The Mosquito Experiment (Not for young eyes)

This post is not for the lighthearted nor is it for the little kids. There are no indecent photos but some of the subject matter is not appropriate for everyone. Please keep this in mind before leaving nasty comments

This past weekend I went for a hike out through the wetlands and was bitten by some mosquitoes.
Actually that is an understatement. I was mauled by swarms of mosquitoes. 68 bites at last count.
The first night was not so bad but the following morning was agony. At first I thought I only had a couple but as the day went on more and more began to appear and by the time evening fell I felt I was going to go crazy. I looked through the cupboards and found I had no real treatments for them so decided my wisest move would be to jump online and start asking for home remedies.
I had about 7 remedies thrown at me however 2 of them I was unable to try this time around as I didn't have them on hand... Deep Heat and ammonia.

Those remedies I did go with for the experiment were:
Saliva - Own.
Saliva - From partner.
Vinegar - I used white for no other reason than that was what I had most of in stock.
Cross - Using a fingernail press down onto each bite forming a cross.
Urine - I supplied this myself and waited until I was home alone to try this one.
"Other" - Another bodily fluid. I'm not going into much detail here. you can use your imagination. Lets just say... I couldn't supply my own.
(NB: These last 2 treatments are not things I would normally wipe over myself but after a bit of convincing I decided to try in the name of science. I mean, who knows?
What if you are stranded somewhere and had nothing else? They could come in handy.)

I also kept one area completely free from any of these remedies to use as my control. Something I could use as basis for comparison.

Before starting this experiment I had a quick shower using only an exfoliating glove. I did not want to taint my results with soap.
Each remedy was only applied once using a clean cotton ball.
I measured my results at 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours and 12 hours just to be thorough.
Thankfully I was awake nearly all night with a toothache so could keep testing for the whole period.

To View detailed analysis of results please click here.

Conclusions:

Saliva - It took under a minute before I got the initial soothing feeling. However the relief was only short lived and mild. I found my own saliva was more soothing than that of my partner. I wonder if that is because my body knows what is best for me?

Vinegar - I had a few bites I had previously scratched and had broken the skin. The vinegar over these bites was sheer agony for a few minutes. It felt like intense burning. After 10 minutes the burning began to die down and the pain had dulled to less than before the experiment. The relief lasted about 3 hours before I would have to say I was starting to get annoyed again with the itch.

Cross - I was curious about this method. I could not see any medicinal reason for it to provide pain relief but thought maybe it might work as it provides a painful distraction to the itchiness. I made light crosses on some bites, a few deep crosses on others and a couple in-between. Within the first 5 minutes the bites were really hurting. By 10 minutes the bites had grown to what I can only describe as welts. By the half hour mark the major pain was starting to die down but was still quite intense. All through the night these bites were itchy and painful. The next morning the pain had mostly gone. however they were still quite sensitive to touch.

Urine - This was something I wasn't overly looking forward to so I decided to do a little reading first.
Urine is expelled from the body after it has filtered through the kidneys. After it has left the body the urine begins to form ammonia. Urine also contains dissolved salts but is mostly made up of water. Urine is sterile. There are myths of it being used to help ease the pain of certain stings and bites and it is believed in ancient times it was used to clean wounds.
Almost instantly there was a cool relief on my bites, sadly it only lasted about half an hour before I started getting itchy again. The itchiness is not as intense as prior to the experiment but is still present.

"Other" - This was originally only a joke suggestion. But then the conversation turned to "Medical breakthroughs have come from far worse ideas." It took a bit of convincing before I was ready to give this a go. I was quite surprised with the results.
I was ready to write this off before starting but much to my surprise there was almost instant relief. While other areas were beginning to itch again this section remained itch-free. One thing that was quite obvious was that the surrounding skin became quite tight. (As it does when covered in glue that dries.) After the first 10 minutes I found that my skin was getting warm. I think the best comparison is to when you are wearing a greasy sunscreen and can feel yourself sweating beneath. I noticed within the first half hour that the surrounding redness had started to disappear. By three hours I could feel the bites again but wouldn't exactly describe them as itchy, I just knew they were present.
The itch finally began to reappear around 5-6 hours after application.
Update: I did not use anything on my bites for the following 24 hours so I would be able to get a good look if there had been any improvements. I believe these are the only bites which have decreased in size.

Control - They're itchy and then it dies down... Really itchy again, then it dies down. Very hard to leave them alone but at times these bites weren't as bad as some of the others. All in all I think I would prefer to do something rather than nothing.

Final Verdict:
First I would have to say Urine, Saliva and the Cross method are hardly worth trying. Any relief was short-lived.
Next, Doing nothing actually has some merit. Of course you're going to have waves of itch before you get relief but on the upside you are not covered in anything smelly or what would be considered gross.
Finally...
Whilst I did get the greatest relief from the application of "other" I'm not sure this is necessarily that practical. If you were stranded on an island by all means, you have your own natural relief. however back in the real world how do you think you're going to be able to do this? Would you bottle it or just apply directly? What if you get itchy right in the middle of a family visit?
However it has made me think, perhaps there is something in the chemical composition of "other" which provides the relief and it may pay to go into further detail with research as to what it is. Considering the results of all of the methods, perhaps it has something to do with the acids?
Although it came second, I would have to say the hands down winner for this experiment was... Vinegar.
Excluding the initial sting on any bites that were broken, the relief lasted quite a few hours. The big drawback is for the first 30 minutes you really stink of vinegar and may get a craving for fish & chips.
Over subsequent days I have been using the vinegar method when the itch gets unbearable and the good thing is I basically always have a supply in my pantry. You only need a drop on a cotton ball to cover all of your bites and if you buy a generic brand you can pick up a bottle for about $1/L so this is also quite economical.