Bee Sting
How often do you even see bees in Kuwait? I hardly ever see a bee, but as I was exercising in the pool, last week, I felt a sudden sting on my left hand, and the bee – or was it a wasp? – was still there.
I brushed him off violently and left him to drown as I exited the pool. I have had bee stings before so why I worry about anaphalactic shock, I don’t know, but I do. If it was going to strike, I didn’t want it to hit me in the swimmimg pool, so I quickly came home and put a paste of baking soda and water over the sting, and then later a good coating of Benedryl cream, an antihistamine. By the end of the day, you couldn’t even see where I had been stung. I thought everything was OK.
But a few days later, am itchy bump formed. Back to the Benedryl, and yeh, I scratched it a little. Today, over a week later, it is still red and a little swollen and I find myself scratching at it absently. It itches.
Adventure Man tells me it is healing and it will go away. I try not to be a hypochondriac – I hardly ever get sick and I rarely have to see a doctor – but why would a bee sting come back to haunt me over a week later?
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If it itches, it needs to be scratched 😀
Also, it means it’s healing – Adventure Man is right ’bout that bit!
I got stung by a bee on my lip in Karachi last month. Freaked me out. Put a lot of ice on it and kept rubbing it. It got a little swollen but not too bad and got sorted out in a day.
If it were me, I’d freak out anyway! lol healing or not, i have to get a doc’s approval that i’m not going to have baby bees (or wasps) growing under my skin cos a bee (or wasp) in heat decided to hump my hand :p
I know that that didn’t make any sense but it just sounded funny and i decided to write it lol
Sabah – I’m glad your bee sting sorted itself out so quickly. I thought mine had, but it got itchy and swollen again a week later. Maybe it’s a new bite . . .I don’t know!
Swair – Now you know my secret. I am a secret hyper hypochondriac! I was looking up flesh eating bacteria to be sure I wasn’t going to lose my hand. It made perfect sense to me!
salamtik!
Half our family is deeply allergic to bee stings, so maybe the family genes began kicking in ex post factor-ily in your case 😛
Seriously, if it doesn’t go away within a day or two, go to the pharmacy. The pharmacists will probably be able to give you something – topical cortisone? – to take down the swelling. To me it sounds like the bite was healing initially but has since become infected. ugh.
Since you had to brush it off, then its most likely a bee not a wasp,,, because bees stingers are hooked and they usually die after a sting because their organs are yanked out with the stinger…
as for fearing anaphylactic shock , it usually happens around a couple of hours after the sting ,, swelling hives sweating tachycardia and difficulty in breathing ..
in your case its just your body trying to clear out the toxin stuck under your skin which is why its very ithchy …
You know, Little Diamond, I learned that when we went to the Jardins de Soleil, and you are right, that may have influenced my attitude. I’ve never worried before, but knowing some of us have this reaction . . . I guess I didn’t get that gene, but I did get the huge-swelling-fron-insect-bites reaction and your Mom tells me if I will take B-12 every day, that won’t happen. I have it, I just forget to take it.
And have you asked Sparkle about the asparagus gene thing?
Thank you, Abdulaziz, I thought it was a bee, only thinking about it later, it seemed longer and narrower than a bee, but it was probably just a Kuwaiti bee, not the little ol’ honeybee I think of. And it is better today, still itchy. I may not have gotten all the stinger out the first day, and two days ago I think I did, but that may have caused the re-reaction.