Home Health Remedies for Summer Ailments

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Simple household items can be great additions to a home first-aid kit.
Simple household items can be great additions to a home first-aid kit.
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A little care plus these simple home health remedies can keep your summer fun and healthy!
A little care plus these simple home health remedies can keep your summer fun and healthy!
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One of the best ways to remove an insect stinger is to scrape it out with a credit card, knife, or long fingernail.
One of the best ways to remove an insect stinger is to scrape it out with a credit card, knife, or long fingernail.

It’s summer, a time when our thoughts naturally turn to fantasies of fun in the sun. But sometimes the pursuit of happiness results in the unexpected self-infliction of pain. Maybe you ate a bad hot dog. Or stirred up a nest of flying, stinging insects. Or just stayed out too long and now look like a human-shaped cherry popsicle. Whatever the trouble, you need a little Rx, for your summer ailments. The follow doctor-approved home health remedies may be able to provide it.

Bee Stings

Bees usually don’t go looking for trouble. If you don’t bother them by poking around their nests, chances are you’ll never get stung. And even if you do, most bee stings cause little pain, usually lasting from a few hours to a few days. Unless, of course, you’re allergic, in which case you need emergency care. But for the vast majority of the population, a little tender loving care is all you’ll need.

Scrape out the stinger

One of the best ways to remove a stinger — and avoid any additional pain — is to “scrape” it out of the skin with a credit card, a knife or a long fingernail, advises John Yunginger, M.D., professor and pediatrics consultant at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “The biggest mistake people make is trying to pull the stinger out. In doing that, you squeeze the tiny venom sac attached to the stinger and accidentally release more venom into your skin.” If you scrape the stinger out, this sac goes undisturbed.

  • Published on Jun 1, 1994
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