Insect Bite Remedies

My family got into some tall grass a week ago. In the middle of the night, I woke up itching and learned that many in my family did. We each had multiple bites that were red, itchy and swollen. We finally realized it was chiggers. I tried many different remedies. My favorite turned out to be tea tree oil.

I put a drop of tea tree oil onto a pea-sized amount of plantain salve (which helped by itself, but not as much as with tea tree oil! ) and put this on bites 2-3 times a day. I think coconut oil with tea tree oil would work just about as well.

~Mama to Many~

We had a terrible wasp problem. I found a couple of ways to prevent them from coming around. 1) Stuff a brown paper bag full of smaller paper bags or newspaper. Tie a ribbon around the neck of the bag and hang it where you see wasps. They think it is a wasp nest and won't go near it. 2) Get the Hot Shot no pest strips at the major hardware stores. Hang them in the attic and the garage attic. Problem solved!

I had what looked like two bug bites about 3 or 4 inches apart come up on my leg Monday evening. I am sensitive to bug bites so I am used to wierd reactions and have learned how to deal with them. These bites were different from anything I have ever had before (I am thinking it might have been a house scorpion sting). One Tuesday there was just a giant red area and it started itching like crazy. Normally running hot water over bites really helps, so I tried that but it just made this worse. I used hydrocortisone cream and diphenhydramine cream at the same time and that would take care of the itch for a while. Cold compresses helped some with the redness and swelling. Kept doing that through Wednesday day morning but it was just getting more swollen, red, and itchy. By Wednesday evening it was really starting to spread. It was looking rather scary so I decided to look for stuff to try on here overnight and if there was no improvement by morning I'd go see the doctor.

I started taking two diphenhydramine tablets every four hours and read through all the remedies for bug bites. I remembered my mom putting a paste made of baking soda on bee stings when I was little so I tried that first. It helped a bit. I decided to try adding crushed up asprin to the baking soda paste. When I went to bed I just covered the whole area in the asprin/baking soda paste and slept with a towel under my leg. When I woke up at 3:00 to go to the bathroom, most of it flaked off. When I got back in bed there was still some of the dried up paste left on my leg. I used some hydrocortisone cream to rehydrate it and went back to sleep.

When I woke up it was looking a lot better. I was fortunate enough to be off Thursday, so I stayed home and kept the asprin/baking soda paste on all day. I reapplied the it several times and ocasionaIy put a little cortisone on to rehydrate it, still taking 2 diphenhydramine every 4 hours. I slept with the paste on my leg again Thursday night and by Friday morning it was almost completely better. I was able to get through work just taking diphenhydramine and using the hydrocortisone cream. I went ahead and did the paste over night last night and all that is left is a few small red blotches that itch every once in a while. Am gonna do the paste overnight again for good measure. It seems no matter what goes wrong I always find a remedy on here that works. I don't have health insurance and am allergic to the cheap antibiotics so this has saved me a lot of money.

Thanks for the hot water solution. My insect bite was severely itching for 2 days, after trying almost every suggestion I tried the hot water and it took away all the itching and within seconds the itch was gone.... for good! Thanks again!

I was just about to write the same thing....those "meat eating" "bees" are not the ones we need to worry about b/c they are not the ones pollinating our food. The ideas and suggestions above sound great for handling those horrible wasp pests though!

Insect bites treatments using a blower dryer to heat the bite on the skin. It denatures the painful proteins. I got about 50 bites one evening bird watching in Florida swamp. Blow dryer took the pain way down to where I didn't scratch and I slept through the night. Next morning I felt fine! Wave the hot air back and forth across the painful area keeping it pretty hot, but using care not to burn your skin. Highly recommend!

Also, life guards use hot, hot water for sting ray hits. They have tubs at the life guard stations and tea kettles. They pour the boiling water from the tea kettle into the tub and mix with some tap water. You put your stung foot into the tub for half and hour until pain is gone. They add boiling water occasionally to keep the water as hot as you can stand - works like magic!

I hate fleas. If there was a way, I wish someone would wipe them out. LOL.. Anyway, I got a bite tonight on my arm from taking the dog out for walk..She doesn't have fleas due to homemade ACV spray, spraying each time for each walk. Anyway I took a hot shower and made the hot water as hot as I could stand in the shower and ran it on the new bite and some old ones from a week ago.. Two hours later and no itching. Thank you to everyone who shared about this easy home remedy. Remember, the water has to as hot as you can stand it without burning yourself. Keep the hot water on the bite for at least twenty seconds...

I don't know what the heck bit me on one wrist area and the upper arm on my other arm but man, these bites were like golf balls under the skin and the itch and pain, redness and severe swelling was unbearable..

What always worked on "bites" in the past-crushed garlic/lemon juice, real iodine solution like lugols, or baking soda and vit c on and on did nothing and the area looked now like a reddened burned area and I felt really really ill and feverish and took aspirin and started to drink water nonstop..

I remembered I had some real betonite clay up in a cabinet and mixed a thick paste and made a cast on these areas -instant relief from the itching and after about an hour, i could see these areas literally oozing through the clay and the pain lessening..

So I made the clay paste and used it 4 times that day, about every 4 hours and the swelling and redness was decreasing-.

Then I remembered i had a over the counter silver ointment and put a little bit on the areas and instant relief from the itching-.

So I can definitely "vouch" for betonite clay application for a severe type of bite to reduce the swelling and draw out toxins and then the over the counter silver ointment to keep it clean and protect the skin and promote healing as it certainly did look like a scalding type of a burn on my arms..

