On a pan-Java tour in December 1973, my leg reacted badly to a mosquito bite: the bitten spot swelled up, became very hard, hot, and itchy. Luckily, I had a tube of cream for bites.
When I went to Taipei in the summer of 1979, however, I didn’t think of packing something for bites, probably because I’d never been bitten by mosquitoes in Taiwan before, not throughout my two years there. (I know, still no excuse not to go prepared, just in case. Too young in life experience, too inexperienced a traveller.) As with the mosquito bite in Java, the bitten area swelled up, became very hard, hot, and itchy. I was staying in the new flat my ex-colleague’s parents had bought for their son (for when he got married), so there were ice cubes in the fridge. I applied ice cubes to the area to bring down the temperature to start with. (This was inspired by the practice of applying ice bags to the forehead of a feverish person — I’d been the recipient of this treatment when I contracted dengue fever in 1973 and my temperature shot up to 42C.) I then discovered that the ice cube treatment also numbed the itchiness. The swelling then subsided with repeated subsequent applications. Chemical-free!
In 1996, when I was in Helsinki, my Finnish friends invited me to their summer house in central Finland for an al fresco lunch party in their garden with some other guests. Finland has something like 188,000 (according to Google), which means a lot of boggy areas: perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes who like stagnant water. During the four hours in that garden, while I was filling my tummy with human food, my legs under the table were feeding the mosquitoes. I didn’t even feel them gnawing at my legs until I got back to my hotel room and saw my legs. My left leg had 32 bites, my right leg 35. Each bitten spot had swelled up so much that they all merged into one big lump. My legs looked like I was suffering from elephantiasis. It was Sunday night, pharmacies weren't open, I worried about scratching in my sleep and ripping the skin open. Ah, ice cubes! I asked reception for a big bowl of ice, and spent the next few hours applying them to my legs. Went to sleep without worrying about scratching my itchy legs and tearing my skin in my sleep.
I’ve since been recommending it to people.
This ice-cube method is also safe for people who are allergic to certain chemicals used in creams for bites. The only problem is, unlike the cream in a tube, ice cubes are not always readily available.
(Indonesia, 1973; Taipei, 1979; Tokyo, 1993; Helsinki, 1996)
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