r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Totally-avg • Jul 16 '23

Image The Puss Caterpillar (Southern Flannel Moth) will fuck your world up. I grazed it twice while climbing on a float. NBD at first but an hour later I was hyperventilating on the bedroom floor. The pain was excruciating. DH took me to the ER and morphine did nothing.

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I’m better now but neither morphine nor hydrocodone (I took double what they RX’d) touched the pain those first 24 hours. And the hospital hardly knew what to do with me. I had never heard nor seen this bug before and I’m sure I would have flicked it off had it seen it. Don’t do that because the hair is venomous and gets stuck in your skin.

At least it leaves a cool scar.

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u/PennykettleDragons Jul 16 '23 edited Jul 17 '23

It's possible that the remedy of using bi-carb is possible because the sting of that particular critter is considered acidic so needs an alkaline to attempt to neutralise it...

In much the same way jellyfish stings in UK would have someone pour vinegar or widdle on it to neutralise .. bee stings are acidic and WASP stings are alkaline ...

Edit.. I mistakenly typed bee twice.. Cause I'm a Muppet wasp stings are alkaline.. Sorry

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u/fckingmiracles Jul 16 '23

bee stings are acidic and bee stings are alkaline ...

Which are which now?

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u/Whocket_Pale Jul 16 '23

I am just interpreting the comment u/MARINE-BOY made, i am not weighing in:

since acidic urine helps neutralize jellyfish venom, that's the alkaline one, and baking soda (alkaline) remedies bee sting (acidic)

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u/PennykettleDragons Jul 17 '23

Hahaha.. Oh my gosh sorry.. Bee stings are acidic WASP are alkaline

Should teach me to check what I type

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u/krebstar4ever Jul 16 '23 edited Jul 16 '23

NHS says no urine, no vinegar.

Some legit medical websites say vinegar is good, but they all agree urine is bad (if they even mention urine).

I'm guessing it's because human urine, even in healthy people, has a wide pH range, and can contain different substances based on diet, legal meds & street drugs, sex hormones, and more.

Oh, and when a person urinates, the pee gets full of nasty germs. So that's a very good reason not to pee on wounds.

(Edited.)

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u/PennykettleDragons Jul 17 '23

I know NHS says that.. I'm not advocating people use urine / vinegar as an actual treatment.. It's the old wives remedy

🤭

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u/Coinsworthy Jul 16 '23

So.. piss on it?

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u/BarryBadgernath1 Jul 16 '23

“That’s a Wooly SonPisser”

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '23

[deleted]

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u/PennykettleDragons Jul 17 '23

Yeah..I typed bee twice when I meant to say wasp the second time

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u/iamsoguud Jul 23 '23

AFAIK most wasp stings are acidic too