The skin did not burst, there was no bleeding or bruising, and I am now 4 days post bite..

Still itches like u-know-what but I am definitely on the mend/resolution phase..

I still cannot figure out what bit me-but man, what a reaction I had..

Apple cider vinegar is the BEST mosquito bite cure there is. Take a cotton ball or a piece of a paper towel and tear off a small bit, soak it in apple cider vinegar and place it on the bite for maybe 5 minutes. No more mosquito bite!

Try using aspirin dissolved in apple cider vinegar for insect bites. I have bad reactions to bug bites and it works for me.

Wet a paper towel or wash cloth and stick it in the freezer for 15mins! Apply to affected itchy area! Relieves inflamation and itch! Paper Towel dampen and freezer for 10-15mins. Washcloth at least 30mins to freeze.

Dip a piece of white bread without the crust in a saucer with milk in it. Place it on the area that a bug stung you. Leave it on for till the bread becomes soggy replace it with another piece of bread. Keep on doing this for 5 to 10 min.

An Indian woman did this to me when I was bit by a big black bug on my lip while fishing in the woods.

Let me tell you, it works.

ASA is the abbreviation for acetylsalicilic (sp?) acid - in other words, aspirin.

To stop itchy bites, I use a lotion called Sarna. I think I bought it at Walgreen's or CVS. Also, Amazon sells a cream containing sulphur. That may work as I saw it on another post about sulpher.

Someone mentioned chiggers. Try a bath in baking soda (maybe some epsom salts too?). An old home remedy of my mom's.

I haven't created my own post in years and I cannot access my password. But, I just want to see this remedy posted and it needn't be posted by myself. I found it on another website: (additional people posting on the site said it worked).

Sand Flea's (recurring/not going away)

Remedy: Sealed bandage with vaseline/lanolin or other thick ointment.

JM Reply:
June 4th, 2011 at 7:05 pm

First post:

Spent one month of intense treatment of sand fleas including excision of several very deep areas by a surgeon. FINALLY!!!!!!!!! Talked with an Infectious Disease Doctor on the phone. Treatment and bites healing after three days. Apply a heavy coat of vaseline (or lanolin) over each open area. Cover the area completely with a band aid. The larvae comes out because they cannot get oxygen. They looked like tiny shrimp. APPLY vaseline/lanolin and a bandaid large enough to seal around the bite.

Second post:

The sand fleas are little larvae inside of the bite. You can see them on the bandaid when you take it off. They bites continue to fester and itch until the kill the larvae. A DOCTOR of Infectious Diseases told me to use VASELINE and an occlusive bandaid to kill them from lack of oxygen. THey will crawl out onto the dressing and die. You can SEE them the next day. Take a shower and reapply the Vaseline and dressing until the areas stop itching and festering. I am a NURSE! It works!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Source: http://www.mybugbites.com/my-foot-and-sand-flea-bites/

California doesn't have many mosquitos, but when they find you, and you haven't had 1 for years, it's murder! I recently became the meal of mosquitos at a friends house in the hills and suffered a day before I found this and tried it. I just dabbed some tea tree oil on a q tip and applied. Ahhh relief

I am so excited that I found this simple solution. I am very sensitive to bites and for whatever reason, fleas find me once a year and I do not own any pets.

Long story short, I suffered from 10 bites from fleas and they run up and down on my stomach onto my lower chest area. This itchiness was unbearable until I found that applying heat worked like a charm.

I heat up my tin bottle that I use at the gym using a pot of hot water over the stove. It gets really hot, so be careful. When it heats up enough or cools down, just apply on the bites. I don't burn my self, I just leave it on for a second and work my way through each bite. Worked like a charm, never had the urge to scratch it again. I do this once a day before going to bed. Apply more if you have a severe case.

When you are desperate, this is a very simple solution. Those anti-histamine cremes did not work for me.

I'm all about the most holistic approach, But when I got chigger bites while doing yard work I wanted a fast fix. My friend's mother told me to take a warm bath with bleach & before I could even adjust to the temperature of the bath they were gone. I soaked for about 5 minutes & problem solved.

I felt something sting my arm, I could feel the legs grab my arm when it did. It felt like when you touch an electric fence. I didn't see the wasp. There was a shallow bite about an eighth inch across. It itched a lot and began to swell till there was a red area around it the size of a silver dollar after a few days. I decided it wasn't going away on it's own so I rubbed tea tree oil into it and immediately after pure eucalyptus essential oil. It was gone in two or three days.

I also recommend that: http://www.listonic.com/protips/get/blpouzzurd . Worked so well when my daughter was bitten.

On a whim, I rubbed a thick layer of Vicks VapoRub into some itchy flea bites, and viola, they stopped itching! It's worked for me a bunch of times. Today I tried it on some HUGE, SUPER ITCHY mosquito bites, and whaddya know, no more itch!

My son has been bitten today on his arm, so I just put aloe vera on his arm, and after less than 5 minutes, he stopped scratching himself.

HI U TX, , , , , , , , , , ,

Hard to believe that a Texan does not know how to handle a red bug. Go to your Farm co-op, buy 10% Permitrin, paint your problem.

==OLE ROBERT HENRY==

I am very sensitive to chigger bites. One or two bites on my feet or lower legs will keep me awake at night for a couple of weeks. I've found nothing will stop the itch, except scratching, which only lasts as long as you scratch it.

The best remedy is prevention. I buy an all-natural spray containing natural oils like cedar and eucalyptus and apply, religiously, to my feet and lower legs before going outside during the summer. I also spray my garden shoes every time. It works, and beats itchy and scratchy any day.