Curious about Flea Bites

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Marek Williams - 19 Jan 2004 21:37 GMT

When I was a kid we had a dog. This was a very long time ago, long
before flea medications. The dog had a flea collar, but still had
fleas, and there were fleas in the house.

I recall my mother and my brother constantly complaining about flea
bites. I remember them showing me their ankles with red spots all
over. In the meantime, my father and I never had a single flea bite.
Since leaving home I have always had cats, and they would sometimes
have fleas, in spite of flea collars. Nevertheless, in all my life I
can't remember ever having a flea bite myself.

This has always made me curious. I have a couple questions that
someone might be able to shed some light on.

1) Is it possible for humans (or animals, for that matter) to possess
a natural flea repellent? Like maybe fleas take one whiff of me and go
"phew, stay away from that guy, he really stinks!"

2) Or maybe I'm atually being bitten, but don't display any reaction.
What I'm getting at is what is it about flea bites that makes them
itch? For example, my understanding of mosquito bites is that the
mosquito injects a blood thinner agent to help it suck up the blood;
and humans have an allergic reaction to the agent which causes the
itching and swelling. What exactly is it about flea bites that make
them itch? Is it possible for humans to be immune to this?

My cat gets Revolution and seems to have no flea problem, so it's just
my own curiosity here. Does anyone know of any scientific information
about flea bites?

--
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m. L. Briggs - 19 Jan 2004 22:46 GMT

>When I was a kid we had a dog. This was a very long time ago, long
>before flea medications. The dog had a flea collar, but still had
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>my own curiosity here. Does anyone know of any scientific information
>about flea bites?

Many years ago when I was having trouble with a bad back, I was told
that Vit B-complex would help. I took it for several years and during
this period I was not bothered by mosquitos. In asking about this, I
was told that Bcomplex was an insect inhibitor. Now I do not know if
this is true or not, but it did work for me during that time. We do
not have a flea problem here, but have plenty of mosquitos and gnats.

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Mary - 20 Jan 2004 02:01 GMT

>I recall my mother and my brother constantly complaining about flea
>bites. I remember them showing me their ankles with red spots all
>over. In the meantime, my father and I never had a single flea bite.

I'm the same way. Mosquitos, fleas, spiders either don't bite me or I don't
react to their bites. I actually grabbed a flea from my cat once, put it on my
arm and within a second it jumped off. They love my sister, mother and husband.
I think part of it is genetic. My sister, mother, husband are super white with
dry pink skin. I'm regular white with thicker, oiler skin. I've been like this
all my life even though my diet, activities, body lotion...have changed. I've
heard that taking certain vitamins like B, using certain body lotions and oils
and eating certain herbs like garlic can keep fleas away. I don't do any of
this. We're all different.

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julie hicks - 23 Jan 2004 04:55 GMT

> I think part of it is genetic. My sister, mother, husband are super white with
> dry pink skin. I'm regular white with thicker, oiler skin. I've been like this
> all my life even though my diet, activities, body lotion...have changed. I've
> heard that taking certain vitamins like B, using certain body lotions and oils
> and eating certain herbs like garlic can keep fleas away. I don't do any of
> this. We're all different.

I am highly allergic to flea bites, chiggers and mosquitos. I have
cats so I am around fleas a lot here (in Arkansas we have a long
season for them). Even with just 2 or 3 bytes, the area around the
bites will swell up and turn really read and hurt. God forbid I get
several bites on my ankles because they will get really swollen and I
can barely stand to have socks on or be on my feet too long. I was not
like this as a child, I developed the allergy as an adult. My husband
is the exact opposite, he has no reaction to bites. Until we got
married, he wouldn't even use flea control because it just didn't
bother him when his cats got fleas.

I asked both my doctor and my sister (a nurse) about this and each
said that more than likely my husband IS getting bitten but he is just
not allergic, so he doesn't experience normal symptoms. The doctor
said that while most people are allergic to fleas, mosquitos,
chiggers, spiders, bee stings, etc. not everyone is and some are only
allergic to certain combinations. After a few years of witnessing my
husband go bite free and me in misery, I KNOW he's not allergic, there
is no way he can be.

A good example of the range of allergic reactions is when I got bitten
by a brown recluse spider. While most people can have an incredibly
bad reaction to bites by this spider, mine was much less severe than
you hear stories about. I got bitten on the back of my thigh after
sitting on a log in a nearby park. I developed what I thought was a
nasty painful rash, although since it was on my back side, I couldn't
look at it to well. When I went to the doctor after several days of
getting worse, he said it was from brown recluse spider bites, that I
had THREE bites and was very blessed that I'm not one of the unlucky
group of people who are so allergic that they could die from bites
like mine. He put me on oral antibiotics, gave me an antibitic and
cortizone injection and told me to keep it clean. After 2 weeks it was
gone with minimal scarring. But, honestly, it wasn't that bad, so when
I hear people freak out about recluse bites, I just don't relate, just
like my husband doesn't related to my complaining over fleas.

So anyway, I guess I'm glad I'm highly allergic to Fleas and not
spiders. And I really believe that some people are just very lucky and
don't react.

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Marek Williams - 24 Jan 2004 22:30 GMT

>I asked both my doctor and my sister (a nurse) about this and each
>said that more than likely my husband IS getting bitten but he is just
>not allergic, so he doesn't experience normal symptoms.

From the responses it appears the consensus is that I'm probably being
bitten by the fleas, but like your husband, I'm just not at all
allergic. I've had my share of bee stings, spider bites and other
nasty stuff and I seem to be more or less average when it comes to
those things. However, mosquitoes are a special curse for me. I get a
huge welt that itches like crazy for several days. Gawd I hate
mosquitoes. Luckily I live in an area where there are few of them.

I guess when we're born we all get a slightly different list of
allergies. I should count it as a blessing that I escaped the allergy
to flea bites. If anyone wants my allergy to mosquito bites I'd be
more than happy to send it on. No charge. And you don't even have to
send me anything back in exchange.

--
Bogus e-mail address, but I read this newsgroup regularly, so reply here.

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Laura R. - 25 Jan 2004 04:05 GMT

circa Sat, 24 Jan 2004 14:30:25 -0800, in rec.pets.cats.health+behav,
Marek Williams (abc@example.com) said,

> I guess when we're born we all get a slightly different list of
> allergies. I should count it as a blessing that I escaped the allergy
> to flea bites. If anyone wants my allergy to mosquito bites I'd be
> more than happy to send it on. No charge. And you don't even have to
> send me anything back in exchange.

And if anybody wants my allergies to cats, dogs, rabbits, horses,
feathers, mold, mildew, pollen, dust, mosquitos, corn silk, fleas,
and pretty much every organic substance on the planet, I'll offer the
same deal!

Laura

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