A bee sting is a bite from a honey bee, a bumblebee, a sweat bee, or from other types of bees. It is also used to describe stings from wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets. You need a bee sting remedy not only to take care of the pain, but also to neutralize the toxins from such stings. These toxins come in the form of apitoxin and this is accompanied by the release of alarm pheromones. Home remedies are better compared to medication because they are cheap and they do not have side effects.
The first step in the treatment of a bee sting is the removal of the stinger and then the sting. You should then reduce the pain and the swelling with a cold compress. Traditional bee sting remedies included salt, damp pastes of tobacco, baking soda, toothpaste, onions, meat tenderizer, clay, urine, garlic, and even aspirin. An effective home remedy is applying ice for about 20 minutes. This will numb the pain, take care of the itching, and bring down the swelling. This remedy works by the coldness constricting blood vessels and consequently slowing down the flow of the venom-tainted blood to the rest of the body. This should stay on for 15 minutes and you should re-apply after 5 hours. Another popular remedy that works is applying toothpaste on the area. Just like with ice, this should also stay on for 15 minutes and you should re-apply after 5 hours.
You could mix baking soda, meat tenderizer, and vinegar into a paste. Meat tenderizer has papain, an enzyme that breaks down toxins found in bee venom. Symptoms will disappear about 1 hour after application and you should reapply after a few hours. You could also apply a calamine lotion that contains analgesic, an example being Caladryl. This relieves the symptoms after 45 minutes and you should reapply after about 4 hours. Another popular remedy is hydrocortisone creams which should be reapplied after several hours. Antihistamine creams could also be used as bee sting remedy. This relieves symptoms fairly quickly, between 30 minutes and one hour. Other possible remedies are rubbing a Benzocaine stick against the area which works by killing nerve endings and which provides relief in just 15 minutes and applying a deodorant, although this only displaces the symptoms rather than relieving them.
If symptoms persist, you should see a doctor to prevent anaphylactic shock. The most widely used medication for bee stings is Apis. Apis reduces the pain and the swelling.
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