I’m a mosquito magnet; according to the link 1-10 of us of are. I’ve always suspected it’s because I have oily skin. Apparently, mosquitos are attracted to steroids, cholesterols, and certain acids excreted by our skin. So, I’m basically basting in seasoning for the little bastards.
Anyone else know my pain?
I must be. Last summer I never got one mosquito bite- not one! I was so proud and happy. We kept our doors closed and just kept the windows (with screens) open. This summer, we have a roommate and he keeps the doors open. I currently have approximately 57 mosquito bites on my body and am contemplating suicide just to put me out of my misery. And I harbor a tiny but real fear of getting West Nile Virus like purplehorseshoe’s husband.
As a kid, growing up in Illinois, I think word had spread and every mosquito knew DMark was the best buffet in the county…they would flock to me. Of course, they had to find good skin that was not already covered by poison ivy - and I could get poison ivy simply by walking within 50 feet of any poison ivy plant. Add to that the pleasure of sweating two cups of water per minute in the humidity, plus the itching of poison ivy and mosquito bites, not including the sunburn and peeling skin…ah yes - the joys of youth in Illinois.
Two of the benefits of living in Las Vegas is there is no poison ivy, and I think I have seen a grand total of 3 mosquitoes in the last 10 years.
Interesting article, I always heard that it was just that some people don’t get itchy bites because they’re not allergic.
Those little vampires can’t stand me, I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten a mosquito bite.
Yes. I don’t know what it is about me, but when we used to visit my in-laws at their summer place on Chincoteague island I’d sit outside for a few minutes and have literally dozens of welts from mosquito bites, while for the most party they would leave my in-laws alone. I’m not sure why I’m such a tasty snack and they aren’t, but whatever it is they love me. I’d get welts on top of welts, even when I’d spray on Off or something similar. Got to the point I had to get one of those smoke pot thingies and sit next to it if we were going to be out on the porch for any extended period of time.
Mosquitos ignore me except a couple days a month. I used to go to sleep away summer camp and there were kids who bathed in repellant but were still covered in bites. I rarely used repellant and would only get the occasional bite on a particularly delectable area, like the big vein at the ankle.
I don’t know if it’s related, but I usually have a rapid reaction to the bites - I’ll get a HUGE quarter sized welt, but it’s gone in an hour if I don’t scratch.
I get devoured every freaking year. I don’t know why but they are so attracted to me that during the summer I wear Off! to bed every night. With window AC units there are always small gaps between the AC and the window that the mosquitoes use to invade our place. My husband is a gentleman and a saint and doesn’t complain about the smell because he has seen the welts I get if I don’t spray myself before hitting the sheets.
I don’t know that I’m a magnet, really. I think my biggest problem right now is a neighbor who doesn’t seem to think he needs to mow his lawn and a couple rather large areas of standing water not to far from me. In any case, I’m miserable. My kids (the little one in particular) are miserable. They seem to like my feet - I have bites right on the tips of my toes, between my toes… UGH - and my ass. My toddler’s legs are covered in bites but I think it’s less because he’s a magnet and more because he’s two and doesn’t know to swat them away.
Yes! Every year we go up to Canada for a week in a cabin and I get covered with mosquito bites while my wife remains relatively unscathed. She can’t understand why I’m so neurotic about making sure the doors and windows stay closed, but it’s because they’re after me.
Like the ancient Egyptians would celebrate the birth of the Apis bull, so to do mosquitoes celebrate my decennial forays into the warm summer evenings - with much feasting and merriment.
Yeah, my husband doesn’t understand why I’m a mass of welts and he hasn’t got a single bite. I’ll tell him why he’s not being bitten–by the time the damn things are done with me, they’re stuffed and couldn’t eat another bite, that’s why.
I am totally a magnet and I get the worst reactions from the bites. It seems to get worse every year.
My dad does not get bitten at all. He also doesn’t smell when he sweats, and I think the two are related. We share the same skin, hair, eye and bone structure genes but apparently I give off way more CO2.
He did get malaria in Viet Nam so he has gotten bitten at least once in his life. Unless he didn’t get it from a mosquito bite, which I’m sure is possible.
Mosquitoes love me and my dad, but totally ignore my mother. My mother used to suggest that we all go sit out on the front porch in the summer evening and have a nice chat. My father and I always voted for staying inside a screened area, because no matter how many citronella candles were burning, the mosquitoes knew that there was some yummy Sicilian blood around.
My mother rarely got chiggers, too.
Not particularly, but they do go for Madame Pepperwinkle (Can’t blame them for that), and if we’re together I won’t get any bites, and she’ll be spraying Deep Woods Off right and left.
Me too. I’ve had to go on antibiotics twice in the last 5 years because a mosquito bite went wrong and kept swelling and was hot to the touch.
I wouldn’t mind getting bit so much if anything actually worked to alleviate the itching. But nothing works for me except an ice pack.
About once a year it gets bad enough for me that I take time out of my day to take a bath in oatmeal, dried milk and tepid water. That actually seems to help if I do it 2-3 times. I take Benadryl at night before bed, and carry around a cortizone pen.
I also carry around a bottle of Deep Woods Off but still manage to get myself into a bad situation!
Although I’ve never had to go as far as antibiotics so you may be further gone than me 
I get bit once in a while but not much compared to everyone around me. I always thought it was the allergies thing as I am not allergic to anything and have never gotten poison ivy or anything like that.
I’ve tried everything to combat them. Expensive mosquito traps with CO2 and other lures kill a lot of mosquitos but they also attract plenty more to the area. Citronella smells nice and bugs in general don’t like smoke, but I don’t think they do much. OFF Lanterns work much better, but instead of a pleasant citrus aroma you have to sit downwind of a noxious cloud of poison. I thought the OFF Clip-on (metofluthrin) was working for a few days, but it must have been a placebo effect because I subsequently read that Consumer Reports had to stop their test of it because the test subject was getting too bitten. DEET works, but I hate coating my body in toxic gunk, though the scented powdered spray is mildly more tolerable.
The only thing that really works is what they used to do at my summer camp as a kid. Two or three times a summer they would have everyone going into the bunks and shutter the windows, and then they would crop dust the entire camp. No mosquitos for a week at least. Not exactly environmentally friendly, but war is hell.
Oh gosh. All bugs LOVE me. I once walked from the car about 5 steps to a picnic table and applied DEET. Too late - between the car and the table I’d been bitten about 20 times. There must have been a freaking cloud of skeeters around me, studiously ignoring my friends while practically draining me.
When I was a young child growing up on a military base in the Florida panhandle, there were jeeps that drove around spraying DDT to control the mosquitoes. My parents used to tell about how they found me running behind the jeep, staying in the cloud of bug spray to foil the skeeters.
It’s a toss-up on whether I croak from some mosquito-borne disease or cancer from insecticide exposure. War is indeed hell.
The real test is how many other people with they avoid in order to feast on you specifically. I’ve gone to local fairs and carnivals with hundreds of other people walking around seemingly unaffected and they will STILL seek me out. It’s like they have some sort of advanced communication network to rival twitter and surveillance to make the NSA look like toddlers with Lego cameras.