RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

Research Examines Why Insects Give Us an Itchy Feeling

Why is it that seeing, discussing, or even just thinking about creepy crawlers makes us feel itchy all over? It turns out the experts aren’t sure, according to a story on MSNBC.com titled "Spiders! Ants! Did that make you itchy? Here's why”

University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Dr. Wenqin Luo places the blame for phantom itch on memories of an itchy past. Thinking about bugs, she explains, might prompt memories of previous experiences – “itchy associations.”

Why, then, doesn’t thinking about injuries prompt our bodies to feel phantom pains?

Dr. Luo offers the following theory: “Compared with itch, pain is a serious protective mechanism that triggers avoidance behavior. Thus, the threshold to trigger a pain sensation may be much higher than that of itch.”

Basically: If our brains registered pain (a danger) as easily as they do itch (an annoyance), our bodies would be sent into constant states of false alarm.

Dr. Glenn J. Giesler, Jr., a neuroscientist from the University of Minnesota offers a slightly different guess as to the phantom itch culprit: Maybe our skin always experiences the tiny sensations capable of causing light itch – but we only notice them when we’ve already got itch (or its creepy crawly causes) on the brain.

“It is amazing to me how easy it is to induce itch in others,” says Giesler. “Whenever I give a talk on the topic, I am amused at the percentage of people in the audience who start scratching.”

“Perhaps,” he guesses, “the threshold for sensation of itch is lowered by thinking about it.”

Dr. Gil Yosipovitch is a professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina. He’s also the founder of the International Forum for the Study of Itch.

Source: MSNBC.com

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

We never stop training our team and this shows when you speak to us on the phone or meet one of our service specialists in the field. Here you see some of our team going through hand-held computer training. By 2012 all EHS service specialists will be 100% using this cutting edge technology.

They will also be equipped with blue tooth wireless printers so they can print your service report from their phone while right in front of you. This advancement will reduce our paper consumption by 40% !!! This is EHS’s commitment to being a steward of the environment and it’s just another way for EHS to better serve you, our valued customer.

Susan Paradice
Office Manager

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

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“Education is not received. It is achieved.”
“Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money in that order; it is a process, a never ending one.”

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts tells us that we must train our licensed applicators 12hrs over three years which equates to 4hrs per year. On average we perform over 20hrs of training for our team every year! This is not just our field specialists on pests but also our office team on customer service. The attached image is just a picture of a vendor doing some in-house staff training on pests in our classroom.

It does not matter how many years experience you have, we know that you can always learn something new. We take great pride in our education & training standards and it shows with our award winning service & expertise.