bee stings

[calvinpbear]

I'm a new (2 yrs) hobbyist-physician. Recently the bee stings have caused a lot of swelling. I'm interested in references or methods of treatment for bee stings. As a physician I can use any medication, oral or injections.

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Calvin Bear

[Pepper1079]

Hi Calvin, I too have had swelling from time to time. Normaly,I have little or no swelling. I got hit on the forearm several weeks ago and my whole arm swelled up. Very unusual for me. If you find out any treatment for stings, please let me know.

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Jim

[Juandefuca]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by calvinpbear:
I'm a new (2 yrs) hobbyist-physician. Recently the bee stings have caused a lot of swelling. I'm interested in references or methods of treatment for bee stings. As a physician I can use any medication, oral or injections.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Hello Calvin
You bring up a much discussed item about bee keeping.
There is a host of info about that in these apitherapy forums. This aspect is still being reseached and a comprehensive result will be published on a disk in September.
As far as a reaction goes it appears rather very individualistic depending on your personal tolerance to the venom. Unless you have been positively diagnosed as being "Allergic" to the venom and require immediate treatment it is most likely not advisable to administer the antitodes available at pharmacies with a prescription. You can get the stuff at a lower price in Canda without a prescription.As a physician You are certainly knowlegable about the implications.I am not aware of any household grandmother remedy other than ammonia application. In the beginning I also swelled profusely when stung, but it deminished with further stings I got.
Now it "hurts" or itches for a short while only ( One hour at the most).Hardly any swelling any more.Usually I get stung when I squeezed one accidentally anywhere on my body. Mostly on my hands.( I wear latex gloves only because it gives me a gentler touch).At this time I have more discomfort to spider and mosquito bites ,although at one time I became immune to mosquito bites too.
But that was long ago.
Happy beeing
JDF

[calvinpbear]

Dear Juan,

Thanks for the information. Another physician, who is a professor in a university beekeeping department said that one builds up the immune globulins with more stings, confirming your experience that you got less reactions with more stings. In their department, they make new workers handle the bees without gloves in order to build up the immunity from more stings. Anyway the honey is good.

Calvin

[Steve_in_NC]

Calvin, I too am a physician. I usually do not do anything for stings, but recently I got stung on the forehead while working bees without any protection. The next day I had swelling around one eye closest to the sting. 20mg of prednisone seemed to take away the edema at least in this one case. I hope that chronic low level venom exposure will help desensitize me to stings. For this reason, I try not to use anything.

By the way, I recently purchased a drawstring veil instead of the zipper veil and coveralls that I used to use. It is easier to use the drawstring veil with street clothes. I always wear a veil now. I read that the late Roger Morse (professor and prolific bee text author) had a beesting in his eye at his burial. I'd rather not have that.

[TAWoods]

Calvinbear

I too am a beginner and I just haven't gotten to the point of working with the bees without protection. I will get up close to watch them without extra gear, but I will not work without the extras. I noticed that working with the rubber gloves, which are standard equipment for most beginners, I am pretty clumsy when handling the frames. So recently I trying some surgical gloves for better feel and handling. They work well and the bees are not trying to attack as they did with other types I experimented with such as, leather work gloves. The leather gloves were being constantly attacked. I now keep a box of surgical gloves of hand, no pun intended. I don't know where you were being stung, I just assumed the hands. I hope this works for ya Doc.

Bill

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by calvinpbear:
I'm a new (2 yrs) hobbyist-physician. Recently the bee stings have caused a lot of swelling. I'm interested in references or methods of treatment for bee stings. As a physician I can use any medication, oral or injections.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[This message has been edited by TAWoods (edited 07-29-2000).]

[This message has been edited by TAWoods (edited 07-29-2000).]

[Pollinator]

Are you taking any pain killer drugs? I had a severe reaction to a bee sting once when I was taking a pain killer follow surgery. It really scared me, because bees are my livelihood, but there was no further reaction to stings after the drug cleared my system.


