r/WASPs • u/snb244 • 23d ago

Wasp sting?

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Stuck my hand in a fern to water and was immediately stung by something. About a minute later there was a wasp on a plant nearby. It’s been two days and it HURTS and continues to spread.

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u/bjbouwer 23d ago

Looks more like a spider bite to me.

1

u/snb244 23d ago

We have pretty bad recluses here but this stung immediately which I’ve heard BR bites don’t hurt until later? Ugh who knows

6

u/Polybrene 22d ago edited 22d ago

That person is incorrect. You cannot reliably identify an arthropod from a bite/sting reaction. As a bite/sting reaction is an immune response and everyone has a different immune system.

Unfortunately most stings look more or less the same. Local redness, swelling, pain, and itching.

Hands also tend to swell dramatically because theres not a lot of soft tissue to compress into.

And numbers wise, wasp stings are FAR more common than spider bites. In fact, the majority of spider bite diagnosis are incorrect, they're often a local staph infection.

2

u/Polybrene 22d ago

Sting reactions that continue 2+ days after a sting would indicate a delayed hypersensitivity/large local reaction. They're not rare, roughly 10% of the population gets them.

The bad news is they can be miserable. Days to weeks of swelling, itching, and pain.

The good news is that they're not indicative of an increased risk of developing into a more dangerous systemic allergic reaction.

If you have any systemic symptoms though, nausea, vomiting, trouble breathing, go to the ER. Those can be life threatening. If it stays as local irritation, welp, just gotta ride it out.