How to Treat Bee Stings
The most common bee stings are by honey bees; this is because our chances of coming into contact with them are highest. The sting organ of a honey bee consists of a stylus and two barbed slides. When a honey bee stings, the sting content passes through the stylus and is injected into the barbed slides. The bee sting may be acidic or alkaline in nature. However, it is the various active ingredients in the venom that lead to swelling, itching, rashes, and other symptoms associated with stings. While bee stings are not necessarily poisonous, some of the effects of a bee sting are immense pain, itching, redness, swelling in the stung area, dizziness, nausea, congestion in throat and chest, inflammation or burning sensation. These reactions may differ in people and are also dependent on whether or not the person is allergic to bee stings. These effects of a bee sting typically last for three to four days.
Bee Sting First Aid
As part of bee sting first aid treatment, one must remove the sting from the affected part of the body, which otherwise causes the toxins to spread in the body, thereby making your body more susceptible to worsening of the effects. This is the first step on how to treat bee stings at home. If you have a knowhow on how to treat bee stings naturally, you can heal the condition faster, with minimal side-effects. Some of the effective home remedies for bee stings are listed as under.
- One of the most effective bee sting remedies is to apply a mixture of honey and lemon on the stung part of the body to relieve itching, redness, and swelling caused by the bee sting. Lemon on the one hand sanitizes the stung area, while honey nullifies the effect of the toxins, thereby relieving the sting.
- Another effective remedy for treating bee sting is to apply calamine lotion on the affected area of the body.
- The application of aloe vera gel also helps relieve itching and redness, thereby ameliorating the bee sting effects.
- You can rub a piece of iron on the sting; however it is necessary that the iron should not be rusted. This will lead to direct contact between ferrous ions (iron) and the sting toxins, negating the effect of sting.
- One of the remedies to reduce bee sting swelling is to apply ice packs on the stung area, as frequently as seven times in a day. This will help alleviate itching as well as redness caused by the bee sting.
- One of the most effective home remedies for bee stings swelling is to apply a pack of sandalwood on the sting.
- One of the other bee sting remedies for swelling is to use onions. You can put a slice of onion on the sting and cover it with a bandage for a while. Onions help extract toxins from the sting, thereby serving as an effective bee sting swelling treatment.
- You can also sprinkle some common salt on the wound or sting and rub it for a while. In fact, this can be used as an effective bee sting first aid treatment.
- Another effective remedy that can help in treating bee stings is to rub copper coin on the stung part of the body.
- One of the most effective and highly recommended bee sting remedies is to use baking soda. You can make a paste of baking soda and vinegar and apply it on the sting. Baking soda will negate the effect of the venom if the latter is acidic, while if the venom is alkaline, it can be neutralized by vinegar.
Other than these remedies to treat a bee sting, there are certain measures to prevent the conditions from aggravating:
- Do not rub the area.
- Keep the stung area clean; cleanse with an antiseptic agent.
- Take the sting out with forceps so that venom does not spread in the body.
You must take the advice of a doctor in case the pain is hard to bear and does not get better in two to three days.
