4 simple tricks for bug bites, bleeding and splinters

Don't let bug bites, bleeding or splinters ruin your day this summer. Try these natural remedies for quick relief, and get back to fun activities in no time!

• These days, a mosquito bite is more than an itchy nuisance—it could also mean the transmission of the nasty West Nile virus. Sure, you can spray chemicals on yourself. Or you can try this hunter's trick from Lou Schlachter, PhD, RN.
• A former dean at the University of North Carolina, she now teaches herbal and folk medicine at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She recommends taking 100 milligrams of vitamin B1 or brewer's yeast every day to prevent bites from mosquitoes, chiggers, deer flies and ticks. The benefits kick in after a week, she says, and continue as long as you keep taking the vitamin.

• There's no better way to ruin a day at the beach than with a jellyfish sting, or to destroy the Zen of a picnic with a bee sting. But since the venom in most stings is composed of either acid or alkaline substances, using the opposite immediately relieves the stinging sensation, says Dr. Schlachter.
• So carry a small spray bottle of white vinegar and a little container of baking soda with you when you head to the great outdoors. If you get stung, spray with the vinegar first. If the sting persists, slather on a paste of baking soda. If the stinger is still in your skin, gently rub it with a wet bar of soap—the stinger will come right out, she says.

• Black pepper, that is. A good dose of the fragrant stuff will do more than make you sneeze. Shaking a large amount onto a bleeding wound immediately stops heavy bleeding by constricting blood vessels, says Dr. Schlachter.
• It's so effective that Dr. Schlachter, who used to teach emergency survival to members of the Air Force, advised her students to keep a shaker in their backpacks to use instead of a tourniquet.

• So your grandkid was playing on your back deck barefoot and now he's got a six-millimetre (1/4-inch) splinter stuck deep in his foot. No need for tears.
• Just take a six-millimetre (1/4-inch) thick piece of onion, place it over the splinter site and wrap a bandage around it to keep it close to the skin. Leave overnight. In the morning, the splinter will have worked its way out of the skin with no pain, thanks to chemicals in the onion that shrink the skin.