Home remedies · Skin, wounds & stings
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Cool at once, brush a bee sting sideways off rather than pulling it, then leave it alone.
Cold slows the spread and calms itch and swelling. A pulled-out sting empties the venom sac completely, a brushed-off one does not.
Scratching turns a bite into a wound — that is the most common route to infection.
Sting in the mouth or throat, breathlessness, facial swelling, hives all over or dizziness: call emergency services at once. This can be a severe allergic reaction.
See a doctor: wounds that gape, bleed heavily or are deep, bite wounds, burns larger than your own palm or with blisters on the face and joints. Likewise redness spreading quickly, especially with fever. And any mole that changes.