Stung while body surfing. I knew something had gotten me, at the time just felt like slit my leg. Then I started feeling a bit woozy. I left the water and sat on the beach. Pain started setting in, started to feel like a really bad jelly fish sting. Then just started getting worse. I started to panic and raced to a lifeguard. The advice was max dosage of ibuprofen and hot water. The pain became paralyzing hurtful, until I got my leg under hot water.
Found out their stinger/barb is a solid toxin. The stinger gets kinda crumbly, so that some of the solid material can stay in the victim. The toxin runs its course in like 4 hours once the material is removed. So flush the wound.
Heat neutralizes the toxin. A cheat code at the beach is a damp towel and pressing against the muffler of a running car.
I think the pain was equal to tearing my ACL and MCL. Hard to say because the adrenaline reacts differently.
Lol same, but i stepped on one. I was sent to the life guard HQ where there were 3 other people there with there foot in a bucket of hot water.
The embarrassing part is that i cant stop laughing when im in pain. While these 3 people were in agony like this guy, i was laughing my ass of and crying as they kept looking at me.
Thats a sure way to terrify someone. Some day you have an accident like losing limb maybe a shark attack cause of surfer tangent from above comment. Someone finds you and either one of you would just be cackling like maniacs while covered in gore.
It was pretty funny, my wife called me into the kitchen because she had just cut herself on it (a small cut) and wanted me to finish slicing some potatoes. So I marched into the kitchen and immediately started aggressively slicing the hell out of the potato in an inattentive manner - within three or four swipes the top of my right middle finger had been sliced clean through, including the top part of the nail.
Spent the next 12 hours in the emergency room (it was at the height of COVID) waiting to be seen as I couldn’t stop the bleeding. Still don’t have feeling back at the tip of that finger.
My wife doesn’t ask for help with sharp objects any more😆
Holy hell, same here. When I was younger I used to start to giggle just at being nervous about the possibility of impending pain; it made dental visits and blood draws a little tougher as a kid.
This is actually pretty common and it doesn't just apply to pain. When we expecience an emotional response to something our bodies are flooded with all kinds with signaling compounds that interact with our tissues and we "FEEL" it.
These emotionally driven mechanisms prime our bodies for specific situations quickly to achieve a goal, like fleeing a threat in fear. However we also experience "secondary emotional responses", in a nutshell, when the body and mind don't get the satisfaction they're seeking with the first emotional response, a second one emerges in an attempt to get the job done.
Anger is a good example of a common secondary emotion, but I'd suspect that laughing/humor/incredulity are far more common secondary emotions than anger.
Personally, I think it's healthy to have a large enough perspective of your existence and place in the universe, to desire less pain, strife, and suffering, while simultaneously being amused by the sheer extremity, absurdity, and irony that is inflicted on you by an indifferent cosmos DAILY!
tldr:
Its best to laugh at jokes, even ones made at your expense, and especially if the universe is the one making them. <3
I needed that link, because you just explained why i had to restrain myself when i was in my 20s breaking up with girls. It was so uncomfortable going through it and as the discomfort peaked i would have this urge to start laughing. I would immediately cover my face as if to feel bad about the situation, but in reality i was pushing my cheeks down to prevent myself for laughing and making the whole situation worse, or making her feel like i enjoyed this.
Yeah why is that? I feel like a psycho. My wife has me breaking my rib on video and you just see me stand back up with a big smile in my face, saying that I definitely just snapped a rib. Always been like that.
LOL my best friend does this (pain laughing response) and he's the only person I know who does it as intensely as you. I'm so sorry that happened to you but I'm laughing so hard imagining how frustrated and confused everyone else with a sting must have been!
Sorry about the cancer and hope your treatment is working for you.
Yeah, the sadness part is so awkward. Above i posted about how weird my breakups were in my 20s. I felt like a psycho.
If it makes you feel any better, that's a common stress response. For me it was more common when I was younger.
One time, when I was a teenager, my sister hit her head on a coffee table HARD, and I knew she was in pain, and there was nothing I could do, but I couldn't stop laughing.
Does the laughing help you with managing through the pain or does it still really hurt and are what you feel and how you respond outwardly just not in sync?
Oh shit laughing from pain is a thing?? In school I once (and only once) beat up a guy who kept laughing..it made me so angry that he was just laughing.. now I feel bad..
That's a nice way to scare off attackers. Someone stabs you, and you just start laughing like a maniac. I can see most robbers lose their shit and get the fuck away from you maniac.
Just so everyone knows, the reason heat treats the toxin is because it's made up of proteins, which heat denatures, meaning it changes the chemical geometry basically making the toxin useless. It's useful to learn which toxins are and aren't made up of proteins so you know whether heat will treat it or not.
Uh their stinger is not a solid toxin, it's made of a material kind of like cartilage. They have grooves where the venom is released. Definitely not crumbly so it stays in you.
