How to Provide First Aid for Fire Ant Stings
Fire ants are aggressive biting ants that often leave multiple stings on a victim. When someone is attacked by fire ants, it is often by a large number of them. Each fire ant will sting repeatedly, so you can see why first aid is vital after an attack. The dangers from fire ant stings are allergic reactions and infection. Except in situations where someone has diabetes, or any susceptibility to allergic reactions, most fire ant stings can be treated with these simple first aid measures.
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Things You'll Need
- Soap
- Water
- Ice
- Allergy medicine
- Antibacterial cream
- Doctor (in extreme cases)
Instructions
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Remove yourself from the area before trying to treat the stings. Many people think they are far enough away from the fire ants before they actually are. These are aggressive ants. Go far enough away, and then go a little more.
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Locate the sting sites. Stings release histamine which produce pain, swelling and itching sensations. These sting sites will turn red, and form blisters after several hours.
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Clean the sting sites with soap and water. Be very thorough, and wash every sting site. Infection is often the major complication with fire ant stings, and cleaning the sting sites will help with this problem.
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Leave the blisters intact as they form. The sting sites will eventually turn to blisters, and pop. Do not pop the blisters as you clean the sting sites.
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Apply ice to the sting sites. The ice will help with the pain, itching and swelling.
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Try to keep the sting sites above heart level. Elevating the sting sites helps with the swelling and pain.
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Treat the sting sites with antibacterial creams. This will help to control the infection. Also, Benadryl can help in much the same way as it does for bee stings.
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Tips & Warnings
Do not itch the sting sites or you will intensify the complications.
Use lots of ice and cool water to relieve itching.
Contact a doctor immediately if you are diabetic, or prone to severe allergic reactions.
- Photo Credit Wikipedia commons public domain via Seth/federal government
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Comments
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johnnyjones
May 30, 2010
My daughter (4yrs old) got 16 ant bites on her right ankle. The ankle swelled, then her mouth, face, eyes, ears and started forming hives. We gave her benadryl and took her to the emergency room and they checked her oxygen gave her steriods and kept her for awhile to keep an eye on her. Next day ankle still swollen and hive appeared, but doing better. Dr. gave her prescription steriods. -
jull14
Jul 12, 2009
Excellent article and very helpful for many here at ehow. Thanks for sharing with us, keep up the good work. I really love your articles, they are very helpful and provide easy steps to follow.
