Being Filipino I've endured a lot of mosquito bites in my life time and all they would ever do is bump up, itch and go away. Sometimes the actual bite would puss a little bit but nothing too epic. My brother on the other hand, his bites turn into thin bubbles that eventually pop. So imagine going to the Philippines (which is like mosquito freakin world) and seeing all these thin skin bubbles all over his arm just waiting to pop. It's probably the weirdest reaction I've seen.
The last time I was in Florida I never had not one mosquito bite the whole eight months I was here on my first internship. But then I didn't get migraines from the storms either. Maybe it's just my new work location, though it's not exactly near water I can't explain why there are dozens of mosquitoes out in just that area. It's a parking lot for goodness sakes! So far I've been bit four times. One on my ankle, one on my leg, one on my shoulder (which I felt) and one on my finger. The first three ended up swelling and bruising, leaving a scar which is weird. The last one was probably the worst...
So I thought I had successfully avoided the mosquitoes but as soon as I got on the bus, I felt that familiar throbbing sting. On my finger. Of all places it could had bit me, it just had to be my finger. Right on the knuckle too. Faaaantastic!
So I went home, applied some anti itch cream and iced it hoping it would help. I did manage to get my engagement ring off but not my wedding band. At that point, my finger had swelled.
You can see the swelling starting to happen. The bump doubled in size, making it difficult to get the ring off. No amount of icing seemed to ease it down either. So I took some Claritin since I don't have Benadryl and went to sleep.
I ended up having to go home from work because my finger swelled a pretty significant amount. The whole finger. I couldn't bend it or stretch it as you can see in the picture. It caused a few panic attacks that day. It was swelling so badly that it felt like the ring was squeezing my finger. It was awful.
You're probably wondering why didn't you just go to the hospital? I recently found out that the insurance I had in California doesn't extend out to Florida, so I literally have no health coverage here. Moving to a different state is always so weird, different rules and regulations and all that.
Its gone down since then, today seems much better. The actual bite spot is showing so that means it's healing but I still can't get my ring off and it's still a bit uncomfortable as I'm typing or when I wash my hair. Hopefully within the next two days I'll be able to slip the ring off.
Have you ever had a similar reaction to mosquito bites? What are your at home remedies?
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