Stupid bug bites; I'm having a localised allergic reaction to them. The skin for a cm or two around them is red and hard, and there's an area of more modestly inflamed skin about the size of the palm of my hands around each of them. I also felt a little sting near my jawline when I was in the garden about an hour ago, and I'm hoping that my face won't be the next thing to swell up.
Do you have any cortisone cream or anything else you can use to reduce the swellings?
I've been applying hydrocortisone cream, but I don't know if it's doing much good.
Do you have any antihistamine like Benadryl?
I have some cetirizine, and I'll give it a go.
May depend on the bug that bit you. Do you have this reaction with all bites?
If you have been bitten by a kind of horsefly, it may be a small infection that bothers you. They almost always bring dirt in the wound. Disinfecting will be of more help than anti-histamines in that case.
My oldest had reactions on one kind of striped mosquito, couple of years ago. The GP advised dabbing the places with an povidone-iodine tincture. Worked well for her then.