My wife and I are in Kauai for family business, and we’ve found out the hard way that she’s allergic to mosquito bites.
Instead of “normal” mosquito bites – ~1cm in diameter and itchy – hers are up to 4 inches in diameter, red, hard, moderately sore, and hot to the touch. (Silver lining: They aren’t particularly itchy.)
Benadryl doesn’t seem to be of any help, and if you can help find us a remedy (other than, you know, “don’t get bit anymore” 
), it would be greatly appreciated.
That often happens to young children, including mine. My daughter’s were exactly as you described them up until she turned 3, or so. I wonder if that’s an allergy, or just your body’s way of dealing with them for the first time.
Looking forward to hearing from more knowledgable dopers on this topic.
Topical cortisone? There should be several anti-itch creams at the drugstore.
If I get hit really bad, I will have a soak in a cool bath. Or if I have oatmeal around, a soak in a cool bath with oatmeal, maybe some powdered milk thrown in.
I’ve heard that if you soak tobacco in water then put the tobacco water on the bites like a paste, it helps. I’ve tried it in the past and didn’t find it to be any more effective than topical cortisone.
Use Deep Woods Off and use it liberally.
ETA: The Benadryl might be helping - that’s why the bites don’t itch. I would keep taking it. I actually don’t know if any of the above helps to get rid of the bumps any sooner, I am always just focused on getting rid of the itch.
OTC hydrocortisone ointments are what I what I use, so I’ll second that recommendation.
Mosquitoes love me, so by the time everyone around me gets their first bite, I’m on thirty, and the ones I get turn red and terribly itchy. I’ve had times where I’d just claw my own skin off if not for the cream.
Deet. Keep it with you.
Yup, DEET. Use it on ALL exposed skin and reapply according to directions as it does not last all day. It is greasy and smells chemical-y but nothing works better. I used to live in Hawaii and would literally get hundreds of mosquito bites on waterfall hikes if I didn’t use DEET. The little bastardettes will bite you everywhere imaginable. Lips, ears, eye lids, etc.
Now I use a boonie hat and mosquito net in addition to DEET.
Use benadryl pills to help with the insane itching.
The first thing I do when I see any sort of insect bite on me is to put rubbing alcohol on it. It seems to help with both the itch and swelling.
I agree about the DEET, though. I don’t know if West Nile has moved to Hawaii yet, but mosquito’s carry other dangerous diseases. I haven’t yet read that they transmit HIV, but it wouldn’t be surprising. Hawaii is beautiful, the bugs kinda suck.
Seriously? You don’t know if mosquitoes transmit HIV? They don’t.
If they did don’t you think it would be well known? Would there not have been some massively greater occurance of HIV? Accompanied by a panic to dwarf all panics?
I know this is snarky for something outside of the pit but why attempt to spread misinformation on such a serious topic when a simple google would have given you the answer?
Just asking… how did your wife manage to become an adult and not have been bitten by mosquitoes before? I probably had thousands of mosquito bites before I hit 18, growing up in Houston, and visiting my grandparents on the coast.
The thing with DEET is that the concentration only matters as far as the effective time; it doesn’t repel them any more or faster in higher concentrations. 100% DEET is supposed to be good for 12 hours, and 25% is supposed to be good for 6-8 hours.
For my money, 3M Ultrathon is the best stuff going- 25% DEET, but made in some kind of time-release way that works for 12 hours, so it lasts longer with less DEET.
I’m totally ignorant about that sort of thing. I didn’t know that West Nile killed until **PurpleHorseShoe’s ** husband died. At that time, I did enough internet searches to learn that mosquitoes carry blood born diseases.
I am very willing to confess that I’m ignorant but I’m not stupid and I learn. You taught me something, so thank you. Goes off to google land to try to do something about my ignorance.
Thank you again.
This happens to my 8 year old daughter as well. HUGE marks, just like you said, probably 4 or 5 inches across. Warm, puffy, but she doesn’t really notice them since they don’t itch…until she sees them they they bother her.
When I first noticed it I had three doctors* say that it was nothing to worry about. Three because it had a bit of a bulls eye pattern to it and I was convince it was Lyme Disease, they all said she’s just overly sensitive to mosquito bites and not to worry about it. So, I don’t worry about it. I do put whatever anti-itch cream I have around, Benadryl/Hydrocortisone on it just to knock them down faster so she doesn’t end up with a scar, but that’s it. I feel bad for her when she ends up with three or four in the same are and ends up with a giant puffy arm or leg.
*I didn’t pay for all these doctors, one was the doctor that my ex-mil works for, one is my parent’s next door neighbor and one is her pediatrician. That was 3 or 4 years ago. Just this year I started seeing an allergist and asked him about it, he also said it’s pretty normal.
ETA, look up “Skeeter Syndrome”, that might be on some interest to you.
Eventually, it may be possible to become so sensitive that you get hives, but that result is pretty rare. There are clothes that have a repellent woven right into the cloth that you might want to check into. Otherwise, she should wear light colors, full-length pants and long-sleeve shirts. Gauze and linen work well.
I have nothing to offer in so far as how to avoid getting bitten, other than to not wear fragrances, which includes thinking about bath and laundry soaps, etc. However as a younger person I reacted horribly to bites and stings in the same manner, and even now I will occasionally have a reaction, and I do have some home grown remedies/relief magic. First, to satisfyingly scratch the itch without making it any worse, cut a leg from a clean pair of pantyhose (or use a knee high) and put a generous handful of uncooked oatmeal in it. Tie it off, and send her into a lukewarm tub or shower and she may scrub the bites with the oat filled hose, the texture of the hose will feel good, and the oatmeal has anti-itching properties for when she gets out of the tub. When the itching/swelling is very bad, make a thick paste out of baking soda and water, apply it to the bite/s and cover lightly with gauze. Re-wet a few times as it dries, it may be an old wive’s tale wrt it drawing the “bug spit” out, but it certainly takes the itch and the swelling down. Calamine lotion with benedryl is available, it’s not pretty, but for night time application it’s nice and soothing, particularly if kept in the refrigerator.
All my best to her.
Take an antihistamine other than Benadryl–Claritin, for example. It works for 24 hrs. take it once a day. Mix liquid Benadryl (for children) with the strongest hydrocortisone creme you can buy, and use that topically. Plus the DEET. Use that too.
Thank you for all the advice, everyone. We’ll look into the hydrocortisone cream and see how that goes.
I suspect that she may only be allergic to certain mosquitoes’ anticoagulant spit and that even that is a new allergy. She’s had this problem only one other time, and that in Japan. I joke that it’s just island mosquitoes.
In the future, I guess we’ll just marinate her in DEET whenever we visit the islands. 
Move to San Diego. I’ve lived here for almost 6 years, and I can’t remember the last time I had a mosquito bite. It’s heaven.