Wasp nailed me

[wjoerob]

Pulling back some junk to clean up behind the house, looked behind & saw a nest of angry wasps! Tried to jump back, but a couple of them got me on the forearm. Felt just like a nail gun, right below the elbow. I'm not TOO big a wimp, but this surprised me how quick & how hard this hurt. If I hadn't seen them, I would have thought it was a hornet. Swelled & throbbed, used "Afterbite" & ice that evening. A day later it was OK. Been pretty blessed for years, got honeybee stings but it's been a long time since I got a wasp.

 

[jcims]

Pulling back some junk to clean up behind the house, looked behind & saw a nest of angry wasps! Tried to jump back, but a couple of them got me on the forearm. Felt just like a nail gun, right below the elbow. I'm not TOO big a wimp, but this surprised me how quick & how hard this hurt. If I hadn't seen them, I would have thought it was a hornet. Swelled & throbbed, used "Afterbite" & ice that evening. A day later it was OK. Been pretty blessed for years, got honeybee stings but it's been a long time since I got a wasp.

They will get your attention, that's for sure. My biggest issue as I'm getting older is that I swell up like crazy. Got hit by three last year while push mowing and my hand looked like a latex glove water balloon. Horsefly got me this year on the elbow and my right arm ended up looking like Popeye...worst part of that was all the ensuing jokes.

 

[radioman]

I know the feeling. I was weeding eating around my kids play set that I just mowed earlier that day just 2 weeks ago. The tube at the top had a nest in it and My head was right next to the nest. Couple of them flew out and stung me in the ear and I fell over backwards startled with the weedeater running full speed flying in the air. I have not been stung in a few years so it was quite a surprise! Thank goodness my kids knows my rule not to be near me with machinary. I'd hate to think if the weedeater hit someone when flying.

Thanks to TBN, I was reading about bees and wasp sting in another thread and there was a suggestion about vinegar. All I had was redwine vingear and it really works on the sting area. My sting feel warm and cooling to touch of towel drenched in vinegar on my stung ear. Never mind the smell of vingear- the soothing feeling is much better then the sting!!:thumbsup:

 

[KTurner]

Felt just like a nail gun, right below the elbow.

Hopefully that was a figurative analogy. I mean, there can't really be more people on here that have been hit by a nail gun than stung by a wasp, right?

 

[jlsmith]

I got hit in the back a few weeks ago by one, bleach works great as far as taking the sting out.

 

[tallyho8]

I've been hit by a nail gun (through the hand, missed bone, muscles and veins) and stung by a wasp.

The wasp hurt the most.

 

[beenthere]

I get more of a "hurt" (pain) from the yellow jackets than I do the wasps. But I try to avoid both.

 

[Mike Costello]

I got stung by a large black colored wasp in our horse barn while cleaning up. Got hit in the neck--heard the buzz, and knew I was going to get kissed.

About the nail gun analogy, I've been shot with a nail gun too--by myself. I was installing blocking on my log home and managed to fire a nail through the fleshy part of my hand between the thumb and first finger. Didn't even know it until I tried to let go of the blocking! So, I lowered the gun to the floor, pulled out my trusty hammer, and carefully backed the nail out. No pain and no bleeding. Very fortunate indeed! Mike.

 

[GGB]

I've been stung a few times by bees, but not for quite awhile. My brother has beehives and I helped him a time or two in the past. Bees around here generally aren't so aggessive, and really have to be provoked to sting. Usually not much of a big deal.

Not so with wasps. They seem to be very aggressive, and we have a cedar house which seems to be attractive to them. I got stung a couple months ago just under my eye, and it really hurt! Pretty much wiped me out for the rest of the morning, and I still had some pain late in the day. Thankfully, the pain was mostly gone by the next morning.

I've gotten pretty regular about spraying any new nests since this little incident. I'd hate to think if someone got stung multiple times.....I'd forgotten just how much they hurt.

 

[dodge man]

Funny you say that, I got stung by a wasp and bit by a horse fly this summer, and I also swelled up pretty bad, it also itched like carzy.

 

[Richard]

Just a thought for you guys who swelled up for a day or so afterwards.

I've had my share of stings. I was once digging a stump and found a yellow jacket nest, nine of those SOB's busted me. 5 on the face and 4 on my arms. My face hurt for a week or so (still hurts my wife to look at it I'm sure )

Regardless.... several years later, I got a sting by a lowely wasp and ended up in the emergency room for several hours with an IV and various syringes of "stuff" being pumped into me.

Getting to my point.... I had crossed the threshold of being not allergic to stings to becoming very allergic to stings and I had no idea.

It might be worth a trip to an allergist to be tested and find out just how allergic you are to the stinging little SOB's. If you have unknowningly crossed the line to being allergic you can choose to get allergy shots and perhaps, a chance to buy yourself time the next time it happens. This is what I'm doing.

