1- Bear Grylls takes a sting to the forehead as he raids a bees nest for honey
2- Yummy!
3- but the price is semi-blindness as his face swells up
He 'treated' it by rubbing honey on the site of the sting soon after getting stung, but obviouly it didn't do much good as his face stll ballooned.
It's a lesson to us all not to take stings lightly, is there any medication or ointment we should carry to treat them?
Thankfully i've never been stung, so don't have first hand experience with this.
If you don't have access to medicines, there is a weed called Plantain that grows absolutely everywhere , it is apparently very good for taking the pain out of stings. Not sure if it would have helped in this poor guys case mind you, that looks severe :s
There Is a big difference between an annoying localised reaction such as redness and swelling and true anaphylaxis which is life threatening. For the former you need antihistamines oral is best but a topical cream may assist as well. Calamine or Eurax will help with the itch but not the cause.
For anaphylaxis you need adrenalin which is the drug in epipens, there are other secondary treatments such as chlorphenamine, hydrocortisone and salbutamol but the adrenalin is the one that will make the difference.
In true anaphylaxis swelling of the tissue around the airway causes breathing difficulties and dilation of blood vessels lowers blood pressure causing loss of consciousness. Adrenalin reverses these effects
I keep bees and one of my hives is a very "angry" hive (the Queen must be a right B****!) so I have been stung many, many times. I got stung twice in the face - one just in my hairline above my left eye and one at the side of my face. My face swelled up so much, I couldn't see out of my eyes - just like BG.
The other really bad one was when I made a stupid, proby mistake and wore black fluffy socks and slip on shoes rather than wellies. The bees attacked my feet and in case you didn't know, when they sting, they leave a scent behind for the others to follow and also sting. I got 24 bee stings on my feet. They swelled up so much, I had to go to hospital - you could see the poison going up my leg.
I wouldn't recommend honey as a salve - the bees will be attracted to the scent. Try tea tree oil.
