Forums >Health and Nutrition>Sometimes a bee sting is not just a bee sting...
Weird. So why would bee venom have such a delayed reaction?
I know nothing about medicine...
But, the 60+ mile bike ride 2 days after the bee sting, and 1 day preceding the "whatever the heck the problem is" was enough for me to think the bike ride may have had something to do with it.
The only time I've seen something like that was when I tore my hamstring a long time ago. There was a heck of a lot of bruising from my glute down to my heel. One solid 'bruise'.
Life Goals:
#1: Do what I can do
#2: Enjoy life
rectumdamnnearkilledem
Maybe you'll find you don't have asthma anymore either.
Not gonna hold my breath...ha! Though a few years on immunotherapy could potentially have that end, which would be awesome!
Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to
remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
~ Sarah Kay
I know nothing about medicine... But, the 60+ mile bike ride 2 days after the bee sting, and 1 day preceding the "whatever the heck the problem is" was enough for me to think the bike ride may have had something to do with it.
It looked way nasty before I even got on the bike...by the following day it was just larger all-around. Everyone was assuming (knowing my past history ) that I crashed my mtn. bike the day before.
Here's how it's lookin' right now...
not bad for mile 25
A poisonous spider disguised as a bee?
Ack...*shudders* I never did see the bee, just the stinger and venom sack stuck in my leg. Now I'm gonna have spider nightmares. Only thing worse than that would be a poisonous clown -- Stephen King totally had my # with IT!
Sorry about the nightmares, but after what Trent said, and the fact that you didn't see the bug, you could consider something other than a bee.
MTA: Looking at Wikipedia, probably a bee is the only bug that would leave the stinger. You didn't contact the venomous spur on the hind leg of a male platypus, did you?
Hmmm...I hadn't thought platypus (seriously, they have venomous spurs?! That is freaky!!).
Yeah, honeybee is my assumption, especially since we were passing by about a solid mile of blueberry fields. Lotsa honeybees around there.
Good Bad & The Monkey
Think of poison ivy. If exposed, it takes 1-4 days for the rash to show up. Not all reactions are immediate.
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
With a true cellulitis, the red should go away when you press, there should be skin swelling, severe skin tenderness and warmth, and you should have a fever nearly from the outset. I would also expect a blood test to be done, showing an elevation in your white blood count. Bee venom can cause this kind of reaction, and time can heal it. If it were cellulitis, septra would not likely have much of an effect (as opposed to an abscess, for which septra may be appropriate). So. Still not convinced
With a true cellulitis, the red should go away when you press, there should be skin swelling, severe skin tenderness and warmth, and you should have a fever nearly from the outset. I would also expect a blood test to be done, showing an elevation in your white blood count.
Bee venom can cause this kind of reaction, and time can heal it. If it were cellulitis, septra would not likely have much of an effect (as opposed to an abscess, for which septra may be appropriate).
So. Still not convinced
Yes...exactly. What I was driving at was the presence or absence of blanching erythema.
We actually see a ton of folks with cellulitis at our place, most of whom don't have fevers if the cellulitis is relatively mild; therefore, we typically don't check white counts in that they don't really affect our decision making on these patients. (For some reason, my city has a ton of soft tissue infections. So much so, that we were selected to be part of a CDC surveillance location for that reason--which frankly gives me the heebie jeebies! )
While your last point is well taken, actually, the strep in our region is sensitive to Septra (TMP/Sulfa AKA Bactrim), so it turns out to not be a terrible choice around here. YMMV, of course.
The second photo just doesn't look like a resolving cellulitis to me. Really looks more like an reaction to bee venom.
I'm gonna stop 'cuz I'm getting carried away and putting even myself to sleep...
PS: Zoomy, thanks for sharing your story. You are wise to get skin tested. Please let us know how it goes, and best of luck to you!
Problem is, without a tissue bx and cx, it is hard to know what exactly is the infecting organism, so while bactrim may be good for strep, it is not good for others. I typically treat more broadly, making sure to cover other skin organisms.
And yeah, if you did not see the bug, there is really no telling what it was. But it looks reactive more than infective.
The whole venom sac thing has always given me the creeps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwfCf1LEgaE
(The worst part is how the sac keeps pumping venom into you even after the insect leaves it behind. 00:54 ***SHUDDER***)
Trent, Clindamycin is the typical first line around here for a cellulitis because we get MRSA cellulitis here too. What do you guys use?
Depends on how sick. If sick, I usually start with a gram of ceftriaxone and then follow with cephalexin, amox/clav or clinda, typically in that order.
Just now I started a kiddo on some cephalexin. That was a mosquito bite that blistered several days ago, and today the (scratched) blister led to a cellulitis. Blanching erythema, tenderness, warmth, swelling. Oh yeah!
Not gonna hold my breath...ha!
ISWYDT.
Dave
The whole venom sac thing has always given me the creeps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwfCf1LEgaE (The worst part is how the sac keeps pumping venom into you even after the insect leaves it behind. 00:54 ***SHUDDER***)
Gah...yeah, I read that it keeps pumping, after the fact...seeing that makes me kinda queasy. It was at least 30-60 seconds before I had a good spot to pull over to get the stinger out...while the venom sack kept emptying shit into my leg. Jeebuz...