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Medical Video: Mayo Clinic Minute: Easing the itch of mosquito bites
It feels, we are all familiar with the following scenario: In the midst of deep sleep after a day of forged work stress, you hear a disturbing buzzing sound and suddenly feel a sharp sting in your hands or feet. Shortly thereafter, reddish bumps appear on the skin.
Without thinking, you instinctively start scratching. Your skin is red, the mosquito bites are itching more, and you wake up from a dream only to find two new reddish bumps from other mosquito bites. After having had a long night of beautiful dreams, it was replaced by the rush of repelling stubborn mosquitoes while continuing to scratch the itch that never stopped.
What happens in your body when bitten by a mosquito
A mosquito doesn't bite. The female mosquito uses its mouth which is shaped like a needle to pierce the skin of its prey, which it then uses to suck blood.
Less than five percent of the skin is a blood vessel. So, when the mosquito has landed on your body to look for food, he has to 'fish'. From afar, the mosquito snout may be seen as a thin needle, but actually this snout - called a proboscis - is a set of sawing and suction devices, wrapped in a tube called the labium. When it will suck blood, the wrapper will open and show six piercing parts of the mouth (filament) into the skin.
When "biting" its prey, these six parts of the mouth will bloom and move flexibly to look for the closest blood vessels. Often, this process ends in several attempts to search, and lasts for several minutes, to be able to successfully harvest blood.
Mosquitoes will then move four filaments to work like saws and jacks to help expedite the process of sucking blood by two parallel tubes - hypopharix, which releases saliva into the skin, and the labrum, which will suck blood.
Mosquitoes will suck so hard that blood vessels begin to falter. Some can rupture, spill blood into the surrounding area. When this happens, the mosquito will usually 'add', drinking blood directly from the pool of blood that he made. The saliva released contains anti-coagulant agents that keep blood from clumping so the mosquitoes can easily suck blood.
Why do mosquito bites feel itchy?
Itching and bumps from mosquito bites are caused not from mosquito bites or mosquito saliva, but rather from the response of the body's immune system to the saliva. Mosquito saliva contains levels of enzymes and proteins that pass through your body's natural blood clotting system. This anticoagulant directly causes a mild allergic reaction to your body.
The human immune system responds to these allergens by releasing histamine. Histamine causes blood vessels around the area of the mosquito's bite to become inflamed so that red bumps appear on the skin. Histamine also irritates nerve endings in the skin and causes itching.
Why does scratching itch feel good?
Scratching is a relatively small form of pain. When we scratch, this movement will block the itching sensation due to the accompanying pain, temporarily distracting the brain from itching; same as giving cold compresses, or heat, or even a little electric shock.
This pain signal is sent to the brain by a collection of nerves just like the itching sensation that is also sent by a different set of nerves.
When we are faced with a potential danger, the body will respond with a withdrawal reflex. Just try to hold your hands on the fire, surely it will not be long. You will have a great desire to immediately pull your hand from the heat. However, scratching actually brings the reflex closer to the problematic skin. It makes sense, indeed, because closer inspection and short scratching are more effective at suppressing insects that crawl on your body than away from them.
Scratching is a good way not only to get rid of insects and parasites, but also plant residues and other foreign objects that stick to your skin.
In addition, your brain assesses the activity of scratching itching as an act of appreciation, a kind of gift you "deserve" after facing pain or stress - from mosquito bites - by releasing dopamine throughout the brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that regulates movement, emotions, motivation, and feeling happy. When activated, this system will reward our behavior and make us happy, which triggers us to do it again and again to get the same satisfaction.
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