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Wasp Stings

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I am v. old, but for the first time ever today I was stung by a wasp, on my shoulder! In some ways I am almost pleased to have finally gone through this rite of passage, though it is still stinging like a fucker a good half an hour or so later - is this normal? How long will it hurt?

It's a weird kind of pain isn't it, needling and aching but never exactly excrutiating..

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Monday, 25 September 2006 11:43 (twenty years ago)

Yes it is normal. You'll feel it for a couple of days.

Last time it happened to me was a couple of years ago. Came back home, took off shoes in the hall and wiped away presumed piece of dirt on the sole, turned out to be dying wasp OUCH!!!!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 25 September 2006 11:47 (twenty years ago)

couple of days! don't you mean hours?

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Monday, 25 September 2006 11:59 (twenty years ago)

yeah i've never felt it for that long.

― EARLY-90S MAN (Enrique), Monday, 25 September 2006 11:59 (twenty years ago)

eek, I have also never been stung. still hoping I won't be. . .

― Sam: Screwed and Chopped (Molly Jones), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:00 (twenty years ago)

It turns into more of a dull ache than anything else but I've still noticed it two days later.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:05 (twenty years ago)

Maybe too late now but wasp stings are alkali so rubbing some acid on - lemon juice or vinegar - can help. Opposite for bee stings which are acid, I also hear applying local honey can work. Or is that hay fever.

― ledge (ledge), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:08 (twenty years ago)

Actually the web says I am talking nonsense
http://www.science.ca/askascientist/viewquestion.php?qID=2230
http://www.insectstings.co.uk/sting-acid-or-alkali.htm

― ledge (ledge), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:11 (twenty years ago)

I always keep some pH paper in the house for such eventualities.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:12 (twenty years ago)

Have been stung loads, mainly my fault for throwing stones at nests.
Worst one though, wasp in can of coke and I drank it, stung me in the mouth.

Only advice if stung, put something cold on the area where stung, slows the progression of the venom and soon dies off.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:18 (twenty years ago)

Thank you for yr help and advice - I tried the vinegar tip but it does indeed appear to be rub, sadly. An ice cube applied to the spot has def. helped, tho'

I kept thinking abt Kenneth Halliwell, whose mother died from a bee (or wasp) sting

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:24 (twenty years ago)

That explains it then.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:42 (twenty years ago)

I was stung by a wasp for the first time ever this summer - one had dozily settled on a washing-up sponge in the kitchen sink, and I had dozily picked the sponge up and squeezed the water out of it. The bastard stung me on the palm of my right hand - I thought I had been stabbed, and the pain really made me holler. I pulled the remnants of the sting out of my hand with a pair of tweezers, but it took several days to stop hurting.

My sympathies to you, this is not fun.

― C J (C J), Monday, 25 September 2006 12:45 (twenty years ago)

what is really awful is when you see them stinging you and they keep pumping away!
my sister was stung on the bum by one on a school camping trip once.

― spectra (spectra), Monday, 25 September 2006 15:20 (twenty years ago)

the good part is now you know you're not allergic

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 25 September 2006 15:20 (twenty years ago)

Madchen and I were out in a little tea room in Kinlochard this afternoon that was over-run with wasps. Millions of the little bastards. I got stung on the knee on my very first day of school, and I've been terrified of them ever since, even though I know it doesn't hurt that much and it goes away pretty quickly.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:40 (twenty years ago)

If you smoke or know someone who does, disassemble a cigarette and make a tobacco poultice; it's supposed to draw the poison out quicker.

― The Bearnaise-Stain Bears (Rock Hardy), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:43 (twenty years ago)

RACIST THREAD

― PappaWheelie says, ''only pick any'' (PappaWheelie 2), Monday, 25 September 2006 17:49 (twenty years ago)

i have never been stung by a wasp or any sort of bee, but i'm madly afraid of them. i won't go to the mailbox outside my apartment in the daytime because i need to walk by a few hundred thousand bees to get to it. i park far away from my house to avoid these confrontations too. i am sometimes tempted to go to the hospital and frolic gaily in the flowers until i'm stung, just to see if i'm allergic. i have a pretty high threshold for pain, so i'm not exactly sure what i'm afraid of.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Monday, 25 September 2006 18:34 (twenty years ago)

I got up to go to the toilet one night, and suddenly felt an intense pain in the fleshy part of my foot, like I'd stepped on a hot coal. After I turned the lights on I realised the culprit was a dead wasp. Whether I killed it by stepping on it, or it was already dead and I somehow triggered its sting, I don't know. Whatever, it woke me up good and proper.

― chap who would dare to contain two ingredients. Tea and bags. (chap), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:13 (twenty years ago)

Wasps can bite and sting, though the sting is worse in my experience.

― M. White (Miguelito), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:27 (twenty years ago)

twelve years pass...

shit, bite AND sting?!

place i'm living has an area between me and neighbor's back doors with a curtain-screen in front of entrance to keep these barstids out (so it has been a issue in the past). i've only been here a year and just in the last month or so they keep getting into this aforementioned area bc neighbor usu doesn't close the screen-curtain. i have a fear of them getting into my apt. and making me weep openly on account of a irrational fear. anyone have any suggestions? they don't seem to have any intention of just going away, and there are no fruit trees around us and i don't know why they want to get into this spot so badly, except that it is shady and cooler than in the sun. there is a front entrance i can use, but that's way less convenient to have to go that way all of the time. eeek!

― one charm and one antiup quark (outdoor_miner), Wednesday, 21 August 2019 18:14 (seven years ago)


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