I’m one of the unfortunate souls who seems to taste delicious to mosquitoes. So was my father, who taught me as a child that the best way to stop the itch was to press an “x” into the middle of the bite with my fingernail. It hurt a little bit, but that was the point: The pain made me forget about the itch, at least temporarily.

Search online, and you’ll find a laundry list of tips to stop the itch, like pressing a hot spoon onto a bite, or using The Bug Bite Thing, a suction tool meant to draw mosquito saliva out of your skin. People swear by ice, aloe, bandages and simple willpower to resist the urge to scratch.

But what actually works? Experts say a number of hacks can provide relief. Some involve medicine, others a little mental trickery.

Why are bites so itchy?

Female mosquitoes need blood to lay eggs. When they land on your skin, they inject saliva that contains proteins using “little serrated blades in the proboscis”— their needlelike mouths — “that drill down into your skin,” said Dr. Allison Gardner, an associate professor at the University of Maine who studies infectious diseases from ticks and mosquitoes. Those proteins not only numb the skin but dilate blood vessels to make feeding more efficient.

In response, your body releases histamine as an immune response. That histamine is the reason for itching and swelling, a signal to your brain to investigate.

Can’t i just scratch it?

You can. It’s almost impossible not to. “When we scratch, we distract the brain from the itch with another sensation, a mild pain,” said Dr. Lyda Cuervo Pardo, an immunologist and associate professor at the University of Florida. “Our brains release serotonin, and we feel better.”

This is the same reason the fingernail tactic, a hot spoon or a cooling spray provides relief. “Itch, pain, tickling sensations and temperature all travel on the same neural highway, so to speak,” said Dr. Heather Goff, an associate professor of dermatology at UT Southwestern in Dallas. “When you flood that highway with other traffic, you override the itch.”

Dr. Cuervo Pardo said you can get stuck in an “itch-scratch cycle.” The pain from scratching overrides the itch and tells your brain to release serotonin, a natural pain reliever. But serotonin can also amplify the itch signals, making you scratch more. When your skin is damaged from all the scratching, your body again responds with more histamine, leaving you in a miserable loop, said Dr. Cosby Stone, an allergist.

What’s a better option?

Try an ice pack, cooling spray or even a menthol ointment like Vicks VapoRub for a lingering tingly effect. A cooling agent layered with hydrocortisone will best soothe the itch in the short and long term. As for what cooling product to use, “anything that feels good” will work, Stone said. “You trick your brain into not noticing the itch, and cooling agents also cause the blood vessels to constrict, which helps with swelling.”

A cold washcloth could also provide some gentle friction, Stone said, and a Band-Aid can help ingredients penetrate the skin and keep your fingernails away, an especially helpful trick for children.

Antihistamine pills like Zyrtec, Claritin or Allegra are more effective than topical creams, as they calm the body’s overall immune response. You can even take an oral antihistamine in preparation for a camping trip or every day of the rest of summer.

What about other fixes?

If you prefer hot to cold, Goff said a warm washcloth can override the itch sensation in the same way a cooling product can. But she does not recommend a hot spoon, which may burn you.

She’s more skeptical about suction tools. “The amount of saliva a mosquito injects and the hole it makes are both microscopic. I can’t imagine there’s even a physical hole to suck something out of,” she said. That said, the sucking sensation serves as a mildly uncomfortable distraction in the same way a fingernail does.