> So can you denature the venom proteins
> without denaturing your own proteins and
> creating a large mass of burned, necrotic
> tissue where the bite was?"
Heat is not the only way to deal with the proteins of sting venom.
Bromelain, when injected, works very well, which is how the "meat
tenderizer" myth got started. Problem is meat tenderizer has sugar and all
manner of other ingredients that won't help, and the sting wound is not
going to somehow "suck in" meat tenderizer applied to the skin. Style and
panache with a pediatric-size needle could stop the sting pain without
inflicting more pain from the injection, but needles are very hard to come
by these days. Any bromelain dose would be a guess, and it likely would do
enough collateral damage to equal the damage done by the heat treatment.
No less than the Wall Street Journal repeated the meat tenderizer myth,
somehow finding an "expert" to suggest it. Could this have been a "Placebo"
prescription? The mind is a powerful thing, so maybe the placebo effect has
some impact:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/quick-curesquack-cures-what-to-do-about-bee-and
-wasp-stings-1375841126
https://tinyurl.com/yf3dflku
Of course, this is the Wall Street Journal, a paper that, if the end of the
world was announced for Wednesday, would run a 3-line report in their Monday
middle-column "news summary", referring you to a 370 paragraph analysis on
the impact of the End of The World on trading in wheat futures.
Then, there is THIS guy, who made quite a stir among hikers and rock
climbers when he engaged in home-treating snake bites. Amazingly, he lived.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050320203402/http://patmoss.com/snakebite/
https://tinyurl.com/ygo5wexq
For most North American snakebites, you really want the nearest hospital to
stock Crofab (good for rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths, and water
moccasins). Yes, you could take some along on your trek, but it has to be
kept at 2 to 8°C (36 to 46°F), so it is, at best, a base camp medic item.
One wonders if Far-Infrared (between the regular infrared and microwave
ranges, ë = 3-100 ìm ) might do some good here. There have been some
therapeutic applications to date, but the "F-IR Saunas" that have been
popping up in the same places that offer aromatherapy and chiropractic
"treatments" are certainly not going to do the job.
But every so often, I will get a sting that hurts like the dickens, much
worse than usual. Usual for me is to hurt for a few minutes, and disappear
amongst the countless freckles that cover 75% of my skin. I am convinced
that some bees just have more venom than others, as my process to remove a
stinger is, by now, well-practiced.
My wife started to swell up so badly from some stings, she got the full
allergist treatment (John Hopkins method) for "honey bee and mixed vespid",
which took a year of visits.
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