First aid for wasp stings

When a wasp sting, first aid to a person should be provided necessarily - even despite the fact that the incident may seem to the injured rather ordinary and insignificant case. For such "brave men" one can single out several reasons proving the necessity, if not of full-fledged first aid, then at least minimal bite treatment.

• The poison of the wasp always causes a sharp pain, gradually spreading through the tissues around the bite site. Why endure unpleasant feelings for a long time if there are simple and effective methods of pain relief in such situations?
• Edema, almost always appearing after a bite, can sometimes grow very quickly in size. And if nothing is done, then the injured hand or, for example, the leg may well become almost one and a half times thicker relative to its original state. The pain of such a severe swelling will also be appropriate.And now let's imagine that a wasp bit into a throat or neck ... Is it really worth it to let everything take its course and wait for the edema to block the airway or not?
• Wasp venom, especially with multiple insect bites, in some cases can cause general body intoxication, accompanied by headaches, nausea, digestive disorders, general agitation, fever and shortness of breath. Such states are also very dangerous.
• In some cases, after an wasp sting, an allergic reaction begins to develop, which sometimes proceeds in the hardest form, and with a high sensitivity, the bitten one can even lead to anaphylactic shock and subsequent death.

Perhaps the above reasons are quite enough to clearly understand: if a human was bitten by a wasp, then it is highly desirable to give him at least minimal first aid, and then carefully monitor the general state of health, especially during the first hour.

On a note

The so-called road wasps have one of the most painful bites among insects in general (only the tropical ant bullet bites them more painfully).And the largest members of the family of os - huge Japanese hornets - according to statistics, several dozen people are killed in Japan with their bites each year. The cause of the death of the victims of these insects is, firstly, allergy and anaphylactic shock, and secondly, intoxication of the body in the event of a large number of hornets being attacked.

So, the first aid provided in time for a wasp sting allows to avoid many problems: reduce pain at the site of the bite, contribute to a more rapid disappearance of edema (or prevent it from developing at all), as well as reduce allergic reactions. That is why the victim is desirable to assist in the first minutes after the bite of a wasp.

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“I was often bitten by wasps as a child, and then, as I left for the city, probably, up to 25 years, not one woman was ever stung. There was no reason. I recently stung one when we went out on a picnic with the whole family. I did not even think that everything would be so bad. Stung in the cheek, I do not understand what she was doing there. His cheek was smashed, both eyes were so swollen that they were completely closed, the pain of hell, was pounding in his head. And I managed to slap the wasp - the usual, not the hornet.They began to put bottles of water, the wife anointed with some ointment, but no sense. The nose stopped breathing at all, but the swelling did not get to the throat. So I sat, I see nothing, I breathe with my mouth, my head is cracking. My wife called the father-in-law, he came with his brother, took us in cars, they took me to the emergency room. The doctor injected something with allergies and said to drink antihistamine pills. In general, it turned out an unplanned hospital - only after three days my eyes opened. ”

Oleg, Kazan

 

Actions in the first minutes after the bite

Perhaps the first thing to do right after the bite is to make sure that it was the wasp that stung it, not the bee: some of the key points of first aid after the attack of these insects are significantly different. For example, if a wasp bitten, you should not waste precious time looking for a sting - unlike a bee, this insect never leaves it in the skin.

The task of the initial stage of first aid for a wasp sting is to minimize the amount of insect venom injected under the skin at the site of the bite. This can be done in several ways.

To begin with, it is necessary to try to suck the maximum poison out of the bite site: you can spend 1 minute on the force of this, because the skin around the puncture site is usually very quickly tightened,and further attempts will be ineffective. You should not be afraid of the poison of a wasp in your mouth - here it will not cause any harm, it is only important not to swallow it, but to spit.

There is another more or less effective way to partially neutralize the insect toxin. The poison of the wasp has an alkaline reaction, therefore the acids neutralize it. In order to reduce the amount of the active form of poison in the wound, it is necessary to attach a cotton wool moistened with table 9% vinegar, a slice of lemon, a piece of apple or orange to it for a minute.

