Thank You, Graydon (Therapik edition)

[lydy]

So, the Therapik doesn't do much for week-old bites. But I stayed over the last night, and I have a new crop of bites to experiment upon. Alas.

On new bites, it does not immediately eliminate the itching, more's the pity. But it does, after a bit, definitely reduce or eliminate it. Bites treated with the Therapik itch less over time and seem to heal faster. (I had a mosquito bite on Sunday that I treated once, and it has bothered me no more.)

The bad news is that this thing eats batteries like they were going out of style. It uses a 9-volt battery, and I've had to replace it once, and the thing only arrived last Saturday. DDB does say that creating heat is simply power-intensive and there isn't much room for increasing efficiency, so it's not surprising that it eats batteries. However, if the preliminary results hold up, this is so totally worth it. While cremes offer varying amounts of relief, they seem to require frequent reapplication, and I usually reapply more often than is recommended. And while the relief is welcome, when the itching returns, it is with the same intensity. With the Therpik, if the itching returns, it seems to be of lesser intensity.

As I said, we'll see if these results hold up.

Comments

[quadong.livejournal.com]

"creating heat is simply power-intensive and there isn't much room for increasing efficiency"

Usually creating heat *is* inefficiency. Probably your device is 100% efficient at creating heat, since that's the default place for energy to go if you aren't careful (2nd law of thermodynamics). The real question is why doesn't it come with a plug-in power adapter? I suppose the answer is that you're supposed to use it while camping.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

If one has the opportunity to read the instructions, you're supposed to use it right away. That gets all the chemical contribution from the biting insect still in one confined place. The instructions are rather pessimistic about delayed use.

Also, the things were close to 100 CAD when they were introduced; they're down around 15 CAD now. I suspect lowering the sale price has been an objective for a goodly while, and non-battery versions would run that right back up again. (Plus, probably, being harder to license; it's supposed to almost burn you, something harder to guarantee with wall current than a 9V battery.)

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, using it right away is a bit of a problem, what with being asleep while most of the biting takes place, you know? Also, the battery was essentially dead when I got up the next morning, so it really wasn't a good test. By the time I got home and replaced the battery, the bites were many, many hours old.

The new battery is holding up much better than the old battery, so I have to assume that although the battery didn't say it had reached its freshness date, it was, in fact, vastly underpowered. Unfortunately, since most of the bites were fairly old, it didn't help nearly as much as I would have liked.

You absolutely can create little blisters with this sucker, even though it's just battery powered. While the blisters are a bit annoying, and indeed itch when they heal, the do not itch nearly as much as the fucking bug bites. However, if you manage to blister the skin over a bite treated too late for the treatment to be effective, you pretty much guarantee blood when you find yourself compulsively scratching the bastard.

I think that it does work pretty well if you get to the bite right away. But there are all sorts of reasons why one might not. I find that I tend to have itching emerge over a 24 to 48 hour period after having been bit. The bites don't seem to be happening at home, but they don't always present right away. Treated immediately after presentation does increase the chance that the Therapik will solve the problem, but doesn't guarantee it.

Meantime, I'm still having some fairly bad allergic reactions to the fucking bites. At this point, I don't think I can stay over at my other boyfriend's house until he's undertaken some fairly major chemical warfare. It's pretty clear that the fleas have become part of the environment, and are not primarily living on the dogs. This means that I can't really be a part of the environment. Arghhhhhhh.