How to Treat a Bee Sting

Series Summary

The term “first aid” refers to the immediate care that is provided to an injured or sick person. It is used to stabilize a patient until further medical treatment and assessment can be provided at a hospital or care facility. For most of us, a first-aid kit is used primarily to treat minor medical emergencies, like small cuts or burns. But it is important to keep a first-aid kit stocked with supplies you use regularly as well as those items you might use until EMS can help. In addition to a first-aid kit, knowing what to do in emergency situations is a key part of treating injuries. Knowledge of how to roll an injured person to safety or help a person having an epileptic seizure may not be included in a first-aid kit, but might just save a life. In this free video series on first aid and child care, a registered nurse offers advice for taking care of cuts, scrapes, burns and children's illnesses. Find out how to treat burns, boils and aches, and get tips on boosting a child's immune system. Care for sick infants and toddlers, taking their temperature and applying cool compresses, and discover a few tricks to stay healthy while caring for sick family members.

Video Transcript

"You're wondering how to treat your child's bee sting. My name is Beverly Bitterman, A.R.N.P., Health and Wellness Consultant and I'm here to give you a few tips about how to do that. The first thing that you want to do is to of course, calm your child down. Sometimes it's helpful to give them a glass of water to drink or something like that to distract them and get them to quit crying. Then what you'll want to do is look at the site of the sting and you don't want to pinch out the pincher if it's still in there. What you would do, is if it's say a sting on the arm, is you would take a clean moist cloth and just sort of wipe it down and that will also help make sure that it's clean. Then what you can do is you can mix up a little bit of baking soda and water and make a little paste and put it on there, hold it on there with a wet cloth. You can put something cold on top of that. Maybe even a freezer pad or maybe you have a first aid kit where you could have one of these handy dandy instant cold compresses that you can put on top of that baking soda. The other thing that you can do, if your child complains, or perhaps it's several hours after the bee sting and they're still feeling upset and uncomfortable is if they are over about 2 years old, check with your pediatrician to be sure, but you can probably give them an analgesic like Tylenol with an antihistamine in it. So in other words something you might use for a cold could help reduce the inflammation from that bee sting. Of course if your child has any shortness of breath, if the redness is spreading, if it gets to be greater than about two inches wide, you probably ought to consider consulting a pediatrician and see if there's anything else that needs to be done or can be done. In case of any shortness of breath you want to make sure that you get your child quickly to the emergency room. Again my name is Beverly Bitterman a Health and Wellness Consultant and wish you luck in calming your child and getting that sting to go away."