Guilty pleasures

[lydy]

For the most part, I don't have them. Either they aren't pleasurable, or they don't make me feel guilty. I find most stupid television and movies boring, and don't watch them. And when I re-read (yes, re-read) _Crystal Singer_ by Anne McCaffrey, I don't feel guilty. Now, I am aware that it is a supremely terrible book. It is not well written, it is formulaic, is is predictable, the characters are not well drawn, and logic there is none. Absolutely no part of it stands up to casual scrutiny, much less careful scrutiny. And yet, I read it with real pleasure and sometimes even read the sequel _Killishandra Ree_, which is exactly the same only worse in every possible dimension. And I enjoy it, too.

But scratching? An insect bite? Oh, yes, there is a guilty pleasure. I resist. I remind myself that it doesn't help, it only makes things worse. I distract myself. I argue with myself. And then, sometimes without even realizing I've made a decision, I start scratching. And the first few scrapes are a weird combination of intense relief and heightened itchiness. As the scratching progresses, I start to feel waves of pleasure and relief, and then intense relief along with minor pain -- usually by this point I've scraped off rather too much skin. Usually, the itching stops before the pain gets intense, and then there are a few moments of blessed comfort. But with every scratch, with each wave of relief and pleasure, there's that absolute knowledge that I'm only making things worse. That I'm spreading the bug juice to which I'm so allergic, I'm damaging my epidermis, and the healing of which will cause more itching, and the absolute, experimentally validated certainty that bites that I scratch will itch more often and for longer than bites that I leave the fuck alone. And yet, there I am, scratching that damn bite, and it feels so good. There is no point during the scratching process where I am not thinking, "Stop, just stop, just fucking stop right now." And when I finally stop, I feel stupid and guilty. Sometimes, the relief from the itching is literally less than a minute in duration. And then, there I am again, resisting, igorning, then scratching.

tl;dr: fucking fleas

Comments

[carbonel]

So it was fleas?

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Likely, not certain. The pattern of bites is that of a crawling insect.. just let the horror of that wash over you for a moment. The likely candidates are fleas and bed bugs. There are no other signs of bedbugs, and I don't seem to have brought them home with me, so fleas remain the likely candidate. We'll see if flea treatment deals with the problem.

Gods, I hate insect bites. Today is the first day since Monday when I haven't tried to claw large holes in my epidermis. I also ended up with what was probably an allergic reaction on my left arm, a red splotch fully two feet long and nine inches wide at its widest point. I measured it Wednesday night. I can't tell if it was an allergic reaction to the bites or to the antihistamine the doctor gave me. I stopped taking the antihistamine, but the bites are starting to age out, so could have been either. Neither the antihistamine nor the salve the doctor prescribed did shit.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

OMG, fleas. If you have a full-fledged flea infestation (and with 9 cats in the house, it seems not unlikely) you will have to do more than just dip the cats. Fleas spend a very small part of their lifespan on the animal that brought them into your house. They spend the rest of their time lurking in the baseboards, carpets and sometimes furniture, laying eggs. To fully exterminate them you need to move all the furniture twice a week, thoroughly vacuum, and spray the baseboards with flea-killer. Where are your bites? If they are on your lower legs that is a very bad sign - it means the fleas are not just riding on the cats, they are jumping off the carpet to bite you.

It was an infestation like this that changed my feelings about cats overnight. I no longer see them as attractive and cuddly; I just see 4-legged vermin distribution systems.

On the other hand, it might just be mosquito bites. There are an ungodly number of mosquitoes this year. They don't usually bite me much (or I don't react to the bites) but I've had more itchy bites this year than the last 10 years put together. (And I TOTALLY know what you mean about the guilty pleasure of scratching those bites. Well put.)

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I can't remember the term for something like methadone that relieves the craving for worse, at least somewhat. What satisfies the craving to scratch the bite, is scratching about 1/4 inch around the bite, both sides at once, circling it. Where the skin is not damaged so you're not doing further damage. Amd not using enough pressure to spread the allergen under the skin, either.

Also, using a medium-stiff hairbrush to lightly sort of whisk across the whole area, back and forth.

Or a soak in the hot tub. Or an ice cube on it?

A drop of alcohol that stings worse, might help when applied to the puncture. Alcohol may give a more general relief, if a larger amount, more expensive and better tasting, is drunk.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Pretty much every single thing that makes an insect bite itch is thermolabile, irrespective of insect; heat will break it down. (Which is why sauna was so extremely popular in Scandinavia and other ill-drained northern regions back in the day when you were working outside where the bugs could get you.)

These days, there's a gadget called a therapik that will apply heat to the bite; there's also something called AfterBite, which has a lot of sal ammonia in it, and it works for a lot of people, too, but the heat will always work because it breaks down the chemical causing the problem, it's not affecting your response.

Bed bugs bite in threes -- breakfast, lunch, dinner -- and fleas don't.

Big red patches should be considered in a context of ticks, not just fleas.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I have tried AfterBite. It doesn't help a bit. I have not tried heat. I shall look into a therapik if this happens again.

According to the doctor to whom I took my many, many bites, fleas also do the "breakfast, lunch, dinner" routine. Indeed, all crawling, biting insects tend to do so. Eat a little bit, walk a little bit, eat a little bit, walk a little bit....Euwww! She also said that it wasn't possible to tell, just looking at the bites, which fucking insect had done it. However, since the mattress doesn't seem to show signs of bed bugs, and there are dogs in the house where I got the bites, the chances are higher that they are flea bites.

Big red patches need to be considered in terms of an allergic reaction. Which I most totally have to many bug bites. The huge red patch on my left arm was concerning. (It was scary enough I marked the edges with a red sharpie to see if it was getting any bigger. It wasn't.) The bites themselves tend to swell up at first, then shrink to a more normal, bite sized lesion. Also indicative of an allergic reaction was that I got very slightly restricted breathing when they were at their worst. I'm asthmatic, so that's all of a piece.

Fucking fleas.

Thanks for the suggestion of the therapik.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Thank all the gods, I didn't get the bites at my house. And as far as I can tell, I haven't brought them home. No new bites since sleeping over. Definitely not mosquito bites. Mosquitoes are flying insects, and so the bites don't tend to cluster together. I do have some random itchy spots, and I think those probably are mosquito bites.

The doctor did not say talk about all the things you mention to get rid of fleas. I remember when we had a flea infestation when I was a child, we ended up bombing the house twice. It was quite a procedure. We got the fleas because our cats died, and had no place else to go, so they came to us. Actually, to me. I was being bit, and badly bit, for several weeks before anyone else noticed the fleas. Fleas really, really like me. This is not mutual.

However, Frontline has been invented since then. I had thought that fleas that bit a dog that had been treated with Frontline died, and so all you needed to do was treat the dog, not the entire house. The doctor said that I should stay away from my boyfriend's house until the dog had been treated at least seven days in the past, and that the treatment should be Frontline, other products don't work as well.

As for cats being vermin delivery systems, this is really only true if you let them outside. Ours never go outside. Even when Aristophanes lived with us, he only went out on a leash, and the ways that limited him also seemed to limit his ability to acquire fleas.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

All the work arounds work briefly, and then the craving is back, and worse. The only thing that has helped at all is hydrocortisone creme, which only helps sometimes.