Growing up in Florida I have had more than my fair share of bug bites over the years. In fact, I used to have so many bug bites as a child that I was almost cured from chicken pox before my parents even knew I had it! Over the years, I’ve also been covered in every type of itch relief cream and ointment imaginable to try to make the itch and pain from the mosquito bites, flea bites and ant bites go away. Most of them worked temporarily to relieve the itch from the bug bites, but none of them made the bug bite itch go away permanently. So, when I heard about the Therapik I was quite a bit skeptical. When I found out that the Therapik was clinically approved and cleared by the FDA in the United States and the TPP in Canada to claim that the product relieved pain and itch from bug bites, my skepticism waned a bit. Even still, I had to try it myself before I would believe it.

Who sent me a prop from a sci-fi B movie?

I was quite amused when I opened the package in the mail. Instead of a high-tech medical device, I found what looked like a phaser with a red tip. My first instinct was to run around the house and pretend to shoot Klingons. I held back my nerdy inner child, only to have my real life child, Zoë, do the exact same thing when she found it. “Ooh! Daddy got a phaser! Pew! Pew! Pew!” she yelled as she ran through the house with it. It took about 15 minutes to get her to turn over her new toy, and to explain that it wasn’t a toy, it was actually a product that Daddy was reviewing. When I explained to her what it was supposed to do, her eyes lit up. “Yay! Daddy has a phaser that will make the mosquito bites stop itching!” she exclaimed.

The Therapik is molded silver plastic with a large blue button on the side. At the bottom of the Therapik there is a small loop that I suppose could be used for a lanyard. That might be helpful if you took it camping with you. The Therapik is boxy in shape, but fits fairly comfortably in the hand. There’s not much inside the Therapik; there’s just a compartment for a 9-volt battery, a little bit of wire, and inside the red applicator tip of the Therapik, behind a metal mesh is a 5 volt light bulb. That is what makes the magic happen. When you press the blue button, the light bulb turns on, and because it’s being powered by a 9-volt battery, it gets hot pretty fast. As you can see in the image below though, it is recessed inside the red tip, so that it doesn’t touch the skin. To use the Therapik you simply press the applicator tip, (a.k.a. the red barrel of the phaser) gently against the center of the bug bite,and hold down the blue button for 20-30 seconds.

It really makes bug bites stop itching!

I tried it on myself, my wife and my daughter, and all of us noticed a huge difference in the itchiness of flea bites, mosquito bites, and ant bites. (Yes, I let ants bite me just so I could try it out. No, I did not let them bite my daughter or my wife, not that they would have let me try if I wanted to.) If you treat the bug bites immediately after they bite you it works perfectly. The moment you release the button of the Therapik after the 30 seconds are up, you notice that the itching has stopped. If it has been a few hours since you were bitten, it might not get rid of the itch completely, but it will help. According to the company, the Therapik works by delivering heat to a localized area of the skin. The reason it works to relieve the itching or pain from bug bites is because the venom that many insects inject into us is thermolabile, meaning that it is destroyed when heat is applied to it. Interestingly, fleas and mosquitos do not inject thermobile venom, but it works on those bug bites too. The assumption is that the heat causes a focused increase in blood flow at the bug bite which flushes out the mosquito and flea saliva that causes the itching. Regardless of how it does it, surprisingly, it works.

Does it hurt?

You bet! It doesn’t hurt at all for the first 10 to 15 seconds. You don’t even really start to notice it until between 15 and 20 seconds, but the last 10 seconds are Hell on Earth. You can’t remember why you thought you should try this thing. You’ll really want to take it off. Don’t be a weenie! If my seven year old daughter can handle it, you can too. It’s worth it in the end. After all, what’s worse, ten to fifteen seconds of intense pain or a week or two of itching? Keep in mind, you could possibly burn your skin if you held it on there for more than the maximum 30 seconds that are recommended in the instructions. However, the only way you are going to keep it on longer than 30 seconds is if you are some kind of sadist.

Should you buy it?

I am extremely sensitive to mosquito and flea bites. Before I started using the Therapik, one bite would itch for a week to two weeks, and the itch would radiate inches beyond the welts they would leave. Since I have been using the Therapik I haven’t suffered from constantly itchy legs for the first time in my life. Even when I get the occasional bug bite, the itch is gone in seconds. Brace yourself world! I might start wearing shorts again!

If you suffer from the itch and pain of bug bites from mosquitos, fleas and ants, or in other words, if you are a human, you should definitely buy the Therapik. For less than $15 bucks it provides real lasting itch relief, and it doesn’t use any chemicals. Plus, it’s a whole lot of fun to run around the house with while you yell “Pew! Pew! Pew!”

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