Is vinegar a treatment for a bee sting?

Answer 1

Vinegar may help if a person is stung by a Box Jellyfish. The venom is alkaline, and the acid in vinegar may help neutralize it. By the way, the old standard of urinating on the stung area is not helpful.

It is imperative to get the tentacles off the victim's skin using hot water or salt water and a stick.

The next step is to use water as hot as the victim can stand (don't scald her!) Water under 102 degrees F is useless. Water above 120 degrees is very good. The hotter, the better.

BUT, if the jellyfish is not a Box Jelly fish, then a fast hospital visit is in order, especially if there is fainting, chest pain, or other unusual reaction.

Answer 2

I personally wouldn't do that. I would put baking soda or bennadril on it.

I was told:

For bee stings put baking soda on the sting site. Bee stings are acid and baking soda neutralizes acid.

For wasp stings put vinegar on the sting site because wasp stings are alkaline and acid neutralizes alkaline.

Answer 3

It can't. This is an old wive's tale and in fact vinegar, like fresh water, may trigger the nematocyst's firing mechanism. Better (but far from perfect) results may be achieved with ethanol.

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Yes. Vinegar is essential to treating Chironex fleckeri(box jelly) envenomation. It has been shown in many studies to completely inhibit the firing of box jelly nematocysts. Vinegar is stocked at almost all Australian beaches that are frequented by the Chironex fleckeri box jellyfish. Flooding the stung area for 30 seconds with household vinegar (3-10% acetic acid) before removing any remaining tentacles, has contributed (along with other life saving measures) to a huge reduction in the number deaths in Australia due to this most venomous jelly.

Vinegar has been shown to be sometimes a partial inhibitor and sometimes an exciter of nematocysts in other species, even closely related species such as those of the Physalia genus. Without an ability to quickly and reliably identify a particular species, it is recommended to not use vinegar on any non-box jellyfish stings.

Likewise, fresh water, baking soda, urine, meat tenderizer, ammonia, or any other chemicals should not be used before tentacles are removed, in order to avoid any further envenomation. Flooding the stung area with sea water and carefully removing all tentacle remnants is currently the recommended practice. Once the tentacle remnants are completely removed, the most effective treatment is immersion in hot water for twenty minutes. The hotter the better, although scalding is, of course, not a good idea. The heat can penetrate into the envenomated tissue and breakdown some of the heat labile proteins. Cold packs are sometimes used, but are shown to be somewhat less effective than hot water.

Alcohol should be avoided as well, as it causes nematocysts to fire in many species of jellyfish, and most certainly in all box jellies (Cubozoans). In the lab, biologists frequently use ethanol (and sometimes distilled water) to trigger nematocysts into firing.

Answer 4

yes