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The swelling is a normal reaction — it only gets dangerous with breathlessness or swelling in the throat.
Also known as: bee sting · wasp sting · mosquito bite
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
The vast majority of insect stings are harmless: a local reaction with redness, swelling, warmth and itch that settles on its own within hours to a few days. With a bee sting the stinger often stays in — scrape it out quickly (don’t squeeze it with fingers). Crucial is telling a normal local reaction from an allergic whole-body reaction: if after a sting you get hives all over, swelling of lips, tongue or throat, breathlessness, dizziness or circulatory problems, that is an emergency (anaphylaxis) — call emergency 144 at once. Stings in the mouth or throat, and increasing redness and warmth after a few days (a sign of infection), should also be taken seriously. In five to twenty per cent of cases the reaction returns a second time after the first treatment, usually six to twenty-four hours later — after a severe reaction monitoring therefore lasts twenty-four hours.
Cooling eases swelling and itch; scratching can invite infection.
For a bee sting, quickly scrape off sideways with a nail/card.
With a venom allergy, carry and use your emergency kit.
With a whole-body reaction, a mouth sting, or growing infection.
Cool at once, brush a bee sting sideways off rather than pulling it, then leave it alone.
Three or four bites in a line on uncovered skin appearing after a hotel night rarely come from mosquitoes. The place to look is the bed frame, not the skin.
The flea bites several times in a row while looking for a vessel. The place to look is not the skin but the pet’s sleeping place and the cracks beside it.
Cooling and a cortisone gel take the swelling; antihistamines take the itch. None of them removes the venom — that is long since in the tissue. Heat of about fifty degrees for a few seconds destroys part of the injected proteins and eases things at once for many; that is the idea behind the heat pens. What counts is timing: everything works distinctly better in the first minutes than after an hour.
The local reaction peaks after twenty-four to forty-eight hours and lasts up to seven days; redness over ten centimetres counts as a strong local reaction and is not yet a general one. An allergic general reaction almost always begins within thirty minutes — that timeframe is what distinguishes it. About three in a hundred adults have one at some point. A bee sting is removed at once, because it keeps pumping.
Redness, swelling, warmth and itch settle by themselves.
Scrape the stinger out, don’t squeeze, to avoid releasing more venom.
Hives all over, swelling of lips/tongue/throat, breathlessness → 144 at once.
Can threaten the airway → cool and seek prompt help/emergency.
If redness/warmth increase after days, an infection is possible → doctor.
After a whole-body reaction to a bee or wasp sting, specific IgE shows which venom it is directed against.
Measured alongside in an allergy workup so the specific IgE can be placed in context.
Skin and lining renew themselves quickly and need zinc for it. With places that heal badly, cracked corners of the mouth and frequent skin infections a lack is a serious possibility.
Without vitamin C no stable collagen forms — the wound closes but holds less well. With a very one-sided diet, smoking and alcohol the intake is often tighter than assumed.
Steers the horn-forming of the skin. Too little makes it rough and dry, too much over longer periods harms liver and bone — and in pregnancy a strict upper limit applies.
Every healing needs building material. Anyone eating little during an illness loses exactly that — a sufficient amount spread across the day belongs to the treatment.
Sold since the 1940s as “mosquito protection from within”. Controlled studies found no difference — neither in the lab nor in the field. What works measurably are products on the skin and clothing.
Named against the swelling after a bite; it is not studied. Cooling for 10–15 minutes works reliably and immediately here.
With a severe allergic reaction adrenaline into the thigh muscle is the only remedy that works fast enough — antihistamine and cortisone take too long. Anyone with an emergency pen uses it early and does not wait.
Cortisone works here only after hours. It prevents the second wave that can come after four to twelve hours — which is why after a severe reaction there is monitoring rather than being sent straight home.
With a strong local reaction histamine-rich food — red wine, aged cheese, smoked fish — can increase the swelling for some hours. With an allergic reaction the emergency route counts, not the food.
Calendula and arnica are the traditional choice for the days after — arnica not on open skin.
The best-known field remedy of all: crush a leaf between the fingers until sap appears, lay it on. It cools and eases the itch — on an allergic reaction it does nothing.
Grows on every trodden path and is used in just the same way. The broad leaves are easier to lay on than the narrow ones.
AWMF 061-025 · S2k · 2021-10 — in force
Akuttherapie und Management der Anaphylaxie
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checked 2026-09