Don't pee on it!

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I have heard that applying urine to a jellyfish sting is the recommended treatment, but today at the discovery channel website, I read the following:

If you are ever unfortunate enough to get stung by a jellyfish, you'll have some small consolation in knowing that there is no need to add insult to injury by asking someone to pee on you. Experts recommend carefully scraping off any tentacles that have adhered to the skin and treating the sting with vinegar, baking soda, ice packs, salt water, hot water or even meat tenderizer ? but definitely NOT urine.

Personally, I've always let the effects of the stings wear off with time. They can be pretty painful and itchy, but this usually passes pretty quickly. To be clear, though, I've never been stung by a Sea Wasp or Portugese Man-of-War, and I'd probably not be content to just tough it out in those situations.

If I remember correctly, the reason why urine is supposed to be an effective treatment is that it contains ammonia. In the list above, I don't see amonia at all which makes me wonder if the whole urine treatment is the result of someone spewing out a whole lot of BS, or the result of a really twisted practical joke.

From what I can tell, the nematocysts (stinging cells) are proteins, and the best way to neutralize them is with something that would bind with or destroy them without further aggravating the wound. Perhaps that is why ammonia is not recommended- because applying ammonia would have an adverse effect, offsetting any of the benefits.

2 Comments

Dude, you used to give me a bad time when I'd pack up a bottle of vinegar and water before going to the beach with you kids! And we also took Adolph's Meat Tenderizer, remember?
It helped dad in Cabo when he refused to wear his long-sleeve shirt for protection (as you kids did) and got stung by some sort of jelly's tentacle...the welt was only 10" long, but it was excruciating and he was kind of paralyzed for a while. We put meat tenderizer on it at the condo, and it did help, but would have been muchbetter if we'd taken it to the beach in our first aid kit!

My guess, with the urine, is that some old timer at some point in his life cut himself and could not seek medical attention. Therefore, he used his urine to keep the cut clean. Then one day, he met this person who had been stung by a jellyfish and the old timer shared his story of of peeing on himself, and the Urine for Jellyfish Stings Campaign was born.

***No ammonia, but pee is warm. It could substitute for "hot water." I couldn't imagine cooking beef with pee though...mmmmmm protein. Could you rub an egg over it...eggs are used in cooking to bind things and they have protein...sorry I couldn't resist.***

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