Bee Stings when Cycling

[User]

 

[Wobblers]

Sounds nasty.

Lips are actually quite sensitive with lots of nerve endings, so much of the pain could just be down to this. An antihistamine might help with the pain, but most of the damage is caused by a toxin called melittin, which essentially dissolves cell membranes. It's probably be simplest just to dose up on something like ibuprofen to reduce the swelling.

GWS!

 

[ColinJ]

Wouldn't they use an EpiPen (or whatever they call them these days)?

 

[gbb]

I once got caught a glancing blow from a wasp or bee at speed, saw him coming and he glanced off my cheek..within seconds my eye watered up so much I couldn't see and had to emergency wobble to a stop, sit there for a good 5 minutes before I could even clear my eyes of tears and stinging. I can only imagine the impact caused it to sting.. it missed but I got the poison in my eye.

 

[Racing roadkill]

I got a lip sting last week. I invented new swear words.

 

[CUBE CRD]

You're lucky it didn't get you on the tongue....happened to a neighbour one time,tongue swelled up and she nearly choked herself to death.

Vinegar is a good painkiller,but if you were to carry 'a bit of this,and a bit of that' for every potential mishap you'd need panniers

 

[DaveReading]

Well the thread title got me going, at least.

Get well soon !

 

[Globalti]

I do seem to get a lot of insects inside my helmet and being bald I can feel them crawling around. I dread the day a wasp or bee flies in. I have perfected the art of removing glasses, sticking an arm in my mouth then unclipping and removing then replacing helmet and glasses while sitting up, hands off the bars. Stupid really because that's when I'm most likely to crash.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Wouldn't they use an EpiPen (or whatever they call them these days)?

I got stung on the upper lip last year, not by a bee but by a wasp, I needed an ambulance and ended up spending the afternoon in A&E, it took about a week before I was right. I don't carry anything to deal with a sting but should do, but the trouble is getting stung is so rare, that was the first time I'd been stung in fifteen years or more.

 

[Globalti]

The danger with wasp stings is that waspies do like to crawl around in dirty places and can inject bacteria along with the venom so if the site of the sting is becoming hot and red a couple of days afterwards with secondary inflammation you need to see your GP for some antibiotics.

 

[DRM]

Vinegar is for wasp stings; it's bicarb for bees.

What User13710 says is spot on, for wasps the chippy is your A & E !!! bees need a bit more care as they leave the barb & poison sack behind, you need to carefully scrape the barb out without squashing the sack.

 

[Dirk]

......One of Mr R's nurses happened to be in A&E and saw me, so he let Mr R know I was there.

 

[Tiger10]

The intensity of a sting varies tremendously depending on where you are stung, i have had stings on the hand that were painless in a couple of minutes but one on the forehead and also the end of the nose were excruciatingly painful. Getting the sting out quick helps as it continues to pump in venom but speed of removal is better than technique. On the up side there are health benefits.

 

[confusedcyclist]

What ever you do, don't get stung "down there". Not recommended.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

What I'd like to know is how they even have time to sting properly when you hit them so quickly, I thought they'd just bounce off. I was doing about 25mph on a slight descent recently and I saw a small cloud of black blobs... next thing I knew, several had bounced off my helmet and one hit me around the front of my shoulder.
The sting hurt like bell and my arm went terribly numb.