this wasn’t real, that everyone’s reaction to mosquito bites is the same.
Well who’s laughing now?!
Not me. Just itching.
Yeah, I’ve seen people get this a couple times. Sudden intense quantity of bites (for one person after a hike in rainforest, another after dinner on a patio next to a stream). The inflammation starts to kind of merge between bites, they grow fatigued and feverish and the eyelids start to swell a bit. Each time, some Benadryl helped resolve it (of course knocking them out though). So I don’t know why the assistant would claim that, of course different people have different reactions to the venom based on their own immune systems, quantity and location of the bites, etc