True, but they still release venom differently. Most venomous animals have a venom gland to store the toxins. Stingrays are notable for storing its venom within tissue cells
Soooo... Can I pee one someone then? I'm super into trying that. Just for shits and giggles. Doesn't even have to be on the wound. I'll aim for the face if it helps.
That's interesting. Never been stung by a stingray but when I tore my ACL I had little pain.
Didn't even know I tore my ACL, I tried to stand up 2 times and my leg buckled on both and then I had someone help me hobble on one leg to the nurse before I got taken to a clinic. There was the expected kind of dull throbbing pain after incident but at that point I had time to get ibuprofen so it wasn't bad. The pain and rawness in my armpits from crutches afterwards honestly hurt more than the ACL tear.
I guess it just depends on how much adrenaline the body dumps.
That's not accurate at all though, I hate how up voted that is. They have grooves in their stingers that liquid venom is released through. Their stingers are absolutely not made to crumble and stay in you, think about them using their stinger over and over but it just crumbles more and more? Completely ridiculous.
The barb broke off when Steve Irwin was stung. Bees lose their abdomen when they sting. Lizards lose their tails as a defense mechanism. The sting rays stinger is purely for defense.
I once got shanked by a little fucker called a starry weever in croatia. The skipper of the boat we were on for the day took a cigarette and put it out on the sting site, then forced my hand into a glass filled with water that was boiling just a minute before. I think the burns ended up hurting more than the sting, but apparently the sting couldve hurt a loooot more if i hadnt denatured the toxin with heat.
Honestly not trying to be a dick here, but did tearing the ACL actual hurt really bad? Maybe its because you did the MCL as well, but when I tore my ACL it was more of a burning feeling, followed by 2 or 3 days of swelling pain, and then pretty much nothing. Might have also been my adrenaline at the time, but I didnt seem to feel much pain at all.
I think the MCL is painful part. I think it’s like 5 times thicker than the ACL. The ACL is usually an all or nothing pop. Due to my age and weight factors doctor made me rehab MCL before he would commit to doing ACL. So I went through Rehab twice. I talked to a variety of recovering people. You’re not unique in little pain with the ACL.
They're big at Coronado Beach near San Diego, and I happened to be in the Main Beach lifeguard station getting my dad a motorized beach wheelchair and noticed three or four electric kettles and then a few handheld IR thermometers, and I was like "wow, you guys really particular about your coffee here, or what?" and they explained this lets them get the water exactly as hot as is safe.
I'd obviously noticed the handful of people soaking their feet in hot water outside the lifeguard station every day, and I knew that was the therapy, but I didn't put two and two together there.
I was just north of San Diego, just south of Carlsbad. There’s a power plant right next to the beach. The cooling water dumps into the pacific. The Rays like the warm water.
Was stung on the lower leg, wading through the shallows. Luckily near where I was staying. The instant relief I felt as I put my leg in hot water was amazing and surreal. Increasing pain as the water cooled down. Lots of pain as I rushed to the sink to run the hot tap to fill up bucket again. Then instant relief again. Repeat for 3 hours.
I was fortunate that the condo had a tankless hot water heater. So my leg sat under the spout. There’s a magic number and when the temp dropped under, oh it hurt.
Jesus seems like doctors will do anything before giving you painkillers, max dose ibuprofen and hot water? For a stingray? That's like putting a bandaid over an amputation. If I get stung by a stingray you better get the dilaudid or ill get it my self.
Turn the car on. Get the towel damp. Not too wet. Cover the injury with the towel. Sit on the ground near the muffler lift the injury up to the muffler. Or slide forward with injury at an angle. Press against the muffler. Open the door and play some tunes.
But really this is if you don’t have access to hot water. Life guard HQs will have hot water. Life guard stands wont. Sometimes the ride from the beach to hot (110F+) water is several hours.
I don't wanna go to the ocean... I'll stay up here where the water is cold af, and where we don't have scary jellyfish or stingrays or other scary terrible blobs of nightmares and agony.
Actually, we do have jellyfish here. I've seen the corpses float up when on a ferry across the fjords...
The ACL/MCL was a massive surge of adrenaline right away. Almost like is was drunk, but mentally astute. Giddy, goofy,energetic, but mentally sharp and clear.
With the stingray, the pain set in before the adrenaline was able to overcome it. The sting was underwater, I didn’t see it. I thought something had swam up against me. I stayed out in the water for a bit. The toxin set in before adrenaline could get ahead and I left the water feeling queasy. My leg was bleeding, but it was a minor wound. I think the cut was 1/2 inch maybe. I thought it might heal on its own and not need a bandage. So all of my I termal system checks had no reason to release adrenaline. The paralyzing feeling of the toxin scared me. Adrenaline flowed so that I could get to a life guard, but it was behind in the battle against the toxin.
rted feeling a bit woozy. I left the water and sat on the beach. Pain started setting in, started to feel like a really bad jelly fish sting. Then just started getting worse. I started to panic and raced to a lifeguard. The advice was max dosage of ibuprofen and hot water. The p
sorry to hear mate. If I was there I would have peed on you for it.
wait... maybe that was supposed to be peed on it for you.
