Question: I know there is many arguements about whether peeing on a jellyfish sting will help, but what is the real answer?

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  1. No misszombie, nothing could ever be worse than getting stung by jellyfish plus having your friend peeing on your wounds – nope… You have to apply vinegar! The idea of urine possibly originated because sometimes putting something slightly acidic may help if there is no vinegar around but don’t try urinating on your wounds…

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  2. I always thought this was a real remedy but maybe we can’t believe everuthing we see in Tv shows like Friends, and New Girl.

    So i went looking for actual research on the matter.

    Based on a review of 19 previous studies, researchers found that using hot water and a topical anesthetic are more effective than using urine, vinegar, baking soda and meat tenderizer.

    These other treatments, they said, may work with species found outside of North America.

    “Some of the remedies promoted by word of mouth and online, such as vinegar, actually make the pain worse with certain species of jellyfish,” lead author Dr. Nicholas Ward of the University of California San Diego said in a press release. “Current evidence suggests hot water and topical lidocaine, which is available at local pharmacies, may be more universally beneficial in treating pain from a jellyfish sting.

    If hot water and lidocaine are not available, Ward and his colleagues recommend removing the stingers — called nematocysts — and washing the area with salt water.

    news article: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/jellyfish-stings-urine-effective-remedy/story?id=16630841#.UUu8zxkzn8A
    Peer reviewed journal article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196064412003939

    So i went looking for cases of jellyfish stings outside of north america. and found this

    “We present the case of a healthy 13 years old boy, who was attacked by a jellyfish at a Caribbean beach. The tentacles were removed one minute after the attack by irrigating seawater, and the father applied directly his urine via direct urination two minutes after the attack. All the symptoms and lessons disappear two hours after the urine application ”
    https://archive.ispub.com/journal/the-internet-journal-of-emergency-and-intensive-care-medicine/volume-12-number-2/evolution-of-a-jellyfish-sting-treated-with-urine.html#sthash.D7taLuzt.dpuf

    Both of these papers are only recent, so i guess the answer is, definitely not for most species of jellyfish in northern America, but maybe for other species such as those in the carribean

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