USB-C Cures Mosquito Bites | Hacker News Reader

USB-C Cures Mosquito Bites

shkspr.mobi

77 pointsrobin_reala63 comments

It reminds me of something I used to do against mosquito bites when I was younger and more sensitive to them. I dipped a spoon in boiling water, and gave the mosquito bite a few quick touches with the hot spoon.

Nowadays I just use anti-acne wipes with salicylic acid against mosquito bites, it reduces the inflammation for me.

Five star 80s kid cure:

Butane lighters are < $1, instantly heat up the metal tip with a flick of your thumb, and do the same thing.

The Bug Bite Thing seems to have a similar miraculous effect for my family. I was initially skeptical, but it works surprisingly well. Also, no need to fiddle with batteries.

I was similarly skeptical and impressed with how effective it was. +1 for the bug bite thing.

My son gets horrible blisters from mosquito bites (skeeter syndrome). Bought him a bug bite thing out of desperation on our last trip south and was blown away to see how well it worked to keep the swelling down.

In my experience, it only really works if you do it within 5 minutes or so — but if you do it's absolutely magical.

It's even better for bee stings.

I’ll have to try.

Once you have had enough bee stings, they hurt briefly then stop. But 3 days later you get itchy.

I’m good at getting stung, not so good at beekeeping.

Preparation H reduces the swelling and the itching goes away. Doesn't need to be charged.

Novel approach here, we need a 240W version for spot-welding or putting a quick sear on pork belly.

After-Bite (the variant with 3.5% ammonia) is my goto, works every time.

I have tried various anti-inflammatory/ anti-histamine creams in the past. But I've never found them that effective. Preparation H isn't suitable for vegetarians due to one of the ingredients being Shark Liver Oil.

Stilex Gel is flower/plant extract based and works extremely well.

I read a number of studies one time after a trip back home to Florida left me itching everywhere. Surprisingly, it seemed that the strongest evidence by far was for topical ammonia, with antihistamines, heat, cold, and other common remedies showing limited effectiveness. Ammonia is a rather unpleasant choice, but I've also found that Windex makes short work of cockroaches that laugh at Raid and the like.

From my experience, the best defense against mosquito itch is living in Florida -- you rapidly become resistant, and eventually the bites fade within a couple hours. However, this has other downsides.

My first trip to Florida I wound up in the emergency room from a bug bite that made my wrist swell to double the size. What a state.

You don't eat preparation h, I hope.

Not sure if you're joking - but vegetarians / vegans tend not use use any product which is made by killing an animal.

People can argue about whether shearing a sheep or obtaining shellac is harmful - but I think everyone can agree that there's no way to extract the liver of a shark without killing it.

Virtually every product is made by killing animals. I'd say vegetarians/vegans only really care about products that ~require~ the killing of an animal, and care very little about the products that only kill animals incidentally.

Thank you for telling me what I care about. Incidentally, how does one extract the oil from a shark's liver without killing the shark?

Vegans used to not own pets as that was deemed immoral. And now they do. The goal posts keep moving.

Vegans aren't a collective entity. Pets can be adopted.

> Vegans aren't a collective entity.

It's still human dominion over animals. And veganism is still veganism. e.g., don't tell me that "some vegans decide it's OK to wear leather" because they're not "a collective entity" or something like that. Veganism is very much a black & white ethos. There is no acceptable gray area for veganism.

That's completely wrong. It could refer to a diet, a philosophy, or both.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism

Maybe not (unless you want to get at that 'roid from the long way around) but some people are vegetarian because they want to avoid killing animals as much as possible. It seems that shark liver oil comes mainly from sharks already considered "vulnerable" by the IUCN[1]. I'd feel weird about rubbing the liver oil of a top tier predator on my ass now that I think about it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_liver_oil

It's just a longer path towards its destination.

I'm unsure if this is true anymore? The ingredient list and information from their website seems to indicate that this is no longer an ingredient (although some of their products do use lanolin/beeswax)

It appears to vary by country

The UK sites I've found list it as included - eg https://www.boots.com/preparation-h-ointment-25g-10094305

But it does need to be bought multiple times.

> Novel approach here, we need a 240W version for spot-welding or putting a quick sear on pork belly.

Only 60W, but...

https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...

The non-USB Beurer BR60 works very well, doesn't require a phone, and is about half the price. We have used them and found them very effective.

I did look at that. Seems to be about the same price as the USB one in the UK. But it also doesn't recharge nor does it have fine-grained controls for session length / intensity.

Tbh who doesn't have a phone and the usb dongle is a lot smaller than a device with a battery included.

Kids who go to summer camp where they (thankfully) aren't allowed to use phones are a great market for mosquito itch reduction devices.

Looks similar to piezo "clickers" that are supposed to help against mosquito bites. But is the working principle based on temporarily damaging nerve endings? If so, is there a potential for a long-term negative effect with active use?

Presumably this is more desensitising through an overload rather than damaging?

As I heard it, it's about chemistry. I forget the details. The mosquito injects something that ① keeps the blood flowing a little longer than it would otherwise, ② causes the body to react in a way that itches and ③ breaks down when heated. So to prevent the itching, you heat the area.

There's a verb for this heat process, but I can't remember it.

I think you are looking for denaturing. Some claim it denatures the proteins causing the itch. I can at least verify that for me it cuts down healing time but I do need to re-apply it a few times.

> There's a verb for this heat process, but I can't remember it.

Denaturation (of proteins): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denaturation_(biochemistry) .

I've tried the clickers but the effect only lasts a short while.

I used the heater every day for about a week, no negative effect that I experienced.

I don't think there's enough heat energy involved to cause damage. They claim that the pain overrides your itch senses. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10309056/

The study you linked is about efficacy. It did not research the underlying medical reason why it helps.

