Good Question: Why Do Mosquito Bites Itch?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- It's a sign of summer -- when Minnesota's unofficial state bird takes over our barbeques and baseball games. The mosquito can do quite a number on our skin, from small bumps to large welts.
So, that has 10-year-old Ryan from Aitkin wanting to know: Why do mosquito bites itch? Good Question.
"We're allergic to their saliva," Dr. Jamie Davis, a dermatologist with Uptown Dermatology, said.
According to Davis mosquitoes actually don't bite us.
"The mosquito, in order to get their little drop of blood to reproduce with, inserts their little needle-like porbasis into your skin -- their little nose," Dr. Davis said.
The nose is not like a stinger, according to Dr. Davis. Their saliva contains a little anti-coagulant, which makes it easier to suck our blood. It's actually the proteins in that saliva that trigger an allergic reaction, releasing histamine that makes us each.
"Histamines are the body's way of trying to bring fluid in to wash away whatever it is that's on you that it doesn't like," Dr. Davis said.
Dr. Davis says to help with the itchiness, take an anti-histamine, Claritin or a Zyrtec before you know you'll be out with mosquitos or you if you already have some really bad bites. Those medications, she says, mellow out the histamines.
