Author: Dr. Lena Foster

Three bites get blamed on each other all the time, but they leave different evidence. A mosquito bite is a soft, round, raised welt that itches almost immediately... Read more.

Those tight clusters of red, maddening welts around your ankles, waistband, and sock line did not come from a bug that crawled under your skin. The most stubborn... Read more.

You never see the bug that got you, but you feel it for days. No-see-ums are tiny biting midges, and even though the insect is nearly invisible, the bite often swells... Read more.

The most important thing to know about a chigger bite is what is not happening: the chigger is not burrowed in your skin, and it is not still feeding. It attaches... Read more.

A severe insect-sting allergy can turn from a sting into a life-threatening reaction within minutes, and the single most important thing to know is that the first... Read more.

A bee sting hurts more than it harms for most people, and the first aid is simple. Get the stinger out fast by scraping it sideways rather than pinching it, wash... Read more.

Scorpions look far more dangerous than they usually are. The vast majority of scorpions in the United States are not a serious threat: their sting feels like a bad... Read more.

A scorpion sting sounds frightening, but for the great majority of stings in the United States the treatment is simple: wash it, ice it, and manage the pain like... Read more.

Mice and rats spread illness mainly through their droppings, urine, and nesting material, and the most serious of those illnesses is hantavirus. Here is the one... Read more.

That cluster of tiny, fiercely itchy red bumps around your ankles is usually a flea bite, and most of the time it settles on its own with nothing more than itch... Read more.