submitted 10 months ago by 0WN3D@lemmy.cafe to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Just a random shower thought.

Mosquito's proboscis is sharp enough to penetrate your skin. So when you smack it while it is in the process of drawing your blood, isn't there a chance of its proboscis being forcefully jammed into your skin, leading to some sort of "splinter"? Or does it somehow loses its stiffness the moment it feels the impact?

I've never encountered nor heard of such occurrence in my lifetime of killing those buggers, but wondering if such a thing is even possible. If such could happen, I could only imagine the risk associated with having a piece of foreign organic matter being embed in the body

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 42 points 10 months ago

This is a noted issue with Ticks. When removing them, unless you do it properly, you may end up with the mouthparts left embedded in your skin.. However, even with those, the body will usually deal with it without too many problems.

Mosquito proboscii are much smaller and so I would not anticipate any issues for anyone with a functioning immune system to deal with without ever noticing.

[-] Wahots@pawb.social 7 points 10 months ago

You do have to be careful with them, though. Manhandling them and ripping their heads off can cause them to vomit tainted blood back into your body, which can be filled with different diseases depending on the region and type of tick. Lone star ticks (which can cause that odd red meat allergy) and lyme-disease come to mind, but there are other bad things like rocky mountain spotted fever, too.

[-] 0WN3D@lemmy.cafe 1 points 10 months ago

Oh, ticks are rare in my region, that's why I have no prior experience with them.

I was thinking in the context of us slapping the mosquito would be equivalent to slamming a thumbtack into your skin which could increase the damage dealt and penetration depth.

this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023

61 points (96.9% liked)

Asklemmy

43880 readers

1447 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS