How jellyfish stings and how to treat jellyfish stings

You are swimming in the middle of the sea and suddenly feel itchy in your feet, most likely you have been stung by a jellyfish. Jellyfish are very soft because they are 95% water and are mainly composed of a slightly cloudy, gel-like substance called Mesoglea. With such fragile bodies, they survive thanks to the poison contained in spear-shaped cells called Cnidocytes to defend themselves and catch prey.

Adult jellyfish are umbrella-shaped with a crown on their head and tentacles around. The largest family of jellyfish is Lion's Mane with tentacles that can reach more than 30 meters, even longer than the largest animal blue whale.

The jellyfish's tentacles contain a series of microscopic venomous spears that are coiled in hollow tubular cysts. When there is a mechanical or chemical agent that activates the receptors, the cap of the cysts will pop open and the sea water will enter, causing the tubers to shoot out, pierce the skin and inject the poison into the victim. These virulent TBs shoot out in less than 1/1,000,000th of a second and are considered to be one of the fastest natural bio-chemical cycles.

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Tuberculosis can be shot even after the jellyfish is dead, so if stung by a jellyfish, it is important to remove any remaining tentacles on the skin. Then, washing with vinegar will inactivate the cysts containing toxic tuberculosis that have not been activated. Seawater can help remove any remaining toxic TB cysts.

Do not use plain water as the change in salt concentration alters the osmotic pressure which will activate the toxic cysts. In addition, using folk tricks such as sprinkling urine on the itchy area can also be harmful, depending on the composition of the urine.

Wounds caused by jellyfish bites are really painful, making the injured person uncomfortable, especially young children. To reduce pain, reduce swelling and prevent the jellyfish toxins from spreading on the skin, ice can be applied to the injured skin.

Jellyfish stings can be mild or severe. If it is mild, after taking the above steps, the itching will decrease. In severe cases, people bitten by jellyfish not only feel pain and swelling at the wound, but also have fever, convulsions, nausea, difficulty breathing.

With any of the above abnormal or dangerous signs, after giving first aid, it is necessary to quickly take the injured person to the emergency room for timely treatment, avoiding danger to health and life.

Most jellyfish bites are just uncomfortable and annoying, but sometimes they can be fatal. Indian box jellyfish, also known as sea wasps, their venom can atrophy the heart muscle and cause death in large doses.

Despite having tentacles with impressive abilities, jellyfish can still be defeated. Poisonous javelins cannot penetrate the thick, protective skin of jellyfish like sea turtles and sunfish. In addition, all jellyfish eaters have distinctive jaws, with spines located upside down in the mouth and esophagus of turtles and backward-curved teeth behind the cheeks of sunfish to prevent slippery jellyfish from escaping.

Jellyfish are quite friendly with other species in the world, the tiny shrimp larvae often attach to the jellyfish's head to hitchhike and find food while the jellyfish moves. The small fish get between the tentacles and treat the jellyfish as a moving reef to defend themselves. Sea snails eat jellyfish tentacles and transfer toxins into the spines on their backs to protect themselves.

Even humans benefit from jellyfish. Scientists are looking to use cysts containing toxic TB to inject drugs into the body because the tubes are only 3% the size of a regular needle.