I also thought about the piezo clickers I had many years ago, but I think the principle is different: from what I heard at the time, the clickers were supposed to use a small amount of electricity to break the molecules of the substance causing the itch/inflammation.

Interesting - it reads like it's the same approach I've taken for stopping poison ivy itching, and my sister users for her eczema itching.

If you put the affected area under the hottest water you can, you cause the nerves to effectively burn out, overloading the signal to prevent the itch from triggering.

Especially for poison ivy it worked wonders when you have a bad rash, although you shouldn't put hot water on (opening the skin pores) if there's any chance you still have the oil on you, as it'll just get deeper in. This is for the days after once you're suffering.

Being a Brit and moving to the US I had no idea what poison ivy is, and learned the hard way. Standing under the hot shower and burning the ivy itch away causing a feeling that's basically pure ecstasy. It's an incredible feeling of relief, coupled with every nerve going nuts.

Could also be something specific to mosquito bites, I've read the denaturing argument too. My brother in law swears by holding a lit cigarette tip just above the bite to have a similar effect. It never worked particularly well for me, but bathing area with hot water always works for a bit.

The link actually links to the actual "science" page - https://just-heat-it.co.uk/pages/study which is page on a study of the effect.

> The treatment of insect bites using heat-based devices such as heat it® leads to significant itch and pain relief. This is proven by the world's most comprehensive study on the effectiveness of thermal insect bite healers.

> "Efficacy of Concentrated Heat for Treatment of Insect Bites: Results of a real-world study" - Metz M et al. | Published June 26, 2023 in Acta Dermato-Venereologica by the Society for Publication of Acta Dermato-Venereologica.

The paper itself is here: https://medicaljournalssweden.se/actadv/article/view/11592/1...

Conclusion:

> This study shows that concentrated heat induced by a heating device reduced pruritus caused by insect bites and stings, even if the insect bites occurred more than 6 h previously. Across more than 12,000 treatments registered, less than 1% of participants reported side-effects. Further investigation of these side-effects showed that none posed a serious risk to the participant.

But, it doesn't go into the possible reasons why.

> you cause the nerves to effectively burn out, overloading the signal to prevent the itch from triggering.

Saturate not burn out! If you killed those nerves you’d end up regretting it as anyone with Hanson’s disease (Leprosy) unfortunately finds out.

Thank you, much better word that’s what I actually meant to say.

I quit smoking six years ago but before that I used the lit cigarette tip trick for decades. It worked very well for me.

There's gradations of poison ivy reactions. I'm so allergic to it that turns into bubbles on bubbles like a cluster of fish eggs. (I don't think I'd want to put hot water on that.)

My late father was so sensitive to poison ivy that it skips the bubble phase and melts the skin and flesh off his body. One time he got poison ivy on his hand, and it resembled the scene from Terminator Genisys when the good T-800, "Pops," holds the T-1000 under the acid shower and lost the flesh covering on its cyborg arm.

I get what looks like strings of little clear bubbles and very red skin, sometimes the bubbles on bubbles too.

The hot water is more for the underlying skin. Seriously, it feels amazing.

For a while I had a gnarly case of AF between my two biggest toes that was resistant to over the counter cream and I wasn't able to get to a doctor for a bit. Running the hottest water I could get in my apartment over my foot was a bliss I had never known, and truly hope to never know again. It would be so intense I would get visual flashes.

Nothing worked quite the same, I always assmumed it was a rush of endorphins to the location to attempt to protect us from feeling burning pain. Given that we both felt sensations of ecstasy and endorphins are involved in pain relief, it makes sense ot me that having the endorphin rush for the heat pain relieves the itching as well, increasing our expected return for the endorphin output, causing acute feelings of ecstasy and bliss?

I don’t enjoy the poison ivy, it’s horrific, but the showering ecstasy is really incredible.

As a non-drug person it’s what I imagine some hard drug to feel like. Deeply intense, shivering, full body bliss.

Maybe just use a battery, a button and a resistor? It does not really need to connect to your social media or a bank account.

That's pretty much what this is.

Or a butane lighter. No electricity required.

HN users usually love to do an "ackshually".

I'm surpised nobody has commented that the title of the this post is clearly bait/wrong and should be renamed to indicate that the USB-C protocol is not curing insect bites but instead a device that uses the protocol is.

Maybe because its not from a major news publication site?

Perhaps it's because "ackshually" USB-C is not a protocol. It's a connector form factor.

The fact that "HN users" are "ackshually" not a big blob of identical people but rather a pretty diverse group might also count a little.

I've always wondered about the people who do this. Do they realise what the purpose of a headline is? It is to encourage the reader to invest time in a story. Usually that involves summarising it down to the bare minimum while still making it interesting.

I suppose I could have written "You'll never believe how this USB gadget cures holiday nightmares!" but that does feel like click-bait.

I considered writing "A gadget which is powered by USB-C cures the common effects of mosquito bites in a sample size of 1" but that felt needlessly verbose.

So, my question back to you is this - how would you rewrite the headline? What short sentence would you use which maximises the twin constrains of accuracy and brevity?

I would say that the interesting part of this article is that you can treat mosquito bites with hyperthermia. Anyone who's had any contact with technology already knows that you can power electronic devices via USB.

I have a mosquito net. Very lightweight, does not require charging, works very well, also is preventive.

How does that help on the beach?

Just put it on the parasol

I found that these bite-zappers stop the itching in the moment but it just comes back stronger later and the bite takes far longer to heal that it would have if left alone.

Eczema sufferers have been doing this for a while

I always go the opposite way — ice it down.

But mosquito bites are painless... is this an article about itch control? Curious it has nothing to say about preventing bites which would carry mosquito borne diseases. The cure for mosquito bites is to not get them, and there are natural options for that.

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