It has been unseasonably warm where I live and we have recently had a big rain. This follows an incredibly mild winter. All of these ingredients add up to an overabundance of mosquitoes. Everyone is talking about them - swarms of mosquitoes that are reaching Biblical proportions.
I have noticed them, sure. However, it only recently dawned on me that they are not biting me. At all. I started reflecting on this fact just yesterday, as I was swatting them off of my daughters - even the dog had a mosquito on him. One of my daughters asked me, "Mommy, do you ever get mosquito bites?"
I started to say (in that absentminded parent way), "Sure, everyone gets mosquito bites." But then I thought about it and realized that it has been years since I have had a mosquito bite.
I used to get them all the time and be an itchy mess for 6 months of the year. The only thing that I can link my current lack of appeal to mosquitoes is to Copaxone. I have been on it for about 6 years and I can distinctly remember an itchy summer right before I started.
I tried to research this, and the best I could do was a post on another blog with someone wondering the same thing: Copaxone keeps the bugs away. This person was wondering if her Copaxone was repelling the mosquitoes, but there seemed to be a general lack of consensus on the matter.
What about you? Anyone notice a difference in your "tastiness" to biting bugs since being on Copaxone (or any other disease-modifying therapy)? I would love to know the answer to this. Please share you experience in the comments section below?
I’ve been on Copaxone for several years and the mosquitoes bite me just as much as before..
I’ve been on several disease modifying drugs since I was first diagnosed back in 2002. I’ve noticed a difference in the number of bites but in all honesty, I can’t attribute it to the treatment. It seems more related to me spending less time outdoors. Plus, I’m not nearly as sensitive as I used to be. It’s entirely possible that when I do get outside, I get bitten as much as ever and just don’t notice. Last summer, I actually watched with quite a bit of fascination as a mosquito landed on my arm and became engorged with blood. I never felt a thing and the little red spot that resulted didn’t itch at all.
The summer I was on Copaxone I noticed the mosquitoes staying away from me! I have always been the one who gets bit the most but that summer I was the one bit the least on our outdoor family adventures. Unfortunately that benefit didn’t stay when I got off Copaxone.
I should switch to copaxone cause I take avonex an I still get bit!
It could be that you actually are being bit by mosquitoes but either not having a reaction (e.g., a raised weal) because of lack of white blood cell recruitment to the site, or not feeling an itch because of the lack of histamine recruitment to the site, as a result of Coxapone modifications to your immune system.
Given my understanding of mosquito attraction to humans that seems a more likely explanation to me. To be sure, you don’t remember any mosquito bites, right, not explicitly a lack of mosquitoes biting? It could be they’re biting you and you don’t realize it.
I’ve been on Rebif for a year, and certainly noticed that mosquitoes don’t bother me as they used to. My parents complain a lot about them, but I don’t usually get hurt, even if we are on the same room.
I started noticing this some months ago, and my first thought was: “Rebif”.
I live in south America, on a tropical weather, so you can imagine mosquitoes are part of everyday life. I’m pretty sure there is a relation between disease modifying drugs and mosquitoes.
They bother me now that I have been on copaxone for 5 yrs. Never bit me before
Hi to All,
I live on the coastal bend of southeast Texas, and boy oh boy, do they know how to grow mosquitoes here. I am a Copaxone user, but alas, mosquitoes still bite me. So, at least for this Jersey Girl transplanted in Texas, Copaxone does not keep the mosquitoes away.
I’ve had more mosquito bites on Copaxone then I ever did before I was on the drug!
I’ve been on Copaxone for years, in addition to a ton of other meds for MS symptoms. Prior to these meds, I was a mosquito burrito. With the exception of last year, when I managed to get a dozen bites somehow, I usually am not bothered by them.
I live in northern WI a few blocks from Lake Superior to there is lots of bugs. My daily shot of Copaxone has not changed anything. Those little buggers still sworm and bite like crazy.
Can’t say I noticed a difference after about six years on Copaxone (So much better for me than Avonex), but the daily shots offer a “bug bite” feeling anyway, complete with itchiness.
I don’t know about Copaxone but I was on Avonex for 8 years and not one mosquito bite, before that I was bitten all the time and very sensitive to the bites. I had to stop taking Avonex (it was destroying my liver) and it took 18 months before the mosquitoes found me back.
Born and Raised in Texas and mosquitos either bite you or they don’t! I have always dreaded mosquito season (way before I was diagnosed with MS). I avoid eating Bananas during mosquito season because I read they are attracted to the scent your body gives off after consumption. I’ve taken Rebif and Copaxone for nearly 5 years and have never NOT been bit. My Father who hasn’t taken either (he doesn’t have MS), Never, Ever gets bitten and spends lots of time outdoors.
Maybe we get bit less because we go outside less. The heat exacerbates symptoms, so I tend to stay in the AC when it’s warm.
