Gentle Reader,
The energy retrofit continues this week. The work took me and one roofer through a yellow jacket nest on the side of my hill. The result was painful stings. Mine were on the belly and chest. The roofer had to be taken to the emergency room for treatment. He became short of breath and had other severe reactions. He didn’t return to work the next day.
Arthritis pain can be greatly exasperated by insect bites. Here’s what I learned doing a web search after experiencing so much joint pain.
“Allergic Reaction
“An allergic reaction involving the entire body can occur, this can be due to one or multiple stings and may range from mild to fatal, and death can occur in minutes. The majority of the reactions occur within the first 15 minutes, and nearly all occur within 6 hours. There is no connection between the number of stings and how severe the reaction will be. As a general rule, the faster the symptoms come on after the sting, the more severe the reaction will be. Death that occurs within the first hour of the sting is usually from airway blockage or low blood pressure.
“The earliest symptoms consist of itchy eyes, facial flushing, generalized hives, and dry cough. Symptoms may worsen rapidly causing chest or throat constriction, wheezing, difficulty breathing, bluish discoloration of the skin, abdominal cramping, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, vertigo, chills and fever, shock, fainting, loss of bowls or bladder, and bloody, frothy sputum. The early mild symptoms can progress quickly to shock.
“A delayed allergic reaction, appearing 5 to 14 days after a sting can occur. Typical symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, hives, enlarged lymph nodes, and multiple joint pains. Commonly a person will have forgotten about the sting and will not understand why the symptoms have suddenly come on.” Advanced Patient Education.
My own joint pain occurred in the first 36 hours. I didn’t put two and two together for a while. My weekly hiking buddies and I went up a steep trail on one of the so called Issaquah Alps foothills of the Cascades, Squak Mt. My knees were killing me and my hips. The Pain Relief Complex helped, but I was glad to get to a flat area where I could stride out and loosen the joints up. The crazy remedies that helped with the swelling and the tenderness included one of our skin care treatments called Calming Complex and our toothpaste, called New Concept Dentifrice, and a third product, Desert Wind Roll-on Antiperspirant. All these products are effective because of the ingredients. You can read about them at the resources page.
If you have a remedy you have used for insect bites, I’d love to hear about it, and so would my readers, so please leave a comment. If you’d like to see the videos I’ve been shooting as this project goes forward, here is one. Go to my You Tube channel to see others.
Be well, Do well and Keep Moving!
Betsy