… So here’s the first aid for stings and other things to look out for
Yes, it’s getting to that time of year: blossom has started to fall from trees leaving them in full leaf, lambs are bleating in the fields, my mower has packed in – again, and there is a host of insects that want to either tear pieces out of us or leave painful things inside us. And that’s just in the UK! I go to Bulgaria regularly and there’s some stuff out there that really doesn’t like us.
The Elephant in the Room
Let’s get this right out the way now. Before we do anything else. What is first aid for a jellyfish sting? I know what a lot of you are thinking and I can categorically tell you, No it isn’t!! We do not pee on a jellyfish sting! It’s a shame that you can’t get emotions across in a piece of writing as well as you can when speaking but my tone right now would be one of frustration. This urban myth, and it is a myth, all came about because of an episode of Friends in 1997. Helpfully it was entitled, ‘The One With the Jellyfish.’ Monica gets stung by a jellyfish and Chandler wees on it to help with the pain.
Peeing on a jellyfish sting, however, is ineffective and can even make things worse. Urine can cause the jellyfish stingers to release more venom, increasing pain and potentially exacerbating the injury. Instead of peeing on a sting, it’s recommended to wash the area with saltwater, remove any remaining tentacles, and then apply a cool pack to help with the pain.
The problem is that this completely incorrect first aid was absorbed incredibly quickly into the public consciousness that it became the de facto treatment. I used to teach scuba diving in Thailand and have had divers come up to me after a dive, asking for help and ,’Do you really have to take a leak on my leg?’ No I absolutely didn’t have to – although I might have done if I’d seen them kicking coral or trying to touch the sea life!
We did use vinegar and that works but even that can make the sting worse depending on what type of jellyfish has done the stinging. It makes a sting from a Portugese Man O’ War worse but I couldn’t tell you what one of those looks like without Googling it. Okay, so I’ve just Googled it and we do NOT want to get stung by one of those b*ggers!
In 1998 I was backpacking around Australia, recovering slowly from 5 years with M.E. It had been a terrible time when I couldn’t do things that most people take for granted – I just didn’t have the energy – and I had really quite bad depression as a result. When I started to feel a bit better I decided to go travelling again but somewhere I didn’t need to learn a new language, which would have worn me out. So I ended up in Sydney, staying with a friend I’d worked with in Japan, and then moving on and travelling around.
My first stop was a backpackers’ hostel in Manly, the first of Sydney’s northern beaches. It was a cracking place and I made a friend there that I would end up backpacking around with for 6 months and we’re still mates all these years later. But I’ve always had a love of the water and swimming and Manly Beach was a great place to indulge myself. I had a lovely swim… right up until I felt a sharp pain all over my face and feeling around with my fingers I realised I had a jellyfish wrapped around my head.
There was a bit of panic because of the stings but more so because that episode of Friends had aired the year before and I now thought a lifeguard was going to have to wee on me. Naturally I selected a sympathetic looking female lifeguard and, no doubt looking something like John Hurt in the original Alien film, I walked up to her. In a flash she whipped the creature off my face using the tips of her fingers and handed me a plastic bag filled with ice for the pain. Well, that wasn’t what I’d been led to expect, luckily for me.
She explained that she wasn’t stung because the stings get in through our hair follicles, many of which I had on my face, but there were none on her fingertips. That made a lot of sense and I walked off nursing a sore face but with none of the horror Monica and Chandler had felt in Friends.
Should We Expect Jellyfish Stings In First Aid Courses In Milton Keynes?!
No but a wasp did get into my class and stung one of my students once. It was of course unpleasant for them but I’m always up for doing a bit if first aid so I was quite happy to get on with it. I didn’t know if the sting was stuck in there – it’s much easier to see a bee sting – but I drew my debit card along the skin to get rid of anything that might be there. Then I just got a cool pack out of the freezer, wrapped it in a couple of J cloths so the cold didn’t burn the skin and got the lady to apply it to the affected area. And that was it:
- Remove the sting
- Apply something cold
- Check for signs of anaphylaxis
Let’s have a think about how our parents might have gone about sorting a sting out though, and I’m sorry if this is triggering for any of you because it is for me!
A few years ago in summer I received the most painful wasp sting I can remember. It was even worse than Bulgarian wasps and they’re nasty. Dad had had a stroke in Mallorca and we’d finally got him home but there were immediate behavioural changes that mum and I noticed. He worried about things he didn’t need to worry about and didn’t give a damn about the things he really should have worried about, specifically crossing the road in front of fast-moving cars.
In the couple of weeks before he was cleared to fly home he walked in front of moving cars at pretty much every available opportunity. He insisted on exercising whenever he could, including in supermarket car parks when mum was inside shopping. And he just walked in front of the cars that were entering and exiting the car park.
‘Dad!’ I shouted, ‘watch out for the cars!!’
‘Don’t worry son,’ he said in a very British accent, ‘they’ll get out the way.’
Once we got home dad became worried about weeds obscuring the turn into the bigger lane where the family home is. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘can you go and strim the weeds on the corner so your mother can turn into the lane safely?’
‘Sure dad,’ I answered, ‘I’ll get onto it after I’ve mowed the grass.’
‘No son, now please.’
‘What, now, now?’
‘Yes.’
