Once Bitten

My feet, ankles and calves are covered with mosquito bites. I've counted and there are 32 of them! 32!? Good grief! More than half of them are on the tops of my feet and back of my ankles. The itchiness has been coming and going and varies in intensity & frequency. Most of them have been there for about 2 weeks and really shouldn't be itching anymore, but oh well, they are.

They were itching pretty bad last night and so, I covered them with Caladryl lotion before I went to bed. It "worked", but not very well. They were still itchy, but tolerable. I figured I could ignore them and I went to sleep. I was suddenly and rudely awakened at 1:30 by intense itching on my ankles. It was horrible! I was able to resist scratching for about 5 minutes and then couldn't take it anymore. I gave in and started scratching them and did it for about 10 minutes. My skin became so inflamed and sore and even more itchy. It was unbearable. I got out of bed and covered them with more Caladryl. It didn't do a thing. I remembered that I had some Campho-Phenique and tried that. Nothing! I was getting really anxious and desperate (it was after 2:00 and I was tired) and felt like I was going to scratch my skin right off.

I decided to Google home remedies and came across some very interesting ideas. I found several things, but here's a list of a few:

1. Bar soap (I knew about this one, but mine were past the point of being helped by it.)
2. Rubbing alcohol (I knew about this one too, but really was beyond this helping.)
3. Oral antihistamine (I thought, "duh! Of course that would help!" So, I took a Benadryl pill. It took about 30 minutes to kick in, but it finally did. #16 gave me relief before this finally worked and the 2 of them togehter worked wonders.)
4. Caladryl
5. Calamine
6. Orajel
7. Bag balm
8. Cover the bite with a piece of Scotch tape
9. Underarm deodorant
10. Honey
11. Mouthwash
12. Vinegar
13. Bleach
14. Baking soda paste
15. Hot water (take a bath)
16. Vick's Vapo rub (This one jumped out at me. I decided to try it and finally got some relief! The cooling effect was so, so, so, so very nice. As I was drifting off to sleep at around 2:30, I thought about maybe trying Icy Hot. You would get the cooling and heating effect all in one. I'm going to try it today if it gets really bad.)

There were several more. Some I won't try, some I might. I'm happy with the results I got from the Vapo Rub and will most likely continue to use it.