Insane reaction!
A week ago the insanity hit with just a short visit outside.
Zapped by a couple of mosquitoes and it felt like I was hit with a flame thrower along with the searing pain in my legs!
With an immune system gone haywire the past year I am learning in hard lessons that I have to be ready for anything and everything.
As a prepper and homesteader and herbalist I keep many things on a level you won't find in many homes so having items to deal with most emergencies is covered in a normal first aid kit.
How many of you keep items to handle an event such as this?
Pictures taken after soaking in ice cold epsom salt water to knees.
Within minutes of being bit I felt the signs of the swelling and the blotches of hives starting up, from the time of the bites to the time it took to get in the house was under 10 minutes.
I grabbed the Benadryl and took 2 right off the bat!
Within the next 5 minutes I took 2 more and had my cell phone ready just in case my breathing got worse (and yes it was getting there) and started taking a breathing treatment of "Albuterol Sulfate" in a nebulizer to open me up. I took 2 more Benadryl every 5 minutes for a total of 10 within the first few hours on day 1.
As I rode threw the next few hours of my legs swelling and splitting and leaking fluids (that burned like lava) in horizontal and vertical fashion and trying not to scratch and scream from the pain while trying to find anything to get the swelling to slow down much less stop, I have become determined to educate others!
More in acquiring the knowledge/learning and being ready to make do with what you have and to also keep a ready to grab bag or box to handle what life throws at us all.
Staying calm enough to cope with this and keep hubby calm in the event he had to drive me to the hospital takes years of practice and planning (this is one of the downsides of being rural).
Having a kit set up with what most people would consider a expensive luxury of items including a portable nebulizer with solution, epsom salt, ice cold water (to slow down heated swelling), Benadryl and a anti itch cream (Boudreaux's Buttpaste is what I had) of some kind.
This is 6 days later!
I am still swelling (blisters) and leaking fluids and the cracks in the skin I have started using Neosporin in and on to prevent infection.
After a trip to my Dr yesterday we are adding a few more things to the treatment to try and get rid of more fluids trapped in my legs (the rest of my body is ok), except for not wanting to walk from the feet cracking I am doing ok.
So the questions I have for you is:
How prepared are you?
Do you have the knowledge needed?
Do you have a kit ready anything?
Do you practice?
Chime in and chat...
Oh my, WeeTree, that looks...well, you know exactly how it looks.
Your poor legs.
Have you tried black walnut tea baths? I've heard it can help immensely with bad exzema flareups.
We are gradually getting a better and better grasp of medical items to stock, including treatments for tetanus and infections. This week I was able to help one of my kids heal from pinkeye, bronchitis and an ear infection by using a combination of spray colloidal silver, grapeseed extract nasal spray, B vitamins and an otoscope which allowed me to check her ears.
I was so happy to be able to help her get well without needing antibiotics because it means that if we had a situation where we couldn't get to the doctor we would at least have the start of some helpful solutions.
If this was eczema there are several solutions, this is more like a poison ivy reaction with the blisters popping up and breaking and where the fluid leaks starts the cycle all over again, add the swelling to 3 times the normal size and it really turned into a battle of getting the swelling down. The cold water worked to get the heat out of the legs and the epsom salt to draw out the poison (still do not understand how a mosquito bite reacted like poison).
Learning the herbals to use is a must in my opinion.
The herbs/weeds are a gift from our Creator and we need to know they need to be used (he created them for us)!
I heard there is a new mosquito over in our area now (upper Midwest US) that is causing some bizarre secondary infection with it's bites. There are warnings going up to parents telling us to watch for fever, lethargy and extreme swelling from mosquito bites. I haven't looked into it at all, but I wonder if you managed to get zapped with one of those guys and it interacted particularly badly with some compromised part of your immune system.
Whatever the case...ouch!
I'm thrilled as I'm beginning to learn the names and uses of the various weeds I've been pulling out of the yard for years. Some of them are actually very useful - like that stinging nettle I may have finally succeeded in eradicating after years of not realizing it was something special. Oh well.
What do you have for tetanus infections? And that is awesome you were able to heal your child on your own. Where did you get the colloidal silver spray?
I should specify that I now have a protocol and supplies for preventing tetanus rather than treating an actual infection.
For prevention, I have saltwater spray, raw honey and chaparral leaf powder. With a deep puncture, tetanus spores have more of a chance to reach the blood stream if the wound doesn't bleed freely to wash out the spores. The idea is to cause the wound to bleed (make an incision if necessary), then wash thoroughly with saltwater, pack with the chaparral leaf powder to kill any spores that might have remained, spread raw honey over the top and bandage. As the wound heals and forces the chaparral out, rinse with saltwater and repeat.
I'm not sure what to use for an actual infection yet. I want to research that since I know Ben's grandpa got tetanus back in the 60s and his doctor gave him some injection that made him really sick for a few days but cured the tetanus. It wasn't a vaccine - the doctor said it was an antibiotic, though I don't know what that would've been.
My mom had the colloidal silver spray that she brought over. It's Blue Ridge Colloidal Silver Spray, 25 ppm. She got it from the Amazon listing I just linked to on the advice of the herbalist who's given advice to my family for a number of years.
I was so happy that all the secondary infections were able to be fought without going for antibiotics...the more we can save those for something really big, the better!
You must some mosquitoes! Holy cow! I have never seen anything like this. I do have various emergency kits including one for childbirth which we used last week. Not only are we 30 miles away from medical help no we have the blockades to contend with. So yes I am prepared! To the teeth!
Glad to know you are prepared!
I don't think there is any such thing as being overly prepared! How are your legs doing? I hope they are much better...
Still swelling and itching, still taking the benadryl, water pill from dr and using the new rx itch cream.
Hope you recover quickly! That is just awful!
Reminds me of eczema, it would dry
and crack and ooze after the rash stage.
Could some kind of poultice pull out the ick?
Or a oatmeal bath with noodles :-)
It is a PITA! The epsom salt is what is pulling out the ick...
That looks very painful! I’m glad you had the knowledge and tools to treat it right away. We have a decent amount of the basics here. But what I need to work on are the skills and knowledge part now.
Btw isn’t albuterol rx, or did you have some left over from another time?
Yes that is from rx and as a asthmatic it is something I always have available.
There are many online courses available now.
How painful! Did you try aloe gel? What a terrible reaction @weetreebonsai I love (and totally agree) what you replied to @lturner; herbs are a gift from our Creator! They have incredible healing power. I hope you recover speedily and thanks for the questions posed. We should all be prepared. Always
I did not have any aloe plant here and it would not be one I would have reached for with this because of the characteristics of the spreading via fluids.
Oh! You must be really allergic to mosquitoes to develop hives. I didn't know fluids could cause it to spread. Thank you for teaching me something. ABBA bring speedy healing