In some cases, the most courageous victims burn down a place of a wasp sting with an extinct match, cigarette or hot coal. Typically, exposure to high temperatures is considered a first aid method for snakebites and some poisonous spiders - that is, when there is a real threat to life. When burning, the toxins of the poison, which is close to the surface of the skin, disintegrate and simply do not have time to cause any harm.

Such first aid, of course, will have a certain effect in the case of a wasp sting, however, you need to clearly understand that this method is, firstly, very painful (sometimes even more sensitive than the bite itself), and, secondly, the trail of the burn can be for lifeProbably the only case when it makes sense to turn to such help is when the victim is obviously prone to severe insect allergy, and he knows about it himself, but does not have a special injector with adrenaline.

In addition to all the above actions, at the initial stage of first aid, a kind of wet sugar compress can be put on the wound, which will also delay the poison from the wound.

Important!

When providing first aid in any case should not try to squeeze the poison out of the wound. Such pressure on the site of the bite will cause it to increase blood circulation and, as a consequence, a more rapid spread of the poison through the body.

Further first aid actions for a wasp sting should be aimed at preventing the rapid release of poison into the bloodstream, reducing the likelihood of the development of severe allergies and alleviating the symptoms of intoxication of the body. For example, to reduce the rate of spread of poison and reduce swelling at the site of the bite, it is necessary to keep a cold compress as long as possible - it can be a piece of ice, frozen meat or a bottle of cold water.Just the same under a cold compress and there may be the above-mentioned piece of wet sugar, a hypertonic solution of which will additionally draw out poison from the wound.

 

What to do right away, so as not to start allergies

Usually, a person cannot be absolutely sure in advance that he will not begin an allergic reaction to a wasp sting. Sensitivity to poison does not depend on the general level of health and the physical condition of the body, and with the same probability it can manifest itself in men, women, and children. Therefore, in the case of a wasp sting, first aid should necessarily include a number of actions aimed at preventing allergies - even among those victims who have never before experienced a similar reaction from their bodies.

The easiest way after a cold compress has already been applied to the bite site is to drink a tablet of Suprastin, Dimedrol or Tavegil. Sometimes these drugs do not give an allergic reaction to start at all.

However, in this case, it is advisable to first consult with your doctor, at least by phone, and you also need to strictly follow the dosage of the drug being taken (it must be prescribed in the instructions for use).The use of more serious means (for example, Prednisolone) is possible only with unambiguous and clearly life-threatening symptoms of an allergic reaction.

Particular caution is to be taken when treating allergies in children - they, as a rule, prohibit the standard “adult” medications for such cases. The fact is that these preparations can be even more dangerous for the child’s body than the bite itself or uncomplicated allergy after it. About what to do if a child was bitten by a wasp, you can read in a separate article on our website (subsection "Wasps").

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“I have an allergic passport, there is always Suprastin and an adrenaline autoinjector in my purse with me. Recently, at the dacha of my son (14 years old) I was bitten by a wasp, I immediately gave him a tablet of Suprastin, so that nothing would exactly happen. He refused to drink, said, they say, nonsense, some kind of wasp sting. After two hours, I was already barely alive, with temperature and swelling on the floor of the body. I gave him this adrenaline, called an ambulance, they pumped it out. They said that without adrenaline, maybe they would not have time. So the son now has an allergic passport. ”

Irina Vyacheslavovna, Samara

 

Get rid of itching

After the poison has been neutralized to the maximum,and to prevent allergies, an antihistamine was taken; subsequent help with the bite of the wasp should be directed at reducing the discomfort in the affected area.

As a rule, for the victim, the most significant and noticeable symptoms are itching and swelling. To eliminate them, there are special ointments and balms, which are also referred to as first aid. Here, for example, some of them:

• gel fenistil;
• Soventol;
• Gardex Family;
• Moskitol;
• Picnic Family.

One of these or similar means should definitely be carried with you in the first-aid kit when going to the country or to the nature. If you plan to leave with your child, you need to take care in advance of purchasing a “baby” drug (a line of such products is available, for example, from Gardex or Mosquitall).

