Treatment of Lion´s Mane jellyfish stings-

Abstract

Treatment of Lion´s Mane jellyfish stings- hot water immersion versus topical corticosteroids Student: Anna Nordesjö Supervisor: Kai Knudsen In Sweden, contact with the Lion’s Mane jellyfish Cyanea capillata is not uncommon during the summer months, with subsequent local symptoms such as pain and itching, which may persist for several hours. Several remedies for jellyfish stings, such as urine, vinegar and baking soda are described in numerous websites and in the literature, most of them citing limited or no scientific evidence. Hot-water immersion is a popular treatment for many marine stings and has recently been found to reduce local pain following stings from certain species of jellyfish. Topical corticosteroids are recommended as symptomatic treatment for jellyfish stings by the Swedish Poisons Information Centre (Giftinformationscentralen), but the effect has not yet been researched. The objective of this study is to evaluate treatment with cortisone cream compared to hot water immersion (HWI) for reducing local symptoms such as pain and itching. The study was carried out as a clinical trial including 20 healthy human test subjects who were exposed to the tentacles of Cyanea capillata on each foot and then treated with HWI on one foot and a topical corticosteroid on the other. The results suggest that HWI is slightly more effective for treating acute pain and itch than cortisone up to 6 h after treatment with p-values <0.05, and after 24 hours there was basically no remaining symptoms. This study increases the evidence for HWI treatment, which is a safe and accessible method and should therefore be further communicated to the public. The second part of this study was a laboratory trial and investigated whether various substances recommended for treatment of local symptoms did fire the nematocysts, jellyfish stinging cells. The results suggest that vinegar does cause the nematocysts to fire and should therefore not be used for treatment of stings from this particular species.