Interesting…I’ll have to pay attention this summer…No bugs U.P. here yet, but I know they are coming…I’m injecting Copaxone, live in the woods…the bugs are carnivorous here….we shall see.
Born and raised in Alberta, Canada and I’ve been on Copaxone for close to 12 years. During summers I don’t think I’m getting bit as often as I did before Copaxone, but sometimes I’ll notice the odd red spot that has absolutely zero itch factor to it. This leads me to believe what Holly has surmised.
Oh how I WISH this were true for me, as I have been on Copaxone since 2003 but mosquitoes just LOVE me! As do fire ants. I have always wondered whether or not my diabetes makes me smell extra delicious to mosquitoes. I’m sure they look forward to my evening excursions for some exercise more than I do, but early morning and twilight is the coolest times for me to walk since I live in Florida, but it’s their favorite time to chow down on me!. I don’t go out when it’s hot but mosquitoes are out when I need to walk. I’m open to suggestions!
I have been on Copaxone since 2005. I have to say, the little beggars love me and bite me more than ever. Sorry to say, that Copaxone does NOT work as a repellent.
The mosquitos love me… and they still bite me… actually I havent seen a difference at all and I am on Copaxone for two years now and I am out in the yard often.
Mosquitoes always loved me more than anyone else! I never connected the dots as I noticed that the mosquitoes don’t bite me nearly as much as they use to. I have been on Copaxone four years and there is definitely a correlation with the decrease in bites. Interesting…
i have been on copaxone for 7 years now and don’t think things are any different, mosquito wise. i was never a big attractor of them and still aren’t. now my husband, he gets eaten alive so don’t anyone tell him that copaxone might help or he’ll be fighting me for it.
i live in the midwest and we always have our share of the little demons and fear this year will be bad because of the nice winter and wet spring. i agree with Bob. this daily shot gives me enough grief that i sure am glad the bugs don’t add to it.
As Bill said above, I’ve also been on Copaxone for several years and the mosquitoes bite me just as much as before (a lot!!!).
We live in New York and go camping in the Catskills. Last summer the mosquitoes were having a fiesta on my husband and sons. The mosquitoes stayed away from me, I thought it was my sunscreen, but I do inject Copaxone daily.
Sorry, but I get all kinds of bug bites, not just mosquitoes. They hover around me like a bee to honey. I attract them wherever I go. It is according to your aura. Certain people give out that aura & the bugs descend.
Wish it worked for me!!
I just got back from a vacation in the Caribbean. Mosquitos there are not averse to a bit of Copaxone in their diet. Too Bad!
I was on Copaxone from Nov. 2010 to March of this year which means I spent one summer using it. Shockingly, I did notice no mosquito bites last summer. I found this pleasantly usual but could not figure out why. I just enjoyed. I will be starting Avonex soon. I’ll remember to take notice again this summer.
To be honest, I never gave it a thought until I read your article. ABSOLUTELY YES! I have noticed BIG TIME in the last 13 years that I get so few bites. A friend that I go away with actually remarked on it last year, “why are you never bit with mosquitoes?’ I was always bit and they swelled and last on my skin for a week.
I’m thrilled to think that I’m not the only one the mosquitoes are not bothering.
THANKS, COPAXONE!
I’ve been on Copaxone for a number of years and have noticed that I get very few if any misquito bites – and typically we spend summers in Maine (though I travel less the last few years) also we know that many medications and supplements ( esp Vit B) is excreted on the skin and serves as a repellent also Avons skin so soft – so perhaps we are just more aware of our bodies, and therefore are doing something that helps either way – I’m glad!!!
I still get bit by those blood suckers but each time it happens I say I hope you die how was the Copaxone!
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I live in Northern New York–Adirondack region. Lots of bugs. Since Copaxone, fewer bites from skeets, and black flies and deer flies too. Definite correlation for me.
I live in Northern New York–Adirondack region. Lots of bugs. Since Copaxone, fewer bites from skeets, and black flies and deer flies too. Definite correlation for me.
Well I live in the Jerusalem hills, summer proper hasn’t yet arrived, but it’s an interesting thought.
I DO find little red spots that could be failed mosquito attemtps. I will pay more attention this summer.
I never get bit by mosquitos – and I noticed it before I was on copaxone so I thought maybe it was the MS itself , I always thought it was strange because as a kid I had mosquito bites, but I would say early 20′s is when I stopped getting bit by mosquitos
Dear, I had the same ‘problem’ with Rebif (17 years long…), I thought because of the huge of drugs I usually take, like most of youy. I left Rebif on Jan 2012, about seven months of clearing, then (maybe?) Tysabri in ASCEND trial for five months, but I left it too because of heavy collateral effects.. Mosquitos are better!
I have been on Copaxone for years and mosquitoes
still eat me up.