While growing up in a rural area in the 60’s I used to play outside most of the time and accumulate attached ticks during the day, plucking them off when I noticed them or during a check in the evening. I never had any ill effects. Now an attached tick generally leads to a bump that is very itchy for a couple days afterwards. Why? Is it fearsome new diseases my immune system bravely battles? Did I get a tick allergy? Is it new kinds of ticks? These days they often seem to be deer ticks or ticks I’m not sure I recognize, whereas back then it was always dog ticks. Is it because I had Lyme disease around 20 years ago (clear diagnosis including huge bullseye rash)?
I use 100% DEET when hiking but just a few hours ago felt one where I can’t reach it well enough to grab on my back, and am itchily waiting for Ms Napier to return to pull it off.
Although any of the above is possible to one extent or another, at an educated guess this is more likely the culprit. Anecdotally at least western black-legged deer ticks( Ixodes pacificus )bites are typically more reactive than dog tick( Dermacentor sp. )bites. I’ve been bitten by both - never noticed the dog ticks attaching, whereas the adult deer ticks were always painful.
Man, the OP brought up an old memory I haven’t thought of in years.
When I was a kid, I got what I thought was a chigger bit on my neck. After tow days of itching, I finally managed to get it halfway off while I was at school. I thought to myself: “WTF? Chigger bites don’t do that.” So I yank it the rest of the way off. I sat it down on my desk so I could see what it was.
When the damn thing started to crawl away, I was BEYOND horrified.
I might be forgiven for having hoped that irritants like this might get better, as allergies generally do, and less vigorous immune systems develop smaller overreactions as we age. That, and migraines, are the only health things I remember hearing improve when we are old. The rest is just a long goodbye.
From a Medscape article (which may or may not be accessible to all Dopers):
“Itch was reported at the site of tick bite, and the frequency of itch increases as the number of reported tick bites increase, which strongly suggests that tick-associated itch is associated with an acquired cutaneous hypersensitivity response.”
Increasing frequency of tick bites, at least in some people causes induction of IgE antibody response as well as recruitment of T-lymphocytes and other inflammatory cells, so you get immediate and delayed-type hypersensitivity responses as time goes on.
The article suggests that a pronounced skin reaction is correlated with less risk of developing Lyme disease.
Repeated exposures to some noxious agents/critters over time decrease immune response in certain people. As we age, reaction to poison ivy tends to lessen (though I haven’t noticed this in myself). When I lived in southeast Texas, the first few times I was stung by fire ants there was pronounced swelling and itching. The reaction subsided with repeated exposures so that a fire ant sting resulted in nothing worse than what I’d see with a mosquito bite.
I think I have noticed this myself. My first mosquito bites in the spring are terrible and itch for days. By early autumn they itch for a few hours and are gone.