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Dave
The Pollination Home Page
http://pollinator.com

[BADWOLF_NCSU]

My GrandMA has ALWAYS put tobacco on bee,hornet,fire ant, and wasp stings. Any type of tobacco will work but snuff or dip will work better. Wet it and rub it on the sting. There will be not much if any swelling and little pain.
Tested many,many years by my GrandMA. And you know GrandMa..she's always right!!!!!!!

[Whey]

I have found that taking an antihistamine immediately after a sting will prevent swelling. I only do this if I get stung on the face near the eyes, nose or lips. I just do not want my eye swollen closed! LOL

My husband had a cast on his arm a few years ago and received about 6 stings around where his hand came out of the cast (guess the bees even thought that cast was smelly). I sure did not want that arm and hand swelling inside the cast. I gave him an over the counter antihistamine and presto....no swelling. He usually swells up huge with stings to his hands. I also gave him a couple of ibuprofen (he is a whiner, lol )

The faster you get the antihistamine in the less swelling I have noticed.

Whey

[This message has been edited by Whey (edited June 29, 2001).]

[Don]

Also a new hobbyist physician (seem to be a number of us out here). I did some lit searching back in April back when I had a large local reaction to see if I could figure how much at risk I was for anaphylaxis. I wish I could find the link to the article; the search was through MD-Consult and the article was from one of the allergy journals. Basically what I had was a large local reaction from my second sting (swelling/reddness starting 24-48 hrs after the sting, lasting about a week, reddness over the whole arm looking just like cellulitis/infection though didn't hurt, just itched); risk for subsequent systemic reaction was higher than the general population but not anywhere as high as someone who's already had one. However, the next 3-5 stings I got, I actually wondered on some of them if I'd been stung or bitten by a mosquito, so I guess I'm building up a tolerance/resistance.

In terms of treatments, my first line would be no treatment, second line avoidance (after my arm swelled so much, I started wearing gloves for the parts I thought likely to annoy the bees, going to have to try the neoprene or latex exam gloves and see how they do), third - antihistamines as soon after the sting (or before if you think it's likely), if the swelling got really out of hand or I was starting to have a systemic reaction - I'd think about steroids (medrol dose pack?) and keep a hand on my wife's epi-pen, difficulty breathing etc is of course a no-brainer - epi-pen and "get thee thine arse to the ER." I would avoid ibuprofen/NSAIDs for the same reason we don't give aspirin to asthmatics - if you dampen the prostaglandin side of inflammation, the histamine side will tend to increase to compensate.

Mechanism of tolerance/resistance is increasing levels of IgG antibody. As your body is exposed to more of an antigen, it tends to shift its antibody production from IgE to IgG (I think that's what desensitization therapy is trying to accomplish). After a winter of not getting stung, your IgG levels can go down and you're at risk for more swelling for your first few stings of the season. I have no idea why the past few stings didn't hurt me as much though - maybe a nerve receptor change.

Hope this is useful and/or informative,

-Don

[Steve_in_NC]

This is in response to Don's message.

I have taken steroids about 3 times following beestings. Each time this was for a sting in a sensitive place (face). I can easily take 6 or 8 stings to the limbs without any treatment.

When I have taken prednisone, I usually take 60 mg and then only one dose. It has been effective for me, and I do not think a dose pack is necessary. This is a higher dose and has had no effect on my blood sugar (I am not diabetic).

I do agree that antihistamines are also quite helpful. 50mg of Benadryl works wonders.

My worst reaction was when I was stung on the vermillion border of the lip and extracted the stinger with my finger. This method of stinger removal dumped the entire sac of venom into the sting site and I swelled from my lip to eye on the affected side. 50mg of Benadryl did not satisfactorily treat the swelling after 4 hours. Then I took prednisone with good results in less than 2 hours.

Since I am handling bees much better now and have requeened my mean hive, I have had to treat a beesting this season. I am also wearing a cheap veil now and do not tie the bottom. I wear no gloves. It is common for me to get 2 or 3 stings after working 6 hives. For these few stings, I need no treatment.

sm