Believe it or not, there's an advantage to suffering chronic allergies. I used to take zyrtec daily, and discovered that while the rest of my family was being eaten alive with mosquitoes, I would be completely itch free. For awhile I thought the bugs weren't biting me, but then I caught one in the act and realized that the anti-histamine was just killing the bite immediately before I'd ever felt it. I've since switched to OTC generic Claritin (for cost reasons) and find that it is almost as effective as the zyrtec in this regard.

As a result, I almost never use insect repellent unless there's a swarm. Of course, I assume that leaves me vulnerable to West Nile virus, but so far so good. I guess I've been lucky.