Windex, or anything with ammonia in it will further irritate the injury. Most jelly stings are painful, but not dangerous. The box jelly, however, is a different story.
Management and Treatment
Wash the tentacles and venom off the affected area of your body with seawater. Don't use freshwater. Using tweezers or gloved hands, remove any tentacles you see in your skin. Apply vinegar or rubbing alcohol to the affected area to stop any more firings of nematocysts.
Nothing can ruin a day at the beach like a jellyfish sting. And while such attacks are common, the methods for treating them vary, and many remedies can do more harm than good. One exception is the application of vinegar, which according to several studies can deactivate the venomous nematocysts that jellyfish release.
Wash the area with clean water 2 times a day. Don't use hydrogen peroxide or alcohol, which can slow healing. You may cover the area with a thin layer of petroleum jelly, such as Vaseline, and a non-stick bandage. Apply more petroleum jelly and replace the bandage as needed.
Find the most highly-concentrated stuff you can and pour it on. Vinegar inactivates the jelly's nematocysts so they can't fire, which means they won't be able to hurt you any worse.
Soothe a Jellyfish Sting
The exact healing capabilities of Coca-Cola on jellyfish stings remains a topic of debate, but according to an Australian study from 1993, Coca-Cola reduced the pain and the reaction to a sting between 25 to 75 percent.
Wear some type of protective footwear when walking on the beach, because jellyfish—as well as any detached tentacles—can be difficult to spot. Don't depend on a wetsuit or coating your body with petroleum jelly to protect you. These may help, but they are not sting-proof.
Most jellyfish stings are painful but not dangerous. A few jellyfish, however, release powerful venom into the skin. The stings of these species, if left untreated, can be dangerous or even deadly. Prompt jellyfish sting treatment can quickly alleviate pain and prevent a sting from getting worse.
Most jellyfish stings improve within hours, but some stings can lead to skin irritation or rashes that last for weeks. Contact your provider if you continue to have itching at the sting site.
Jelly fish stings: care for mild reactions
Take an antihistamine pill (Zyrtec, Xozal, Benadryl) to help relieve itching and swelling. Corticosteroid cream, lidocaine ointment or calamine lotion may relieve pain and itchy rash. Use oral over-the-counter painkillers if needed (paracetamol, ibuprofen).
Consequently, common home remedies such as vinegar, lemon juice, and urine may actually cause additional nematocysts remaining on the skin to discharge, thereby worsening the injury. The second therapeutic objective has concentrated on inactivating the venom.
Researching the Portuguese man o' war jellyfish, the study found that popular treatments such as lemon juice, urine and baking soda could actually make stings worse. The best antidote is, in fact, vinegar. If stung, the area should be rinsed with vinegar before applying heat.
There are three steps commonly recommended for first aid treatment of a jellyfish sting: Rinse: Rinse away the tentacles using hot water if possible. If hot water isn't available, use salt water rather than fresh. Freshwater may worsen the pain.
Heat is the key
“And if you Google it, many sites —even those considered reputable—will tell you to put ice on a sting to dull the pain. But research to date has shown that all marine venoms are highly heat sensitive, thus hot water or hot packs should be more effective than cold packs or ice.”
Irukandji jellyfish's stings are so severe they can cause fatal brain hemorrhages and on average send 50-100 people to the hospital annually. Robert Drewe describes the sting as "100 times as potent as that of a cobra and 1,000 times stronger than a tarantula's".
Dr. Boniface says he recommends warm or hot water emersion because cold water can encourage nematocysts to pump more toxin into the skin. Most jellyfish stings will get better with home treatment.
At the sting site there is a characteristic raised red line that remains for hours to days. There is good evidence immersing someone in hot water works when treating bluebottle stings. Hot water inactivates the jellyfish toxins and so stops the pain; it is effective in about 90% of cases after 20 minutes.
Wounds should be cleaned 3 times each day and covered with a thin layer of antiseptic ointment. But when a deep sore develops, you may need medical treatment to help the sore heal and prevent infection.
Symptoms of severe jellyfish stings include: Stomach pain, nausea and vomiting. Headache.
Jellyfish stings make raised, red welts that develop along the site of the sting. The welts may last for 1 to 2 weeks, and itchy skin rashes may appear 1 to 4 weeks after the sting. Portuguese man-of-war stings result in a red line with small white sores.
“People have said that on a scale of 1 to 10, the sting of a box jelly on bare skin is a 100.
Safe Sea ® SPF 15 lotion 4 oz. bottle. Provides approximately one full-body adult application. Provides protection against jellyfish stings and UVA/UVB Sun Rays Safe Sea is hypoallergenic, biodegradable, and harmless to aquatic life.
Apply shaving cream. After you've been stung, the jellyfish stinging cells can continue to cause pain if you activate them. When you apply shaving cream, the jellyfish cells release the painful stinging chemicals into the cream. You then carefully scrape off the cream using something hard like a credit card.
After migrating, jellyfish usually reproduce in the summer, which is why you want to be careful when going to the beach during the summer months.