Why does every mosquito my girlfriend and I encounter bite her and ignore me? During the two years we have been together she has received hundreds of mosquito bites, I have received none.
After vigorous research I’m only more confused. Here is what I have come up with on my own:
Mosquitoes are attracted to:
-Carbon Dioxide
-Dark Colors
-Some scented products and perfumes
-Heat
Mosquitoes are repelled by:
-DEET
Now the problems:
-I smoke, releasing ungodly amounts of Carbon Dioxide. She does not.
-I wear almost exclusively dark colors. She does not.
-We frequently use the same body wash/shampoo.
-I overheat easily.
It seems I should be the one attracting all the mosquitoes! This has been a problem for her since long before we met, so I know I am not drawing all the mosquitoes that bite her. I also don’t attract mosquitoes when I am alone.
I used to get mosquito bites as a child, but can’t recall any for the past few years. Could smoking have changed the way mosquitoes perceive me? Are there any avid smokers reading this that have mosquito problems? Is there a chance that her medication (Claritin) could be attracting them?
I knew a French guy who claimed that he wasn’t allergic to mosquito bites, more specifically, that he didn’t have any reaction to the anti-cogaulant. Maybe the mosquitos just didn’t like French food. Anyway, I suppose its possible that the mosquitos are drawn in by all of the factors which you state, bite both of you, but you don’t really notice because you have lost your allergic reaction. Just a SWAG.
If you were bitten frequently enough, you might not notice the being bitten now. You wouldn’t notice an itch or a swelling. Your body would have enough resistance to prevent the itching/swelling/pain reaction from the skeeter.
I knew a girl who was always covered in red, bumpy painful looking skeeter bites, and I think she just had a harder, longer reaction to each bite.
I’ve seen documentaries about mosquitos (from the NJ Mosquito Control Commission), and some researchers get bit thousands of time a day, and barely notice. They made me itchy watching, but they never flinched in a swarm of mosquiotos.
BTW - the USA is now home to an Asian (Tiger?) Mosquitos that don’t need stagnant water to lay eggs. Great.
Something similar happens in the Boscibo household. I smoke, Mr Boscibo (my SO) does not. We use the same bath products, eat the same foods, and I get chowed and he does not. Even when I go the extra step and apply insect repellant I still get more bites than him. I am like that girl Philster described…I get awful welts from bites. My SO is outdoors a lot and the mosquitoes don’t bother him at all. He says it’s because I scratch my bites, I can’t help it they drive me nuts. Maybe it’s a female thing?
I have a dark complexion and I rarely get biten. When I occasionly do get bite I have a reaction for a short period of time, but that’s rare. I think it is the type of skin a person has. Fair skinned people draw mosquitoes and the mosquitos like what they find, they happen upon me and they move on unless very hunger. It almost gives me a complex, but do I really care what a mosquito thinks of me?
FWIW…I used to smoke; don’t now. I am female & not very pale. Eat lots of garlic & use whatever bath products smell good. Grew up partly in the Middle East (bit lots.) NEVER get bothered by mosquitos…they land, they leave.
Mr Carina43 is fairly pale, non smoker, tends towards dark clothing, (as do I)…gets bit to pieces. He is also a doctor & I posed this question to him. His response? “I don’t know.”
Well. I hope that was helpful.
(Tell your GF to use Avon’s Skin-So-Soft. It smells great and hunters use it religiously to repel bugs.)
Are you sure it’s not just placebo effect? Let me quote from a message I posted on a technical forum regarding double-blind tests and the need for them:
I don’t think it’s a placebo effect. I’m native Australian, from the sub-tropics and mossies are a fact of life in summer. My wife came out from England 4 or 5 years ago. She gets bitten a lot, I don’t appear to. If she wakes up in the morning with bites, we will subsequently find that we unknowingly left a window open, or didn’t put the mossie repeller on or whatever. So that can’t be placebo effect.
I do think that the phenomena is at least partly explained by the theories expressed above that I (and other hardened veterans) get bitten but just don’t notice, because my body no longer reacts much. But there is a lot of serious research done in the area and I’m pretty sure I recall that pheromone differences between people did have a scientifically verifiable effect. Sorry no cite.
exact same story here. Mosquito’s never seem to bite me when someone else is around, especially my girlfriend. I’m just going to through out some new facters that may mean nothing. I am really hairy, and I have AB blood.
My wife does not smoke and doesn’t drink much coffee - she’s eaten alive.
Other then that… we eat the same and use mostly the same bath products. Her shampoo is different because I use plain soap on my hair. But it’s not the stinky shampoo stuff.
While the exact combination of things that attract mosquitos (Co2, odor, color, heat, light, blood flavor) is still being determined, we do know what causes the itchy swelling “bite”–it’s an allergy to the anti-coagulent in the skeeter’s spit.
Seems that if we’re talking about an allergic reaction then we should expect the normal variation in individual severity. My dad’s violently allergic to cats. I sleep next to a cat every night. That’s no mystery to me, I just failed to inherit his allergy.
I guess it could be that simple, but that wouldn’t do us much good, would it?
In addition, I’ve observed many mosquitoes flying right past me to get to my girlfriend. If we are in a dark room I only hear them buzzing around when I’m sitting next to her. I see them land on her all the time and whack them, she has never had to return the favor.
there is absolutely something they like more about her.
also:
we love our coffee
gallons consumed every day
mosquitoes don’t care
and my favorite off-topic haiku, written by yours truly:
see the cuddly mouse
scurry o’er the forest floor
nightfall brings the owl