I couldn’t say no because then he’d fret so I interrupted one job to do another. I walked the 150 metres or so to the corner with the strimmer and set about cutting the weeds down. At one point though I turned around and there he was! He’d walked up the lane on both his crutches to make sure I was doing the job right. He started pointing out bits that needed cutting which was a bit annoying to say the least because it wasn’t my first rodeo.
The same thing happened again when it was greengage season. ‘Son,’ dad said, ‘can you pop up into the field and check to see if there are any greengages on the trees?’
He was referring to the two dead greengage trees that hadn’t produced fruit in years. I’d learnt not to argue by now so I said, ‘Fine, I’ll go when I finish my cup of tea.’
‘No, now son. Take your tea with you.’
Cue a sulky teenage sigh. So off I went and I did go into the field because I knew he would be watching me from the kitchen window. No, the trees were still dead so no fruit. I turned around and started walking back.
Now here’s a thing: did you know wasps can live in the ground? It seems quite reasonable when I think about it these days but I didn’t know then so I really wasn’t paying attention to where I walked. If I had I’d have noticed a small hole in the ground, no bigger than if I put my thumb and forefinger together. And I stepped right on it. The next thing I saw was what I can only describe as a curtain of wasps buzzing in a frightening and threatening way. Then I got stung in the right ankle and crikey it hurt! It felt like multiple stings but it was just the one.
I’d always been told to stand still if there was a wasp around because you can’t outrun them but that went out the window and I sprinted away as fast as my legs would carry me. I made it back to the kitchen in a bit of a temper if I’m honest because I needn’t have gone up the field in the first place.
‘Mum,’ I asked, ‘have you got any ice please or maybe a pack of frozen peas? I’ve been stung by a wasp.’
‘I’ll get the vinegar,’ she replied.
‘Er mum, can you get me some ice please?’ I contradicted, ‘I’m a first aid instructor and I…’
‘Here’s the vinegar son. Pop some of that on.’
Well I duly obliged but it really didn’t do much. I just sat there like the sulky teenager I’d been some three decades earlier and sucked it up. But I was surprised at how badly my ankle swelled up and here’s the photo to prove it:
As you can see I marked the edges of the swelling with a blue felt tip pen. The reason for this was to make sure the swelling didn’t track up my leg because this would be very nasty indeed. Until then it had been unheard of for me to swell up like this after a wasp sting and I can only think that while all wasps can sting, the ones whose job it is to guard the nest sting worse. I might be completely wrong here and possibly just feeling a bit sorry for myself!
I did go to see my doctor that afternoon because the swelling was so unusual and she just advised anti-histamines. I took a couple later on and then some more before bed but didn’t notice any change.
After a pretty good night’s sleep I woke up and put my right foot on the floor and then something weird happened. I felt a sloshing sensation. ‘What on earth..?’ I asked myself. I got up and started walking to the loo and (sorry but this is a bit grim) I could feel loads of fluid sloshing around every time I took a step on my right foot.
This was very new to me and I didn’t know where to start to look up this type of swelling so naturally I took a video showing me pressing a finger into my skin and leaving an indentation, or pit, that took minutes to return to normal. I then published it on Facebook and within a short time a mate came back to me with the comment, ‘Nice pitting oedema.’ Right, there was a name for it at least.
So now I’d learnt two things:
- Wasps can live in the ground
- You can get a pitting oedema after a sting
The next day was my wife’s birthday and her sister had arranged for us all to go down to London and climb over the O2 centre. Well that was an interesting experience: step, slosh, step, slosh. There was no pain at all and the pitting oedema went after a few days but it was a new experience for me. I have included it here so if it happens to you, you won’t get the surprise I did.
Mum called me that weekend. ‘I went out at dusk and sprayed wasp killer into that nest son, so you won’t have a problem in future.’ I felt a bit bad about this because wasps are pollinators. They’re not as good as bees but they still do the job. Anyway it was done now and mum had proved how much tougher she was than me – again.
Towards the end of summer dad asked me to mow around the area where the wasps’ nest had been. Mum had disposed of the critters so I didn’t have a problem. I sparked up the ride on mower that dad had finally sprung for after years of me walking behind a cylinder mower that became harder to handle every year and got to work. I mowed over the hole where the wasps’ nest was… and was confronted with another curtain of the bloody things!!
Have you ever seen someone try to escape a swarm of wasps on a ride on mower? It doesn’t go quick enough and this time I got a painful sting to my head above my right ear. I drove a short way from the nest, abandoned the mower and legged it into the house.
I scraped the side of my head with my bank card and when mum asked what I was doing I told her I’d been stung again.
‘I’ll get the vin-‘
‘No!’ I cut her off. I got a bag of frozen peas and the relief was almost immediate. There was no pitted oedema this time because the sting was above the heart.
So please do watch out for yourselves during sting season and if you see any small holes in the ground with wasps flying into them give them a wide berth.
If you’d like a course with me please drop me a line here
Here are some reviews from the truly wonderful students I taught at Victus Soul gym in London earlier this week:
So engaging! Would highly recommend. Couldn’t recommend Guy enough. Thank you!
10/10 highly recommended! Learnt a lot and had fun doing it 👍🏼
Best course ever – left feeling super confident and the day went so quickly. Left with a strong depth of knowledge and belief in myself to carry out first aid when necessary. Highly recommend