November Blog

                             

For this month's volunteer activities, I helped direct guests in parking at the Sunset Stroll at the Sankofa Wetland Park and Nature trail on November 16th and watched over the fire area at the Celebration in The Oaks at City Park November 29th, for a total of 6 hours. The Sunset Stroll celebrated the opening of the Sankofa park and trail which was a beautiful and lively event, but also located on the swamp and there was swarms of mosquitos all night. After volunteering I was covered in bites all over my body. In class we learned that the saliva that mosquitos inject into hosts contains histamine, which is involved in immune response and causes inflammation and itching, and contribute to allergic reactions. As we learned in class, antihistamines and topical steroids can help provide relief from these symptoms. More recently, over the past month we also learned that histamine is primarily metabolized in the liver and the end products are eliminated through the kidneys. Kidney dysfunction could potentially impact the clearance of histamine metabolites and exacerbate the symptoms of excess histamine (from outside sources like mosquito bites). Dehydration chronically could lead to kidney dysfunction, so in the future I will plan on regularly drinking more water especially when volunteering at events where I anticipate heavy mosquito presence.