Acid or Alkaline?

[mudskipper]

As soon as you noticed you've been bitten, wash the bite area with soap and warm water. I've not conducted a double blind clinical trial, nor had the Cochrane foundation do a meta-analysis... but it seems to reduce the itching later. Gets a lot of the nasty gunk off your skin.

Problem was I was in the middle of the woods on my bike.

[Old Greg]

I believe the title of this thread should be

Acid or Alkali?

Or

Acidic or Alkaline?

In either case, I thought this was for bees and wasps although I can't remember which way round. Acid for jelly fish IIRC.

[mudskipper]

I believe the title of this thread should be

Acid or Alkali?

Or

Acidic or Alkaline?

In either case, I thought this was for bees and wasps although I can't remember which way round. Acid for jelly fish IIRC.

Bicarb for bees, vinegar for vasps.

[Old Greg]

Bicarb for bees, vinegar for vasps.

I should know that as I have a hideous bee sting allergy. I think the point is that stings can be neutralised but a mozzie bite is not a sting bit a reaction. Maybe.

Anyway hope you're better and we must discuss geocaching some time. x

[mudskipper]

I believe the title of this thread should be

Acid or Alkali?

Or

Acidic or Alkaline?

Acid can be used as a noun or an adjective, whereas alkali is always a noun.

So acid or alkaline is perfectly correct.

acid - definition of acid by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

[NickFitz]

Found some - use by date unintelligible, so assume they're fine. Must admit - never realised they were helpful for bites.

Yep, antihistamines FTW. No need to try to remember which creatures have acid stings and which alkali.

And of course bites aren't necessarily either: I believe it's a reaction to various proteins in mosquito spittle, rather than a pH imbalance. So a drug that thwacks the reaction rather than the cause is what you want

[mudskipper]

Ta. Found another box (cetrizine) so will have one of those when I head off to bed.

[suityou01]

Ta. Found another box (cetrizine) so will have one of those when I head off to bed.

Of course these will do nothing for the bacterial infection and impending limb loss

[mudskipper]

Of course these will do nothing for the bacterial infection and impending limb loss

That seems preferable to the itching.

[suityou01]

That seems preferable to the itching.

I did wonder where you got bit. I think on the is the worst place as you can't sit still.