Question:
Just thought you guys might want to know this.
I was reading a web site about travel in Mexico. It said
that o trick that some Mexicans use to stop the itch from a
mosquito bite is to put the burning ember of a cigarette as
close to the bite as you can stand and leave it there for a
bit. I tried it yesterday on two bites and it actually worked!
I think 90 percent of alternative medicine is hokey. I
think there must be a good scientific explanation for this. My
guess is that the toxin is rendered harmless by the heat. It
could be something else, who knows. God, I hate mosquitos and
I'm glad I've found something that works.
Answer:
Years ago when I was camping and whale watching on the Pacific Coast of
Baja California, Mexico, I was stung by a sting ray. In fact, even
though we were shuffling our feet as we made our way out to deeper water
to go snorkling, all three of us got stung.
The pain was excruciating. We were at a remote wilderness camp and the
leader of the "expedition" immediately heated water on the stove and
prepared foot baths for us. We sat with our feet in as hot a water as we
could stand for a half hour or forty-five minutes (It seemed like MUCH
longer), but the pain went away. It was almost miraculous!! I don't
know what I would have done if I had not had access to large amount of
very hot water very quickly, because the pain really was horrific.
The heat apparently "denatures" the poison. All of us were fine in a
couple of hours and just needed a bandaid to cover the wound (These were
small sting rays, thank God.) A few weeks later I developed a pretty
nasty secondary infection at the site of the puncture wound. A long
course of antibiotics got rid of that.
