North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[longdistshtr <longdistshtr@shtc.net>]

Remedies, potions and lotions seem to work on stings for folk on an
empirical basis.  This is explained in medicine as placebo effect. I used to
poo poo these methods until I found out that most medicaments are
efficacious only if the practitioner and the patient believe in them. We
can't separate the mind from the body, so let's just believe that
practically anything will work rather than expect an applied nostrum to
fail.
>From a scientific angle, the great designer applied a covering over the body
to protect it from most of these substances mentioned  in this discussion.
Venom must be injected through it to work instantaneously, thus the
stingers.
Most any innocuous chemical  by its nature will not penetrate the protective
layer
to reach this venom and to be effective must neutralize it or at the very
least block the pain transmitters or anesthetize the nerve endings.
Nicotine in tobacco juice is not innocuous.  In fact it has been used as an
assassin's  chemical.  It goes through the protective layers very rapidly
and probably  works by one or two of the previouly mentioned methods.
A hypothesis was recommended several years back about applying electrical
current to poisonous snake bites.  Stun guns were said to work. I know of
one case where this was successful.  The idea about applying current to an
insect sting sounds plausible. The idea was to dissociate the venom's
complex protein molecule with electricity.
Chlorine bleach applied to the sting is said by some to be effective.
Papain in meat tenderizer has its believers.  DMSO with novacaine probably
works. It has the mechanism required. An ice cube is probably the safest
thing of all and is the cheapest.
If you are going to be your own physician: "First do no harm".  If something
works for you, be my guest. You won't hear me poo pooing in the background.
You are the treater and the treatee and if you believe it works, that my
friends is "powerful medicine." Please send videos of your escapades with
stinging insects to AFV.
Doc Lisenby
Zone 7/8 Plenty of stinging varmints here.