Surely other people get bitten, too?

[JellySlice]

I went out to eat with a group of four people this evening. We came out of the restaurant and walked by a river. I was chilly and put my cardie back on. The others remained bare-armed. My shoulders were exposed for all of, oh, three minutes. Yet I got bitten on the back of my shoulders. Two bites.

None of the others were bitten, despite flaunting their flesh all the way back to the carpark.

Why me?

AIBU to think that other people get bitten, too, but their bodies don't react to the bites?

Or am I just some delectable treat for every passing mozzie and gnat?

Some people are just more tempting than others.

There was a study that said people with O blood get bitten more than people with A blood. I can BS because I'm A- and get bitten all the time and they often go quite nasty.

My in laws call me bait. We can all sit outside all evening. I'll be covered in deet and next to a citronella burner. They will hardly be touched. I'll get eaten alive. It's nice to know I have my uses...

I never used to get bitten but have done for the last few years and I react quite badly now to I don't know what. Antihistamines are taken everyday and the bites don't itch unless I touch them. That's how I find out I've been bitten in some cases.

The worst ones are the midges at our Forest School especially it it's warm and damp. You can see them flying around and everybody is itching their heads. Then you see the dots appearing - flat red dots that then seem to disappear. Strange. I don't know what I prefer - the not knowing you've been bitten till you touch it or the midges that send you mad with itching but no apparent aftermath of being bitten. I think I need a hat!

DF was A- and they adored him. They were also quite attracted to DSis (can't remember her blood group) but DM, DB and I (all O+ iirc) they could take or leave. DF said he was really popular when he was in the RAF in the Far East because all the bitey things went for him instead of his roommates. (Of course they had mosquito nets, but if you turned over and left a bit of yourself touching the net they just bit you through it.) It could be a blood temperature thing, as he was always a warm sort of fellow, whilst DM and I suffer/ed from cold feet.

One holiday we camped by a beautiful tarn in the Scottish highlands, only to realise in a very short while that it was Mozzie Central. We left in a hurry and squashed every one we could find in the caravan before settling down for the night several miles away. We still woke up in the morning covered with bites. DF and DSis were totally covered from head to toe, whilst DM, DB and I weirdly had bites only on the side of our faces that had been uppermost while we slept.

Anything that bites will hunt me down. Mosquitoes, midges, gnats, horse flies, free flies, even been bitten by spiders twice.
The worst are the bites on the bottom of your feet. How they even manage to stab their mouthparts through my leathery, flip flop hardened foot skin is beyond me, but they would rather do that than puncture the soft, unbitten skin of OH any day.
I even get bitten in winter!

The other odd thing is, when I get a new bite and start scratching it, it seems to reactivate all the old ones, that had stopped itching, too.
Does anybody else notice that as well?

My advice is to ignore all this woo stuff about garlic/marmite/beer/blood group/other because they just don't work for midge magnets. OH is a walking all you can eat buffet for any biting insect, and the only thing that prevents him from being bitten is industrial strngth insect repellant. If he leaves so much as one square cm of skin without insect repelleant he will get bitten there.

Unfortunately he also reacts very badly to mosquito bites and has ended up on antbiotics on several occasions. We never holiday anywhere where mosquito borne diseases are rife because of the high probability that OH will develop malaria/dengue fever/yellow fever/zika etc.

On the other hand DD and I very rarely get bitten.

OMG, I have just re-read my post and it contains a grammatical error. Blame it on a couple of re-casts of the sentence. They could take me or leave me alone. Not I!

I never get bitten (O+) but my sister (also O+) and my husband (A+) get bitten to death

I get bitten less when I'm on antihistamines. I tried brewer's yeast again it helps a little.

I react very badly to most bites but really react to horse flies.

DH, DD and DS 2 never get bitten but DS1 and I are prime insect restaurants, bet we're in the Michelin guide for nocturnal nibbling

I always get bitten, OH and kids never do!
I have ended up on antibiotics twice this year due to bad bites. On one occasion my ankle was twice the size, blistered and I could hardly walk on it.
Drives me mad!

I don't know my blood type but I react badly to bites and must be the mosquito equivalent of caviar. DB has it even worse than me and DSis is alnost as bad. Our other DB and DPs don't get bitten at all.

DH and our two DC don't get bites. We have nets over our windows and I wear repellent bracelets in summer which helps but I'm still urgently sporting 3 bites on my face, 2 of which are on one eyelid.

We've just spent a weekend getting bitten. I saw dh and ds with red spots indicating they had just been bitten....the next day all heir bites were gone and no itching at all.
Me and dd.... a week later we still have obvious bites. Dd looked like she had chickenpox all over her face.

So....it's not that others don't get bitten they just don't react the same as others.

I take antihistamines all year because of allergies. I also eat a lot of garlic, marmite & bovril. Not sure if I don't get bitten much, or just don't react, but I never notice any these days. No idea what blood type I am.

Weedsandseeds yes, to the bite reactivation thing... probably shows it’s a more widespread immune response than “normal” people get.

I never get bitten but poor dh gets eaten alive. He must taste nicer then I do :)

I always get bitten. Fleas, mosquitos, midges, they all love me. They love dd too.
Ds2 and dp rarely get bitten

How do the insects know what blood type you are/whether you are sugary until they’ve already bitten you...?

Had never been bitten in my life til I went to Greece recently, came home absolutely covered in bites, I must taste nicer to greek bugs than I do other countries bugs. Strange

I take anti-histamines every night to get me off to sleep. I still get bitten to buggery. All the woo stuff is bullshit when it comes to me. I spray on the Jungle and crack on.

'OH is a walking all you can eat buffet for any biting insect, and the only thing that prevents him from being bitten is industrial strngth insect repellant. If he leaves so much as one square cm of skin without insect repelleant he will get bitten there.'

This.

I get bitten a lot and react badly to them. As a child many, many holidays (in Scotland!) were ruined by me being bitten by midges and then being completely unable to walk because my leg/foot/other body part would swell up and get very hot, leading to a visit to A&E. I don't actually remember any childhood holidays where I didn't end up visiting A&E because of an insect bite, whether it was "just" the allergic reaction or whether one got infected.

I started taking one a day hayfever antihistamines a few years ago and haven't had a bad reaction or and infection since, but I keep the piriton tablets handy just in case (I keep a pack at work, one at home, and another one in the car). I REALLY don't want to have those bad reactions of my childhood again.

Bracelets are a complete waste of money LockedOut. They will only prevent your wrist from being bitten. Hence the face bites.

I spray on diluted lavendar oil, citronella or eucalyptus oil and the bugs don't go anywhere near me. They don't like the smell or failing that I rub on vicks as it's got eucalyptus oil in it.

Another one who is highly attractive to biting bugs. The first time I met my now-in-laws, (they live overseas) we decided to make a real holiday out of it and stop off for a few days on our way out. Big mistake. I arrived looking like the victim of a particularly nasty leprosy outbreak and scratching, and trying not to, and so fidgeting a lot. I had 14 bites on one arm alone. And this was the condition in which I met DH's parents for the first time.
DH got not a single bite.
DD1 seems to take after me. On a recent holiday we sat outside for dinner. 10 of us. Only she and I got bitten, despite us being the only ones wearing repellent. Her foot was swollen she had so many bites on it.
DD2 takes after DH. They leave her well alone.