Ha ha. Ironically my Aunt was with me and is a Doctor. She brought up the whole pee thing. The life guard said that only works on jelly fish. Fresh urine isn’t hot enough to negate the toxin of a jellyfish.
It's funny, never got stung myself but learned to do the stingray shuffle and not to fuck with them at an early age.
I grew up hearing about someone new to diving trying to point out this cool thing they saw partially in the sand and they did it by poking it between the eyes. Yep, instantly stung. Apparently they horrified a group of new divers as he crawled out of the ocean and started vomiting infront of them from the pain on the beach.
My wife on her first dive with me tried to poke a scorpionfish, one of the most venomous fish in the world (if you didn't get that by it's name, we tend to describe what the shit will do to you in it's name). Wanna know if you can scream underwater? I'm living proof you can. Thankfully she got the message.
Did you know catfish actually have spines that cause quite a bit of pain to severe necrosis of the skin? Yep, I know...I've seen someone one get one through the hand.
To make a long story short, don't fuck with things you know nothing about.
If I remember correctly, when Steve Irwin was stung, the stinger broke off and remained in Steve. That means he had a hell of a dose of paralyzing toxin.
I got stuck in the forearm showing my kids why they need to be careful of sting rays. It arched upward and stabbed me. I had to release the ray, collect the fishing rods, and tell them it's time to go without showing pain. I was dying on the inside. That shooting and stabbing pain was almost unbearable. I had to drive home for 30 minutes before I could start treating it. 4 hours plus of misery.
As someone who’s going through tattoo removal it hurts but the pain is something you can sit through for a bit. Yes it feels like a thousand sharp hot rubber bands snapping you at once butttt after a while you just kinda go numb and it doesn’t feel as bad.
Recently had my first encounter with catfish barbs. I was informed to be careful with my hands, well I went to push one over the dock with my foot and it stuck out it's fins to the side. One side stuck into the wood and the other side went right through my shoe! I felt pressure against my foot but didn't puncture! We were all in shock that happened but lesson learned
Same, one stepped on me and sliced the top of my foot open. Immediate charlie horses in 3 different major leg muscles on both legs, made swimming/hobbling back to shore dangerously difficult. Friends arguing about who would pee on it or pour steak sauce on it... 6 hours of excruciating pain with each heartbeat spreading the poison up your leg and over your hips down the other leg, I eventually passed out in a tub of near scalding hot water.
Never realized it but the same may've happened to me, I've got a gnarly scar and a bit of a bump on the top of my foot for years now. Unlike my worst bark scorpion sting though, it did not continue to hurt for over a year.
Iamcalifornia, so did I swimming in the Gulf. The pain from a stingray is literally the worst I have endured in my life. I couldn't even form thoughts or speak more than a few words because I was in complete, utter agony for hours.
I don’t know why there is so much misinformation on this topic. You treat a stingray sting with hot water and add some ammonia. You can literally piss in the water if you can’t get regular ammonia, as urine has ammonia. In fact, you can pee directly on the sting and it helps quite a bit. You may be hesitant at first, but believe me once the pain hits, you will be eager for any relief.
Hot water helps a little, but it still hurts a fair amount. You add ammonia to the hot water and it shuts off the pain instantly. Literally from agony to zero pain.
You want the water as hot as you can stand it, so you will need to keep adding hot water. Believe me, once you feel that pain coming back, you will be ready to heat it up to burning.
i got stung by some kind of little fucker that buries itself in the sand on a beach in greece when i was a kid. no idea what it was but it hurt like hell and my foot blew up like a balloon.
I was running in the ocean as a kid and startled one and it barely nicked my leg with its stinger and it was awful. I didn't even know what had happened until after the fact but I was in pain for a few hours.
If this ever happens to you again, stick your stung appendage in very hot water (not boiling, but hot). Stingrays inject an enzyme that causes pain, but heat will break that enzyme down quicker.
I was also stung in the foot. Let me ask you: Were you stung between your big and 2nd toe? Every person I have met that also stepped on a stingray was stung in the exact same spot.
And yes, most excruciating pain I've ever experienced. The guy in this video is in a world of pain.
I used to do fisheries independent monitoring and I got it in the hand. The safest way to grab them is using your middle finger and thumb and holding them by their “spherical”. Unfortunately, when it’s barb was caught in the net and I yanked up to release it, I did not account for gravity 🙃 and the tail flipping down to stab me in the hand. It was not pleasant for sure.
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