The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

What To Do If You Are Stung by a Jellyfish Is urine really the answer? Should you give pee a chance?

Richard Schmidt's Surf Camp Beach the night of the now infamous jellyfish incident 

Drumroll please….

For all of you who read my last post and are anxiously awaiting the answer to the age-old question, “should you urinate on a jellyfish sting to stop the pain?” the answer is no! And who the hell thought of that in the first place? I’m sure alcohol was involved in some way.

Do not pee on your friend’s jellyfish sting unless you are hazing them into your fraternity. And don’t spray Windex on the sting either. Both these “remedies” actually irritate the wound more, plus they make you smell bad.

The first thing I did after being stung was to rinse off with fresh water.

That was the first thing I did was wrong.

Here I am hobbling out of the water on my red, swollen, jellyfish-stung legs. 

Jellyfish sting through nematocysts, which are tiny spine-covered tubules released from their tentacles. The spines anchor in your skin, and when the nematocysts fire, they inject various unpleasant chemicals into you. After coming in contact with a jellyfish tentacle, you may have thousands of these nematocysts attached to your skin, not all of which may fire right away.

When you pee on the sting or try to rinse it with fresh water, this changes the tonicity of the nematocysts, which causes them to fire, injecting you with even more venom. So, if you need to rinse off, always rinse with salt water first.

The second thing I did wrong was pouring vinegar on the sting.

You can apply vinegar to the sting, but it must stay on for 15 to 30 minutes, so you can soak a cloth and place it on the sting. In my case, vinegar didn’t help a damn bit.

If vinegar is not available, you can apply shaving cream, or use soap and make a lather, even a paste of sand or mud, then take a razor or credit card and shave or scrape the area to remove the stinging cells.

The third thing I did wrong was to spray Windex on the jelly sting. Windex, or anything with ammonia in it will further irritate the injury.

Most jelly stings are painful, but not dangerous. The box jelly, however, is a different story. Found off the coast of Australia, it can kill in a matter of minutes, depending on the age and health of the person stung. Medical treatment and antivenin are required.

Some people have allergic reactions to jellyfish stings, so watch for signs like difficulty breathing, hives, trouble swallowing, or loss of consciousness, and of course seek medical treatment immediately.

What I did right: I took two Benadryl. Antihistamines quell the body’s reaction to the venom.

My husband gave me some of this sunburn product about an hour after I was stung and it was a miracle, it completely took the pain away. I am expecting a case from the manufacturer for mentioning this product. But take my word for it. It works great!

Fun facts about jellys:

The jelly has no heart, no brain, no bones, and no other organs.

They cannot control what they sting, so they sting whatever they touch.

They are one of the few creatures that are multiplying and actually doing better with climate change as the oceans grow warmer.

It hurts like hell when they sting you.

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To Pee or Not to Pee

To Pee or Not to Pee

Never in my life have so many friends wanted to urinate on me as last week, when the news that I was stung by a large jellyfish came out on Facebook.

My family and I were on vacation in Costa Rica, our first vacation since 2004. We toured Arenal, Monteverde, the Area Rincon de Guanacaste, and ended up in Nosara to surf in Playa Guoines.

I am not a goodt surfer; I am, however, fairly resilient. My first day surfing was very windy.  My board whacked me hard on the head, and later collided with my jaw, and I received a mild jellyfish sting to the arm.

On my second day, my board hit me in the chin so hard I spent several stunned moments in the water floating on my back, wondering why my bathtub water was so salty.  I continued to surf in spite of these and many more scrapes and bruises, which of course were nothing against my steely surfing demeanor.

The third day surfing, I was enjoying a relatively injury-free evening session when I lost balance on my board.  I surrendered to it, falling backward into the water in a relaxed semi-seated position.

I landed on something very soft, lighter than air. Then the pain started. I felt the soft, sticky, stringy tentacles engulf first my left thigh, and then my right. Every place that the tentacles touched me felt like fire.  Lucky me, I had sat right down on a large jellyfish tuffet.  

I shot out of the water screaming every profanity in my extensive repertoire. I looked around, hoping against hope to see a gorgeous Tico lifeguard nearby, holding one of those red floaty things. Instead I saw my friends’ two 11 year-old sons bobbing up and down on their short boards, staring at me in horror: “Uh-oh, Mrs. Binell didn’t take her meds this morning.”

If I had had my wits about me, I would have gotten vertical, bent at the waist, and paddled away.  My instinct at that moment, however, was to reach down with both my hands and push the jelly away.  Big mistake.  As I tried to push the tentacles away from my legs, more wrapped around my right wrist and left elbow.  And then, of course, a large set of waves came rolling in. 

Oh crap.

I tried, but I couldn’t manage to get back on my board when the first wave hit. The wave thankfully washed the jellyfish away and drove my board toward shallower water, taking me with it.

I dug myself into a standing position, feet barely touching the sand, and reeled in my board as fast as I could. Another wave was fast approaching. My intent was to get on my board, roll under the wave, get back up, and to continue to surf.  “I can do this,” I thought through the pain.  I may be a terrible surfer but I’m tough, damn it!

I wasn’t fast enough.  The wave hit, and I folded like origami.

This time I didn’t pop out the water, I emerged like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, my hair plastered down, completely covering my face like Cousin It.  

My jellyfish stings freaking hurt.  I needed some pain medicine and a cocktail.  Immediately.  Maybe a few cocktails, along with the pain medicine.