Midges cause huge problems in my family because they rarely bite dh at all and even if they do he doesn't react. So he has no sympathy for us at all.
If I get bitten or the kids it doesn't hurt at first, but comes up as a red dot about 4mm wide.
A few hours later it becomes unbearably itchy, becomes a much wider raised red bump, and a ring of white skin around that.
Anyway in my new first aid kit I had some antihistamine cream, so when the midges had lunched on me before I'd had chance to get the repellant stuff out and my legs and arms looked like a polka dot princess, I dabbed a dot of a/h cream on each of the bites; then again 12 hrs later.
The bites I treated (within 1 hour) have not reacted at all, and are not itchy. But the ones I missed have reacted in the normal (unbearable) way.