Josiah K. answered • 22d
Biology Tutor | Research | HS & College | Spanish Fluency
The key lies in the mechanisms behind what makes you itch, draw your attention to the injury or reaction, and not ignore it. This can backfire, which is often what happens when you get "an itch", but here is a real-world case for why it's important to get itchy vs not get itchy:
Ticks: A Case Study
If you have ever gotten a tick bite, chances are you have only found out after the fact by visually noticing that the tick has bitten you, or other times by the pain that it can cause from removing blood or accidentally disturbing nerves. But some people actually get itchy when a tick bites them, which may seem counterintuitive, but it is actually what is the key to a recent modern innovation in medical entomology.
There is something currently being field tested called a tick vaccine that utilizes this pathway to make even individuals who don't already get itchy (or maybe only a little bit) get very itchy when a tick bites them (like a mosquito). Now this might seem counterintuitive, but here is the deal, if a tick bites you and it itches like a mosquito, you are not going to miss it if it bites you (happens all the time for feild biologists) and for diseases that take several hours to take effect, this could mean the difference between contracting lyme or alphaGal and not contracting it.
This shows us that there is a reason for us to itch, but every time we itch doesn't mean the pathway is working properly.
