How to manage honeybee bite and swelling after it ? - Dr. Sudheendra Udbalker

Managing honey bee bites is basically about identifying how severe it is, how many bites have there been, are there several or one or few bites. It also depends on whether the patient is allergic to these bites. Less than 1%, that is 0.8 to 1% of people can be severely allergic to bites, where they present with anaphylactic shock kind of condition even in few honey bee bites. Those are emergency situations where the patient needs to be rushed to the hospital and then managed in an emergency. Few bites, if the person is not allergic can develop nausea, vomiting and sometimes giddiness. Hose would need treatment by antihistamines. Then again that had to go to the hospital. If there are few bites like one isolated bites, one or two isolated bites, then the first thing to do in an isolated honey bee bite is to remove the stinger. These stingers have a venom sack associated with it which will be releasing the venom continuously. The most important thing is to clean the wound, tease out this sting. Treat it with cold packs because it can be painful. Some ice packs can help in relieving the pain. Sometimes we give antibiotic creams with some mild hydrocortisone in it. So just soothen that area. If just one or few bites and you are not feeling uncomfortable, you just need to clean the area, remove the sting and apply these creams. There can be some swelling for few days post venom bite because the body is reacting to the venom which was locally deposited in the tissues. So that usually resorts in 3 -5 days period. So there is nothing to worry. There is a little redness and swelling around the bite area, but if the swelling is more, the pain is more and lot of redness and increased temperature, then it can be a secondary infection in that area which has to be treated accordingly.