Common jellyfish sting recommendations can worsen stings
Being stung by a jellyfish is one of the fastest ways to ruin a fun day at the beach. But what you do after you’re stung has the potential to make you feel much better or make matters a lot worse. Researchers investigated whether commonly recommended first aid actions such as rinsing with seawater or scraping away tentacles lessen the severity of stings from two dangerous box jellyfish species. Their results, published this week in the journal Toxins, reveal that some of the most commonly recommended practices actually worsen stings.
“Anyone who Googles ‘how to treat a jellyfish sting’ will encounter authoritative web articles claiming the best thing to do is rinse the area with seawater, scrape away any remaining tentacles, and then treat the sting with ice,” said Angel Yanagihara, lead author of the paper and assistant research professor at the UH Mānoa Pacific Biosciences Research Center (PBRC) and John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). “We put those methods to the test in the lab and found they actually make stings much, much worse.”
Yanagihara, aided by Christie Wilcox, a postdoctoral fellow at JABSOM, looked at the best ways to respond to stings from two dangerous box jelly species, the Hawaiian box jelly Alatina alata here in Hawaiʻi and the largest box jelly in the world, the Australian box jelly Chironex fleckeri.
The team found that some of the most commonly recommended actions, including rinsing with seawater, scraping the tentacles and applying ice, dramatically increased the severity of the stings. “Less than one percent of stinging cells on a tentacle actually fire when you’re first stung,” explained Wilcox. “So anything you do that moves the tentacles or adherent stinging cell capsules around has the potential to increase the amount of venom injected into you by many fold.”
Instead of rinsing with seawater or scraping, the team found that rinsing with vinegar—which irreversibly prevents the stinging cells from firing—or even simply plucking tentacles off with tweezers led to less venom injection. And after the sting, applying heat actively decreased venom activity. Applying ice not only didn’t help, for stings from the Hawaiian box jelly, it actually enhanced the venom’s activity to make stings cause more than twice the damage. And, if you have it available, the team found the best way to treat a jelly sting was the combination of Sting No More™ Spray and Cream, a venom-inhibiting product duo developed by Yanagihara with Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense funding.
Read more about it in the UH System News, UPI, Popular Science, The Maui News, and The Irish Times; read more about it and watch the video reports at KHON2 and KITV4.