Or, you can perhaps, get an Epi-pen so you can have that handy for yourself or someone else who might be out visiting. I've got an Epi-pen here at work in my drawer and several at home.

After having gone through the "omg I can hardly breath" situation, I would have in hindsight, preferred to have been more proactive and known what I was up agasint rather than discovering it cold turkey.

I'm here to tell you that taking a good breath in is not over-rated! :thumbsup:

 

[Wacky]

I was weedeating around the barn and one corner had a yellow jacket nest in the ground. Saw them start to swarm out of the ground and come after me, dropped the weedeater and took flight. Much to my surprise they attacked the Stihl, it was still running, and not one attacked me. Later that evening I took care of the nest with a little flame action:thumbsup:.

 

[/pine]

ammonia will usually ease the discomfort of stings quickly...

Actually, I find stings (for the most part) quite therapeutic...as long as I get hit where I suffer from arthritis...i.e., hands, shoulders etc...

 

[texasjohn]

I'm no expert, but I agree, if you are having significant problems from a wasp sting, consider that you may be or be becoming allergic to them and seek proactive medical attention.

My wife did this and it saved her life. She had an unusual reaction once and went to family doctor who sent her to allergist. Allergist said, I dunno what really went on, but here's an epi-pen.... suggest you carry with you.

About 6 months later, she had another event.... went down to floor, difficulty breathing. I dug up the epi-pen and shot her with it.... 911 to the hospital, whole thing.....

Being prepared with the epi-pen was a true life saver.

For reference, I've been stung by wasps probably every year since I was old enough to go outside. Yep, they hurt, but for me the hurt goes away in just a few minutes, even without any special attention. Site may be red for the rest of the day and itching starts somewhere along the way. Point is, I never swell up (so far) in any dramatic way, as some of you have related. Hope I never do!

 

[beenthere]

I only get swelling from honey bees. Wasps and yellow jackets, and bumblebees just get the pain.
Honeybees...swelling.

 

[dmccarty]

When we first bought our land I was doing some brush clearing. There was this tangled mess of Honey Suckle vines and brush that needed removing. The vines had climbed up some saplings so I went into the mess with a machete to cut down the vines.

Just before I whacked one of the vines I saw a Wasp nest about 20 feet away. And with the nest was, surprise!, a Wasp. Hmmmmm, I said......

I figured I could cut the vine and be done before the Wasp could find me much less sting me.....

See where this is going? :laughing:

I swung.

I cut.

I got stung.

BAD!



That #$%^&*( Wasp somehow flew at light speed to sting me. It stung me just as I cut the vine. The boffin's need to study flying Wasps if we ever want to visit different solar systems. Wasps can exceed the speed of light.

I ain't kidding. :laughing:

Now getting stung was not TOO bad. WHERE I got stung was REAL bad. It could have been worse but it was bad enough. I will let the reader figure out a worse spot to be stung. :laughing:

That Wasp landed on the END of my nose and stung me IN my nose! :confused2:

Talk about P A I N!

I chopped. Wasp Stung. I ran, flinging the machete, and swatting at the Wasp. I swatted so hard that my watch flew off my arm.

Thankfully I flung the machete before swapping at my face. Get that in the wrong order and I REALLY would have had problems. :laughing:

My nose puffed up a bit and turned RED. I looked like WC Fields. And that is NOT good. I had some sting ointment in the truck so I slathered that on my nose which did not really help much since I was stung IN my nose. I had to sit down for an hour or two because my eyes were watering from the sting.

Light Speed Waspee went back to the nest....

I flooded the nest with Wasp spray.

Maybe I should have done that first? Maybe?



Later,
Dan

 

[Pilot]

For those who need an Epipen, it's a nuisance to carry--bulky, doesn't fit well in any pocket. But there is a carrying case available that hangs from your belt. It's called an Ana-Tote & you can look it up on the internet. Amazon also has it.

 

[GGB]

The references to the Epi-pen sounds like excellent advice. I now remember that as my grandmother got older, her reactions to bee/wasp stings got much worse. She nearly died from a bee sting, and had to keep an early version of the Epi-pen with her anytime she was outdoors during the warm weather. It does make you wonder about resistance levels-I always thought your resistance got higher as you were exposed/stung, but this may explain why her reactions got worse as she got older. Kind of like mine????

I've got my next doctor's checkup next week. Sounds like another item to add to the list of questions to address!

 

[ragkar]

A couple nights ago I got up in the middle of the night. As I leaned over to turn on a light, my finger squashed a yellow jacket that was sleeping on the table. It got me. Talk about bad luck.

 

[merrickvilleguy]

I was stung last weekend by one of those football shaped nest making ones (paper wasps?) ... anyways ... was right on the tip of the ear ... was quite the bugger ...

the after bite stuff used for horse fly bites and skeeters seemed to work well and pain was gone after an hour or so