bee stings

[yes2matt]

.  June, 2017, my right hand.  If you think the hand look bad, you should have seen my foot, same day.  I had to walk with crutches.

History:  received stings from numerous bees, wasp, and 4 scorpions, 1 jelly fish, 2-3 asp, 1 caterpillar starting 1960.  Little to no reaction: mild redness, slight pain and in 45 minutes the sting site looked and felt normal.  Then 57 years later and whammy: insane reaction out of the blue, massive swelling, non stop itch, painful with redness lasted days.

Next year 2018, bee stings have little to no reaction.  Same in 2019, received a sting on finger tip, 45 minutes later and all is normal.  Also received a sting on my ankle a couple of weeks ago and again in 45 minutes, all normal,  can?t even tell which foot I was stung I on.

So what happened in 2017???  I have no answer.  According to the books I studied on immunology what I experienced was impossible so to speak.  The book teach: I was supposed to react more violently with each sting after my reactions in 2017.

I should add the jelly fish was so much pain I almost went into shock, but healed good.

That looks like a rather severe sunburn on your hand. I wonder if there was an interaction between your body's reaction to the burn and to the sting.  I know when I've been sunburnt to blister, I felt sick and drunk, because of whatever my skin was doing to protect/ repair. Maybe that condition is not compatible with bee venom.

[2Sox]

Get a prescription from you doctor for Clobetasol cream. It's a steroid on steroids! Runs circles around any topical you can buy.  The sooner you apply it to the site after a sting, the better it works.  I keep some in my pocket on every cutout and swarm call. It's generic and relatively inexpensive.  A tube will last you a very long time.

[van from Arkansas]

Crazy stuff Van. It could be that your body was already reacting to something [that you didn't know about] in 2017, causing an additional reaction, and that "something" has since cleared your system. ... just a thought. Our bodies are amazing.

Cool, agreed,,,as good an explanation as any.  Anyway, my point was to offer hope incase another beek reacts out of the blue but subsequently recovers a year later as I did.  For a beekeeper, a sudden violent reaction is very worrisome.   I count my recovery as a Blessings.

[hannabee]

the worst sting (bite?) I have ever gotten was in Costa Rica on a service trip when I got stung by a hornet on my collarbone. I have gotten bitten/stung by many things in my life and I can say that was the worst.

As a side note, Have any of you had a reaction to the catatpiller of the brown tailed moth? My mom (as well as many of my siblings and friends) have had terrible reactions to the furs released by the bug and it caused a long lasting welt-like reaction. Yet when I asked my friend in medical school, they had not seen the bites before.