This is just a quick post to share a little experiment I tried the other day.  We live on a Dutch barge, and there are many wonderful aspects to life afloat.  One of the downfalls though, is that we get more than our fair share of insects like mosquitos.  It seems my 6 year old daughter Mo has particularly tasty blood, as she was recently savaged with several nasty bites on her legs – the big, itchy, swollen type.  We tried standard bite relief spray, but it didn’t help.  So I scoured the cupboards for something that might do a better job.  I ended up using a mixture of extra virgin coconut oil, and Quercitin (Solgar Quercitin Complex to be precise, which includes other ingredients such as Bromelain).  I chose these ingredients due to their anti-inflammatory and anti-histamine properties.

I put about a tablespoon of the oil in a small plastic pot, and let it melt by holding it in a bowl of hot water (without getting water in with the oil).  I then emptied one capsule of Quercitin into the oil, mixed it up, and left it to set. 

Applying it directly to the bites was too, well, oily, so I ended up putting some on cotton wool balls, and fixing them on top of the bites with plasters.  As long as the skin where the plasters attach is kept oil-free, this seems to work fine.

We did this at bed time, and in the morning the itching was gone, and the swelling had reduced significantly!  Mo was very pleased with 'Daddy's magic potion’, and we’ve used it again successfully since.  Give it a try, and leave a comment with your experiences.  (Note: any ingredient can cause adverse reactions in some people, so I’d advise testing with a small amount first).