I left the remedies on the sting areas for 25 minutes to 45 minutes (depending on suggested use), then (as gently as possible) cleaned the sting area. This allowed me to look back at the arc of relief each remedy provided (or failed to provide). I logged a symptom score every half-hour, except while I was sleeping, of course. I kept a running log of my symptoms-pain, swelling, and itching-quantifying the severity on a scale from 0 (asymptomatic) to 10 (severe). The symptoms finally died down after four and a half days, but the experience left me wondering: How exactly are you supposed to treat a bee sting? To find out, I went back for more. Or, if any were effective, I had no way of knowing which had worked. Ice! Tobacco! Benadryl! Butter! Ban Roll-On! I tried a handful but did so in such a haphazard way-sometimes applying two remedies at once-that I gave none of the remedies an opportunity to be effective. Surprised by the sudden pain, I slapped the bee off my arm, dug the stinger out, and went inside to ask for treatment advice. (Quinn’s decade and a half of beekeeping had desensitized him to the venom.) For most, a sting means aching and swelling accompanied by a maddening itch.Īll of which I had forgotten until this past Fourth of July, when I was stung on the back of my arm. When it comes to bee stings, most of us react somewhere between Smithers on The Simpsons-for whom one sting nearly meant death-and Jon Quinn, a beekeeper I visited recently, who was once stung more than 40 times and still had the wherewithal to count as he extracted the stingers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |