Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss One of the downsides to the Great Outdoors

Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good and today was one of them. Being out at the ponds is what I live for but today was one of those downsides.

I had just gotten done swimming with the wife today (Sunday) and was walking the dog around the other side of the property to check out the draining of my bluegill production pond. Felt some burning on my face to the left of my lips. But I never felt a bite. Almost instantly the spot swells the size of pencil eraser end, which in what seemed like seconds became the size of a quarter. Next thing I know the whole side of my face is swollen up including the inside of mouth as far as the right side of my septum. I now look like I was born with a serious birth defect. I feel like someone made an incision and inserted a softball.

Anyway, to make a short story even shorter I put ice on it and took a Zantac B because our Benadryl is all gone. We call a nurse service we have with our insurance company, and shes says with no other symptoms (breathing problems, hives, scratchy throat etc. it doesn't sound like I am in immediate danger of anaphylactic shock, but I should get it looked as it appears to be a severe localized reaction. She says sometimes rarely AS takes a little longer to occur.

No Urgent Care Clinic within 50 miles so it's off to the ER. Half way there I can tell the swelling is going down so I tell the wife let's go back home. I'm not waiting around hours to see a doctor and I sure as hell am not paying the outrageous amount of money that our alleged "good insurance" doesn't pay for. Swelling has now gone down substantially and I'm glad we turned around.

Anyone else have a bad experience with an insect bite?

Note: Please be aware my comments are not meant to put down anyone in the medical profession and are strictly my opinion mostly on cost and not of this site.

Cecil, we have Buffalo Gnats that seldom give us a problem. BUT, when they do attack, a couple of bites makes my Wife look like I have given her a good beating. When they get me, it is more like a burning/itching and only slight swelling.

Keep Benedryl handy. When you do finally go to a Doc, ask if there is anything specific that you need to keep handy. In rare cases, allergic reactions can be deadly.

Cecil, if things were normal around your house I think you would die of boredom.
Seriously though, like dave said, my wife keeps kids chewable Benadryl around cause if a black fly even looks at her she swells up.

My son is very allergic to bee/wasp/ant stings. A honeybee will make him swell up like there was a tennis ball underneath his skin. We have had epi-pens around for about 15 years in case he gets stung near the wind pipe or has an especially bad reaction.

This time of year it's tough to be outdoors for some people. I am one of the fortunate ones that mosquitos and other biting sucking insects dont bother TOO badly. I will say, though, that the deer/horse fly female is the most persistant cuss ever hatched. Glad things turned out better for you, Cecil. I agree a trip to ER is a losing proposition. My son's litle Shitzou got her mouth swollen so badly, she couldnt breath. They think it was an insect she caught. Of course on a Sat. evening. $640 and overnite later, she was better. They had discussed a tracheostomy. I told him to have her put down. That didnt go over too big.

Thanks for your kind responses and wisdom I will definitely consider. And yeah AP never boring around here.

I have to wonder if it's no coincidence that since I've been on Lipitor for high cholesterol I seem to have become more sensitive to even mosquito bites.

Probably just a coincidence but...

BTW my mother-in-law took an ambulance ride once. She got a bill for $9000.00 for a five block ride! She calls it robbery without a gun!

Cecil, I have a piece of advice, take it or leave it, in 2002 at the age of 53 I had a Quadruple bypass, I have very high cholesterol so they put me on a Statin. Good friends of mine told me about the possible liver damage from statins and my blood test showed it was affecting my liver.
I was lucky to find info on a high potency omega 3 product called ResQ 1250 from a company called N3 Oceanic, it was started by a heart doctor and it's Pharmaceutical grade.
I've been using it since April 2003 and my cholesterol stays under 200, my good cholesterol is in the 80's, and Triglycerides very low without any statins.
Last year I had complete stress tests with dye and x-rays, arteries were clean. My doctor gave up recommending statins to me, and even mentions this product to other patients cause he has seen the positive results.
Just wanted to pass this along to you and anyone else who might be looking for an alternative to statins.

In the last four weeks, I've had two instances where the actual whites of one of my eyes (in between the pupil and the outer edge of my eye) has swollen up. It takes an hour or so for the swelling to go down. The swelling stays confined to the portion of my eye exposed to air; in other words, if I look to the side in the direction of the swelling, the swelling bunches up in between my pupil and the edge of my upper and lower eye lid.

Freaked me out, yo.

The other day i was sitting on the couch and my arm started hurting like crazy. Don't know what bit me but low and behold a huge red bump in my armit. Hurt for a couple of days... i think the armpit is a very sucky place to have a bite.

I've seen the menu; stay away from the blue plate special

"nobody goes there anymore, 'cause it's too crowded" - yogi

Years ago I had just come back from a overseas and was taking my parents out for a anniversary dinner later that day. A deer fly bite me on the top lip, right under my nose. My lips swelled up so much that I could actually look down and see them (eat your heart out Mick Jagger). I still took them to dinner but you can only imagine all the strange looks I got. Ice and Benadryl eventually brought them back down only to have them peel from the skin being stretched so tight. I hate biting flies.

I don't have much problems with insects, but I had something crawling on my neck few years back and initial reaction of smashing it killed it. I saw it was a stinkbug and smelled it obviously, but then it started to burn my skin. It felt like a sunburn in a tiny area on my neck.