Becoming Immune to Mosquitos

I have so many mosquito bites that last night I literally could not sleep. Many are from going down to the lake a couple of nights ago, but many others are simply from being outside in the evening around my home.

But I’m comforted by the (little-known) fact that the more bites one suffers, the more immune to bites that person becomes. I first learned this last year, when Laura and I went into the Amazon rainforest without any sort of immunizations. While reading about how all sorts of diseases could kill us, I also read that locals don’t get bites because after a lifetime in a particular place they’re immune (though my understanding is that they wouldn’t necessarily be immune to mosquito-transmitted diseases.)

Anyway, Laura and I didn’t die in the Amazon — though my leg did swell up quite a bit from a bit — but after we returned I read more about becoming immune to bites. Apparently the more a particular species bites you, the less you get irritated by the bites. Many of the articles on this phenomenon start out by trying to explain the fact that most people suffer far more bites when they go on trips than when they’re at home. Some people simply think that that happens because there are more mosquitos where they travel too (which could also be true), but the biggest factor is that the mosquitos in that new location are really just a different species.

The downside to this is that I recently read that there are more than 9,000 species of mosquito in the world, and that many different ones can exist in the same place. (Judging by the way my body differently reacts to mosquitoes at my house and at the nearby lake, I’d bet that they are slightly different species.)

But in any case, while I sit here trying to resist scratching the many bites I have, I’m also looking forward to the day when I have become immune to local mosquitos.