If the wasp sting still caught you off guard, you can use time-tested folk remedies. Of course, compared with specialized drugs, they will be less effective, but in the absence of more, and they will provide invaluable assistance. So, for the treatment of edema suitable, for example, gruel from garlic or grated parsley root, or alcoholic tincture of Hypericum.

Be that as it may, it should be understood that completely eliminating edema after a wasp sting often does not work out even with the use of powerful and not always safe medications.In any case: the earlier and more correctly the ambulance will be provided for the bite of a wasp, the less edema will be and the faster it will pass.

 

How does an allergy manifest itself and what to do if it started

An allergy almost never occurs at the first bite of a wasp: for the development of such a reaction, the body must “taste” the poison of this insect at least once in its life. Simply put, before the immediate development of allergy a person should ever, for example, in childhood, be bitten by wasps.

As a rule, the first “encounter” with an insect leads only to a slight edema, and occasionally to mild intoxication. This is often misguided: he thinks that if nothing terrible happened the first time, then in subsequent cases everything will be similar.

However, this is not at all the case: allergies can develop both after the second and after the fifth bite. Therefore, if the first symptoms of an allergy begin to show up in a victim of a wasp sting, you should not hesitate and wait, you should immediately give him emergency help.

Allergy signs are:

• extensive edema, reaching far beyond the site of the bite, and sometimes - spreading throughout the body;
• urticaria (usually in places of edema);
• headache;
• nausea;
• dyspnea;
• cardiopalmus;
• heartache;
• fever;
• confusion

With a normal body reaction to a wasp sting, these signs do not appear.

Therefore, if the victim has at least one of these symptoms, you should immediately call the Ambulance and, having described the situation, follow the instructions of the doctor for first aid.

In the case when even a phone call is impossible, you need to act independently, not forgetting that a person’s life can be at stake. First aid in the development of severe allergic reactions should be approximately according to this scheme:

1. You must give the victim an extra antihistamine tablet. This may be as already mentioned above Dimedrol and Suprastin, and more powerful drugs - for example, Desloratadine, Promethazine, Fexofenadine and some others.
2. If there is an autoinjector with adrenaline on hand, then it should be used immediately.
3. Provide plenty of drink.

Then you need to try to take the victim to the hospital.

One of the most dangerous consequences of allergies is difficulty breathing. If, due to edema, the victim cannot inhale or exhale, you should try to gently insert a thin tube into his throat that will ensure airway patency.

When this is already impossible, the only way to ensure breathing is to perform a conicotomy. For this, the victim's throat is dissected in the area between the thyroid and cricoid cartilage, and a hollow tube is inserted into the opening that allows breathing.

It is important to understand that correctly rendered urgent assistance in case of a wasp sting in most cases guarantees that the occurrence of such complications will not be dealt with, or the hospital staff will have to fight them. Difficult situations arise most often because of disorder and neglect of the bite as a whole.

 

Actions that can not be done

First aid for a wasp sting should be strictly "regulated" - there should be no unnecessary maneuvers. Incorrect actions after a bite not only waste precious time, but can also cause additional damage to the victim.

So, for example, when a wasp sting is strictly prohibited:

• squeezing the poison out of the wound, because it itself will not leak out, and due to the massage of the tissues it will only spread faster through the blood (attention has already been focused on this);
• apply earth as a cold compress - this can lead to blood contamination;
• drinking alcohol after a bite is, like massage, increases blood circulation and promotes the spread of poison throughout the body;
• drink the drug Diprazin - it alone can cause allergies.

And most importantly - you can not ignore the bite itself and hope that nothing terrible will happen. Fortunately, for the most part, the effects of the wasp’s bite are really limited to only a small swelling, but almost all cases of resuscitation were quite unexpected for the victims, and sometimes they happened only because people hoped for Russian “maybe”.

First aid should be provided to the bitten in any case, and in the future - to closely monitor its condition, to provide rest, and, if necessary, to take measures to be taken to hospital.

Remember: the life of a person may depend on others in this situation.

 

Useful information about wasps and hornets bites, as well as about insect allergies

 

What to do with anaphylactic shock and other severe reactions to the wasp sting