Monday, August 06, 2012

Bug bites and homeopathy

Ok, so maybe I should have said, bug stings.  But before I get to the stings I wanted to quickly share about a bug bite the baby received.  We were at the park last week and the baby was very tired.  It was past nap time and all he wanted to do was to be pushed in the swing.  This park only has 2 baby swings.  One was being used, and Aubrey was in the second one.  At some point both of his brothers wanted a turn.  When I pulled Aubrey out he would scream and cry.  The first time he was just clearly mad and crying. The second time I took him out of the swing he was crying and then started to do more of a scream.  I assumed he was just having a tantrum.  By the way, he was in my arms the whole time he wasn't in the swing.  When I put him back in the swing, after his brother's turn, I noticed a bug bite on his arm.  I thought it was a rather large mosquito bite.  I had just gotten two mosquito bites myself.  He wasn't itching it though.  It looked like he was having a bit of a reaction to the bite as it was quite pink and swollen.  I was very surprised to see the following day that his arm from his elbow to his hand (including his hand) was completely swollen. Very noticeably swollen.  I was thinking, oh great, now the baby is allergic to mosquito bites.  I thought that until the following day (which was yesterday)....

Jeremiah and the girls have been putting in fencing to expand our goat area.  It was just the baby, Isabella (she was sick), and I in the house.  I was cleaning my room.  Flannery came in clearly upset.  She said she got bit by a spider.  A spider?  Where did you get bit, I asked?  She pointed to her bottom.  A spider bit you on your bottom?  Did you actually see this spider?  Flannery said it had to be a spider since she had just walked through a spider web.  I told her to show me this 'spider bite'.  It didn't take me a second look to see that she was stung by a wasp (soon to find out a yellow jacket).  No sooner did I declare that she was stung, did Saoirse come in saying that daddy was just stung by a yellow jacket.  At this point Jeremiah did not know that Flannery was stung. So he just came in, leaving the boys and Moira outside.  Let's just say I freaked out.  YOU NEED TO BRING THEM IN RIGHT NOW!!!!  Thankfully they were not stung.

Jeremiah came in to grab the wasp spray.  He went back out, hoping to spray the offending beasts.  However he didn't know where they had come from.  He soon found out after he was stung again on his ankle!  He came in and I applied a baking soda paste, which did no good.  Jeremiah was telling me that he was starting to feel light headed and foggy, something he feels each time he is stung or bit by a bug.  Take note, that those are basically the words he said himself.  In the past he has gotten quite ill from the effects of a bug's venom (to the point of having to miss work due to being so sick) .  At this point I remember the homeopathic remedy, apis.  Apis is actually made from the honey bee.  So I made some up and gave it to Jeremiah and Flannery.  Immediately afterwards Jeremiah took off to purchase some wasp traps.  Five minutes later Flannery, who had been lying in her bed, came running in my bedroom and started to jump on my bed.  Clearly she was fine, although there was still some pain.  I made sure to give each of them the remedy two more times that afternoon.  By evening, definitely when Jeremiah would have started feeling the full effects of his bug reaction, I asked him how he was feeling.  He said he felt fine.  I said it must have been apis to the rescue.  He said he thought that since he was bit on his lower leg that the venom must not have been able to travel up....Basically that it couldn't have been the apis, he was just lucky enough to be stung on his lower leg.  Wha?????  You gotta love a sceptic, either that or bang your head against the wall!  Ha! 

So I've decided that the baby was stung by a wasp.  He got a mosquito bite later that night and there was no swelling.  And now a few days later the area is still pink, as opposed to just a pink bump that a mosquito bite leaves.  Poor baby.  I wished I would have figured that out sooner and given him some apis :-)

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