My friend Kelli’s youngest child is a little girl adopted from China. Kelli and her husband have 3 older children of their own, but since Sarah is their first child from another country, they have occasionally experienced challenges and adjustments based on the inherent cultural and genetic differences.Â
One such challenge is Sarah’s extreme reaction to mosquito bites which apparently is not uncommon for those of Chinese heritage. As such, using an effective natural mosquito repellent is important, but doesn’t always work in every situation.
Living in Florida and being very sensitive to mosquito bites can pose a challenge. Mosquitoes can be a year-round problem particularly if the winter is rather warm as it has been so far this season. Even with spraying by mosquito control, getting nasty bites is a common occurrence.
Telling a young child not to scratch is a losing battle most of the time! Unfortunately, Kelli did not find any of the Western style remedies for mosquito bites to work very well for Sarah.
As a result, just a few mosquito bites could send Sarah to the doctor for examination as they would sometimes get infected from her scratching. Â The picture above is of Sarah’s leg after a recent run-in with a hungry mozzie!
Besides being a busy Mom of four, Kelli is also an Adoption Specialist, so with her international connections, she was able to consult with her Chinese friends about Sarah’s problem with mosquito bites.
Their suggestion?
An old Chinese mosquito bite remedy that is rubbing the bites with the inside of a banana peel!
I asked Kelli to let me know if the banana peel remedy worked the next time Sarah was bitten, and within a few days, Kelli reported back that the banana peel worked! The picture to the right shows Kelli applying the inside of a banana peel to Sarah’s bite. Â The peel is folded over backward which is why the inside of the peel is also facing the camera.
The banana peel not only worked, but it also worked FAST!
Here is Kelli’s email to me about her experience with this mosquito bite remedy:
Well, sure enough Sarah got 2 bites this evening….ÂThey immediately began to swell and the area all around the bite was quite red, of course some of that was from her itching.ÂI applied the banana peel, as advised by my Chinese friends, and within 2 minutes the bite stopped itching. About 5 or 7 minutes later, the site was significantly less red. When I glanced at it again before bed, though I could still see the bite, her skin was no longer red. Best of all, she didn’t seem bothered by it.ÂSince she is so young it is hard for her not to scratch, and I will forward you a picture of a current bite which landed us at the doctor’s office out of fear of infection (we’re in the clear for now). She has been on antibiotics once before from a bug bite getting infected after her scratching it, and I try to avoid antibiotics so was not happy when this recent bite started looking so bad.ÂFrom now on, we will honor this Chinese remedy…I wish I had known this secret years ago!
The most interesting thing about this mosquito bite remedy to me is that it is fairly well known that eating bananas is a surefire way to be a prime mozzie target at sundown. Â While eating bananas seems to attract mosquitoes, rubbing the bites with the inside of the peel heals them!
Does your child have problems with mosquito bites too? Â The next time the mozzies leave their calling card on your child’s skin, skip the ammonia sticks and other chemical-based remedies that will end up in your child’s bloodstream and simply try the inside of a banana peel!
Do you know another mosquito bite remedy that works well too? We’ve often used this homemade herbal salve which is incredible for all types of skin irritations, rashes, and bites. Dabbing witch hazel on bug bites is a remedy that my Grandmother used.
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You will not believe how well this works. As you know, when you’re bitten, the mosquito injects an anti-coagulant to keep blood from clotting so they can suck the blood back out. It also causes the swelling and itching. While swollen, the skin cells are more susceptible rupturing and bleeding if you scratch the bites… which, as we all know, can leave scars and get infected. Since you can’t suck the anti-coagulant back out of the bite, the key is to move the anti-coagulant elsewhere.
Using the back (round) end of a ball point pen, or the erasure end of a pencil, apply gentle pressure to the bite for about a minute. This will create little 1/4 inch round indentations in your skin, and will force all of the fluids with anti-coagulant away from the bite and into the surrounding skin tissue. This dilutes the anti-coagulant so the it can be carried away by circulating blood… it will also intensify the itch for a minute or two. Rub (not scratch) the itching area with your finger tips to increase the blood circulation. This process can be repeated 2 or 3 times if the itch come back, and each time it dilutes the anti-coagulant a little more… reducing the itch. I know this sounds like hitting your head with a hammer to get rid of a headache, but it really works… no more bleeding mosquito bites :o)
3 mossy bites in succession, just tried banana peel remedy 5 mins ago and itching has stopped.
Thanks for the tips itching was driving me mad.
Well, I go to a site called, http://www.bulkherbstore.com and they talked about an herb that is called Tansy. Her sister went to South America and wanted something to repel all bites. She said that it works incredibly well! So, think I will get some and try it! Thanks everyone for the tips!
I put vanilla extract in a small spray bottle of water and spray it on before going outside in mosquito season here in California. The mosquitos do not bite me I have spayed it on my granddaughter too and she does not get bit at her soccer games or practices It works and cost is minimal
A few yeas ago I came in contact with poison ivy,very nasty. The only thing that worked was the banana peel
My grandmother ALWAYS had a bottle of rubbing alcohol with banana peels soaking in it. She used it for arthritis, but also for insect bites. Since she lived on a cypress swamp/lake in North Florida she was the EXPERT. After the bite was no longer itching she would put either “booze” (I never did know which kind) or tea tree oil on it to ensure that no infection got in.
Tea tree oil helps kill staph bacteria, raw honey or crushed plantain weed help swelling and itching go down rapidly (matter of hours.) My 5 yr old gets cellulitis regularly with mosquito bites and begs for the plantain to stop the itching.
google “skeeter syndrome” I just found out about this and it’s quite often misdiagnosed (as it was with me) as cellulitus.x
Tea Tree oil : )
Alison, Can you recommend a brand of benfotiamine? I’m a bug magnet and would very much like to not be one.
Sheena, I get the Multi-B Neuropathy Formula from benfotiamine.net. At benfotiamine.org, you can read the published studies, etc. (and disclaimer, I have no financial or other interest in the product or company). I note that other people in this thread have mentioned B6, which is also in this formula. However, in the past I took regular multi-Bs, with no effect on the bug bite problem. With the benfotiamine, you take it regularly to keep your B1 levels up, not just to treat bites when you get them.