Tech Talk with Terence

So this weekend I went camping with a bunch of friends and besides beer, a crucial item you should always bring camping is some sort of insect repellent.

Back Story:

Now whenever I go visit my parents in Windsor, I find I get at least a few bites either going golfing or during dinner outside (bbq).  For whatever reason, mosquitoes in Windsor are mutants.  When I get bitten, my bite swells up like a small hive and I need to lather on the After-Bite just to get some relief.  So preventing mosquito bites is pretty important to me in general.  So upon research of methods to ward off mosquitoes without going overboard I came across the “Insect Defend Patch” on TV.  My co-worker also uses them so I figure this weekend was a perfect time to try them out.

Tech:

So the idea is pretty straight forward.  The patches basically contains 75mg of Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) and is absorbed through the skin and then released out of your pores over a long period of time.  This occurs naturally due to your bio mechanics and repels biting insects.

Does it work?:

My girlfriend, my buddy and I put one on as directed about an hour before we were going to be sitting by the campfire drinking.  It seemed to work for my friend (no bites) but I was getting bitten all over my feet (I was wearing flip flops).  My girlfriend said she was bitten a couple times.  The next day after going to the beach, my girlfriend and I put another patch on while leaving the old patch on.  The mosquitoes were everywhere that night and I had to resort to using the Muskol.  My girlfriend was also getting bitten as well.

From all the information available on the internet this also seems to be a hangover patch.  Another similar product in the states uses the same Vitamin B1 and markets it as a hangover patch.  I actually did notice that after two nights of drinking I did not develop any symptoms of a hangover the following day.  My girlfriend was fine after the first night but not the second.  So it probably depends on the amount of alcohol being consumed.

Theories and Conclusions:

For a hangover patch, personally it worked well.  For an insect defend patch… not so much.  The problem is that the effectiveness of the patch depends highly on how it’s used.  For instance on the packaging it says it lasts for 36 hours.  But since consuming alcohol reduces the amount of thiamine in your body, maybe it didn’t work as well for us, or it reduces the amount of time that it will last.  Another point is that while wearing the patch we were all just sitting by the fire, nobody was really being active (until the next day) and sweating increases the effectiveness of the patch.  Man I really wish that one night I wasn’t wearing flip flops and sweating profusely from my feet.  I probably wouldn’t have been bitten so much.

You do give off an ordour while wearing it and I can only assume this is what repels biting insects.  I did find I was able to watch mosquitoes bounce around my skin a couple more times before trying to drink my blood.  Another theory I have is that it’s probably effective in areas with few (20) mosquito encounters but not when you’re camping with hundreds of them.  I don’t think anything will stop a really hungry mosquito 100% but at least it’ll give you enough time to kill it when it lands on you.

Perhaps I will try and use these on days I know I will be sweating a lot.  But from now on I think I’ll be using a DEET spray for biting insects and the patch for hangovers.

You get 5 patches per box.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Popularity: 15% [?]