Fever following multiple stings

I don't know if the fever and headache are due to the stings, but seeing that you from PA, I wondered whether you have had any tick bites within the last two weeks?

I am just getting over my second bout of Anaplasmosis in the past two years. It's carried by the same ticks that also carry Lyme, but it's a completely different disease. It doesn't give you the characteristic red bull's eye rash. And unlike Lyme, it is transmitted almost immediately if you are bitten by a carrier-tick. Lyme usually takes a prolonged, 12-72 hour long bite.

The characteristic symptoms of Anaplasmosis are: a severe headache; unproductive, but intense nausea; a hacking cough; strong feeling of weakness and malaise and VERY high fever (mine gets into the 103-105F range.) It takes 7-14 days to incubate after the bite. Younger people are less affected, than older people, but untreated it can be fatal or lead to organ failure. It causes some characteristic changes in ordinary bloodwork: liver function numbers are elevated (indicating liver function is disturbed) and platelet (red blood cells) counts are very low. Low enough that transfusions are sometimes considered. And white cell counts are only mildly elevated considering the seriousness of the infection. There is a specific blood test for it, but it takes awhile to get it back so usually based on symptoms, routine blood work, and tick exposure it will be treated immediately. The treatment is simple, reasonably cheap and very effective: doxycycline pills. And unlike Lyme there are no long-term, chronic issues with it. If you think this might be the explanation of your symptoms, see your doc. The fever and headache may be something else than a reaction to the stings.

From my experience with it, if you've got Anaplasmosis, you'll feel sick as a dog. But start feeling much better within 24 hours of starting treatment.

Be well!

Enj.

Fever is just one of the ways a body reacts to the poison. Localized reactions to a sting creates a raised temp in the area of the sting in reaction to the poison. When enough of the poison enters the blood stream and spreads thru the body, it creates a wider area of response, hence the body fever.

I react to stings pretty badly. I took two hits to the arm thru the suit this weekend, one on the wrist and one above the elbow. The elbow one did not swell much. The wrist one resulted in swelling from my hand back to the elbow, lots of fluid buildup on day 2. Lots of heat too. Day 3, swelling went back down and a hard knot formed where the stings were about the size of a pencil eraser and itching like a mosquito bite.

I did have another spot. I stuck a dry stinger in my suit against the forearm of the other arm. No bee attached, but enough poison left in the stinger to create a red spot and minor skin irritation.

Something happened when I was working a hive Friday morning, I was trying to remove a frame of eggs to requeen a queenless nuc. When I pulled the frame, the bees came out in mass and started nailing my suit. I released the frame and backed off, a cloud of bees coming up my arm. The sleeve had about 20 stingers in it and guts from bees pulling away. When I looked at the suit later, the other sleeve and the hat had stingers too. Later, when I worked another location, I noticed a pin prick on the other arm. It was from one of the stingers left in the suit and it did cause the red spot I mentioned. Not a full dose as it was only a stinger, not a sac or a bee attached pumping more venom into the wound.

When I get stings and I do forget to remove the stinger or I simply didn't notice it, and leave it in the skin for a day, and it gets infected, I get fever. OK, first it starts to itch, it gets red and then I get infection-like symptoms. But normally I do not get the slightest fever. Since one cannot get resistant to histamin, I should have fever/temperature elevation all the time, isn't it? On the other hand, when I started beekeeping and my arms and all were swollen, I didn't had fever, either. Can't see this with my beginners I care for, either. And so on.

People are of course different, as is with bees. But if you normally do not get any fever when receiving stings and one single time you get fever, I reckon it is most likely that the puncturing by the sting got infected.

What I do is, I remove the stinger, rub some honey and propolis over it and am done. (That is, I rub my sticky fingers over it, another advantage of working bare hand. You do have propolis on your fingers all the time.)

I hived a swarm last thrus. It was up on my apple tree about 15'. climbed up my ladder put the box on the top, positioned everything nicely... promptly shook them directly ontop my head! I was wearing my bee jacket/veil combo but didnt bother with long pants or socks..... that was a mistake.... took 25 stings to the left leg and about 5 to the right.

Took benidryl shortly afterward and went about my day. Nothing out of the normal for me in the way of symptoms but Toward evening the swelling started and by dinner time i couldnt walk on my left leg due to swelling. I tried to keep it iced and elevated. You could feel my leg was physically hot to the touch. Iceing it just made me really cold cause i was chilling all the blood that my body was pumping in down there to deal with the venom.

5 days later and my foot is still slightly swollen.

Previous to that the most i think ive had is about 5 or 6. When i accidentally backed the tractor into the hive knocking it over and they found me before i could leave the area and get my suit on to fix them.

I got stung on my left hand this morning, which is a waste because the right hand is the one with arthritis. Anyway, it was a good excuse to whip out the thermal imager. The stung area is several degrees warmer than the corresponding area on the right hand. The area is mildly puffy and doesn't hurt appreciably, but the temperature difference shows up nicely.