Hi,
went out yesterday at Leighton beach on a north westerly wind on a relatively overcast afternoon.
While in the water I was stung by some jellyfish, not too uncommon on that beach.
Once I got home I started looking into treatments (other than a spoon of concrete) as the stings started to itch badly. I get stung regularly, sometimes it wears off after an hour, sometimes it itches quite badly for a week.
The only thread I found was from 2009 with quite different methods described. Many of those turned out to be wrong or at least not confirmed once I looked a bit into it.
For those interested, a quick summary of what I found:
A medical note on the Rottnest swim mentions the following:
www.rottnestchannelswim.com.au/content/medical-notesSelect to expand quote
Fortunately no marine jellyfish in the Perth region is lethal. The most common nasty jellyfish around Perth is Carybdea rastoni, locally know as a 'stinger'. Its tentacles are approximately 10cm long but the body is only 1-2cm across. It is almost transparent and very difficult to see in the water. In summer, stingers can be in large numbers along the beaches. This jellyfish tends to swim closer to the surface at dawn or dusk and during cloudy periods. In bright sunshine it swims deeper.
The sting causes an immediate severe burning sensation of variable intensity that may last for several hours but usually recedes over about 30 minutes while the swimmer is in the water. But it may return when the swimmer leaves the water. This is associated with a skin wheal that may persist for one to two weeks with minor skin discolouration persisting for several months. Some individuals may also have an allergic response to the sting.
Management of the sting is to initially douse the area of the sting liberally with vinegar then apply ice directly to the wheal to ease the pain (vinegar destroys still-active stinging cells). A cold shower has the same effect as applying ice. Do not rub the area with sand as this causes more toxin to be absorbed. Temporary relief may be obtained from 'Stingose', or a roll-on underarm deodorant applied to the wheal. A local anaesthetic cream or spray may help if the pain persists and, for severe wheals with skin damage, a steroid cream such as Betamethasone or hydrocortisone may be indicated.
Those ****ers:
? So vinegar (or urine. This however depends on the PH level of your urine which depends on your diet. You'd want it to be acidic or it won't do anything apart from amusing the spectators) helps only if applied directly after the sting to destroy the cells.
? Rubbing sand on makes it worse.
? Washing off with water without touching it helps.
? Cold water and ice ease the pain.
? If I can remember my last safety training it was mentioned that hot water can help break down the toxins of cold water jelly fish. (e.g. south of WA) this won't work for tropical jelly fish. I tried it yesterday, apart from an overwriting pain from the almost boiling water it didn't do much.I also saw a few blue bottles washed on the beach, which I always thought were very dangerous. But it seems they are not that bad all together.
The one's we get here are mostly the small ones (up to 15cm tentacles) and the treatment is basically the same as above.
This document gives a good overview of the Jellyfish in Australia:
www.reef.crc.org.au/publications/brochures/documents/jellyfishNov04_web.pdfThe essence of the articles and threads i read was that onshore winds make it worse, same as certain currents. On colder, more cloudy days the jellyfish gets closer to the surface than on sunny days.
Hope that helps a bit.
This is an image of the stings a day after. Doesn't hurt too much apart from being a bit itchy:
huabamane
> 9 months ago, 17 Jan 2013
which has cortisone in it and works as a local anaesthetic. 
