I was stung by a wasp while trying to trim the palm leaves .  It hurt !!! Wasps seem to like palm leaves a lot. This is the second time I was stung by wasps. I was careless not checking the leaves before moving the large palm leaves as there were a couple of nests there.

It was really painful. I was ignoring it for awhile since I was still trying to finish the garden trimming. That was a huge mistake cos I should have got it remedied straight away. I felt the itch but not much happening until that night. My arm was swolen where it was stung. It was pretty large area and itchy. There was a reasonable bite mark too.

Being a person who likes natural stuff, I did my research. These are what I found:

• For people with known allergic reactions, they need to be treated by medical professionals straight away
• For swelling spreading like around 12 inches away from wound, get medical help immediately also
• For those localised swelling and itch, the following could be helpful: tea tree oil, vinegar, vinegar/baking soda/sodium bicarbonate

My experience with tea tree oil seems to make the swelling goes away a bit but it comes back after awhile. I hence tried the vinegar. It did help but still the swelling does not much improvement still. I then tried the combination of vinegar and baking soda, the morning after, the swelling area has reduced. The itch is still there though. I am not sure if it is due to the time since the stinging or due to the effectiveness of baking soda in vinegar combination. What I did was to use a small plate or container filled with a little vinegar and put the baking soda in it. I use the cotton bud to apply the paste to the swelling area.

Vinegar and baking soda are very handy kitchen stuff that you need to keep in case of emergencies like this.

For those without these useful all rounders, use toothpaste. They are as effective as others.