An Experience of Anaphylaxis

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...some people will do anything to get a lift in an ambulance on blues & twos..:)
Only kidding, Roy.

Yep, I reckon this should be stickied - there is potential for death each and every time a hive is opened. You do well to share your experience with us, and it is noted.

Glad you are still with us Roy.
 
Roy
As a complete beginner, the story you have told is very sobering.

May I suggest you (or the moderators) find some way of ensuring any other aspirant beekeepers read it...
 
I am not famous for crying wolf. I know what I know and will continue to preach safety first.

Glad to hear you are ok Roy and will no doubt take care to make sure you are clad as you feel fit to be safe in from now on.

As Julie just said she comes across these articles in the ladies magazines suggesting very positively that Beekeeping is ever so cool and it's so lovely to have them in the garden. Makes my blood boil actually.

Be safe, you DO tend potential fatal creatures. Remember it.

PH
 
As a rule in our association meetings people have to wear a full suit and gloves if they dont have either they dont come into the apiary.
 
Get an epipen

I have taken up beekeping this year, i heve taken the preliminary course, made a hive and expect my first nuke next month. Three weeks ago I was in my doctors with my six month old daughter getting her imunisations. While waiting in the corridor my GP walked past and i stopped her and asked if i could get a precription for an epipen, she ask why and i told her about the beekeeping. She then told me that they only prescribe them to people with alergy's. My reply to that was " I dont know if i have an alergy but i dont fancy lying suffocating waiting for an ambulance if i find out i do have an alergy" She then thought i had a good point and gave me the prescription straight away and i now have it in my fridge waiting. So I would advised you all to do the same and maybe we could avoid the unfortunate sitiation that Roy found himself in.
 
Glad you are ok Roy and all's good in the hood! As for the previous post on litigation, a disclaimer is one thing, but you need to show duty of care to keep the ambulance chasers away. Risk assessment implies people judge their own competencies, duty of care means you decide safety for them or its a no goer.
 
Close call Roy......pleased to hear your okay after this horrific experiance.

Peter S, regards your new beekeeper going without a veil,i would just point out that if they were unlucky enough to get stung in the eyeball it can make you blind in both eye's, permanently......is it worth it.....suppose so if they want to be blind.
 
Excellent post Roy, sorry you had to experience it, but it will go a long way to educating new members and reminding all of us not to be complacent.

Good to hear you are recovering.
 
I am so glad you are okay but what a lesson to us all!

I attended a basic beekeeping course and one of the few things I did find of help was being told that the next sting could be the one that tips you over the edge. The words ring in my ears each time I think of having a quick check of the hives without my beek kit.

What I cannot understand is the macho idea that you can handle bees without some sort of protection???
 
Thanks for all the good wishes everyone it is truly appreciated. One interesting thing I've found out from my GP is that there apparently has been documented cases of beekeepers with previously normal immunity developing hypersensitivity to stings while the beekeepers were taking non steroidal anti inflammitory drugs such as Ibuprofen!, how many of us knew about that?....guess what I took before I went out to the BKA meeting, yep Ibuprofen.
In the documented cases normal sensitivity was resumed once the anti inflammitory ceased to be taken.
I guess I'll be taking paracetamol from now on!
 
I had heard this quite a while ago about ibuprofen Roy,sounds like you have found the problem,hope so.
 
I have the paper from the BMJ,I will try to find it.

EDIT:Found it HERE page opens as a PDF file.
I am a member but you should be able to read it without login in,scroll down the page to read it.
 
Thanks for that, I was also reading of other accounts that my GP showed me on his PC too. So it might be more common than we realise! makes you wonder how many beekeepers are taking them and could be at risk.

But until I know for certain I still wont be taking any unneccessary chances.

As Rach said to her colleagues today..."Life is never dull in our house!"
 
:iagree:

It concerns me the amount of new bee keepers who rely on bee forums or a book to get by week after week and even worse a lot of these colonies are placed in an urban garden surrounded by neighbours on all sides.

A box of fireworks waiting to explode. :angelsad2:

Hope your well now Roy and not put off from beek'ing.

Sorry but I completely disagree with your comments. Bees at the bottom of the garden are fine (we don't always have acres of land to situate our hives) and Roy didn't even suggest the hives were in an urban garden surrounded by neighbours on all sides. His post was warning us all that, even after years of practical beekeeping, you can still get caught out. It wasn't the novice in this case that got stung. We all have to learn somehow, and it ain't gonna be from our fathers and father's fathers.

Welcome all new beekeepers, to a fascinating world. I encourage anyone passionate enough to want to do something towards saving this dwindling species.
 
Deesel Dicx,

As usual, a reply taken out of context, IMO.

Mike a - and a lot of us others are inclined to agree that there are a lot out there who don't/won't have a clue as to coping with an unexpected situation (such as this, but not necessarily even similar). They are likely not even reading this.

Yes we have read the OP. We know Roy has twenty years beekeeping experience.

Yet we see new beeks without sensible protection; we know they are keeping bees in inappropriate surroundings without the experience to recognise an impending difficult situation, or having considered the options to avoid one. That's right, simple risk assessment.

Bees at the bottom of the garden may be fine. It is the large number of new beeks, among whom which there is a proportion who are relatively clueless, cavalier or down-right dangerous. It is that small proportion, but increasing in numbers, due to the increases in new beeks, who were being targeted.

I am in agreement that all new beeks are welcome - as long as they are competent, well organised, and safe. It is not only their safety but also the people around them. You may, or may not, fall into one of the unwanted minority. You can disagree as much as you like, but that in itself is revealing. The facts are there. There are those out there that fit that description and are a potential menace to their neighbours, should that box of bees become a threat.

New beeks be warned! Take heed. If you fall into any of those categories above, you may be a menace to yourself and others. You may not even have realised the possible risks. Think about it NOW.

RAB
 
Allergy

Roy, I have had a couple of (milder than yours) allergic reactions myself (after 1 or 2 stings). After the first one I visited the hospital allergy department considering desensitisation treatment. I had a blood test which showed I was not allergic at the time of the test so I did not get the programme, but the consultant warned me that my reaction could be bad again.
Sure enough, the next year, despite intervening reactionless stings, another reaction. Rash, nausea, tiredness, vision disturbance, tight chest, almost fainting but not quite. I wanted to go to sleep but made myself stay awake incase I needed to use the epipen. The doctor said I must go to hospital if I used the epipen since the adrenaline could cause heart failure. Since i was on my own, I couldn`t drive, so I did not use it, relied on double dose antihistamine tabs.
Despite an uneventful sting, you never know what the future holds, so always keep an epipen and antihistamine tablets in your suit pocket. It is supposed to help if you take the antihistamine tablet 20min before you go to work with the bees.
I wear double marigolds for bee work now, and have given up trying with bare hands. Therefore no queen wing clipping for me!
 
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

Yea...
When I had my first reaction, I was taking Diclophen (for an injury caused by a sheep! Since then i have lost a finger tip whilst handling a cow in a crush, and my knee ligaments are currently recovering from a sprain cased by a struggling calf being castrated. My teeth have been broken by another sheep. My husbands tooth broken by a cow. My mother-in-law was attacked by a nasty cockeral I once had. He scratched her face and gave her a black eye). None of my children have cought that nasty ecoli from the livestock though, although my late brother caught orf.

Who says bees are any more dangerous than any other livestock?

Good point about the NS anti-inflamatorrys though.
 
Who says bees are any more dangerous than any other livestock?


I do................
 
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