Tag: stringray

I Stepped on a Stingray: My Experience

**Over 4 years ago on Sep­tem­ber 9, 2013 while at the beach on vaca­tion, I stepped on a stingray and it stung me. It was one of the worst pains I’ve ever expe­ri­enced and at the time, I swore up and down that I would­n’t even wish that on my worst ene­my. Online search­ing yield­ed very min­i­mal infor­ma­tion, so I wrote this blog entry and it has been sig­nif­i­cant for those look­ing for infor­ma­tion and shar­ing their own expe­ri­ences to help oth­ers under­stand what they’re going through and what to expect. Because that was on my per­son­al blog, I felt com­pelled over the years to move it some­where else, and, here we are. Thank you for under­stand­ing. I’ve com­piled all of the entries I have on the sub­ject togeth­er in one place, and the expe­ri­ences I’ll post as well for fur­ther ref­er­ence.**

**Please con­tin­ue to share your expe­ri­ences here on this entry! Thank you for your con­tri­bu­tions!**

How to man­age a stingray sting: a quick overview (from per­son­al expe­ri­ence and per read­er tes­ti­mo­ny)

  • Don’t:
    • Use cold ther­a­py (i.e. ice)
    • Ele­vate above the heart
  • Do:
    • Place affect­ed area in very hot water (as hot as you can stand but not scald­ing that you burn your­self) until pain dis­si­pates. Has a sec­ondary effect of mus­cle relax­ation to allow any remain­ing barbs to work its way out.
    • Vis­it a med­ical facil­i­ty to get it checked out out for for­eign bod­ies and some antibi­otics just in case, what­ev­er they rec­om­mend.
  • Expect:
    • Pain.
    • Pos­si­ble cry­ing
    • A delayed reac­tion at the sting site at around the 1 week mark, with pain, itch­i­ness and swelling that lasts a few days and then goes away.
    • Inter­mit­tent annoy­ing pain, twing­ing, tin­gling, itch­i­ness for about a year or until the wound ful­ly heals.

Be sure to check out the exist­ing con­tri­bu­tions from fel­low sting-recip­i­ents at the bot­tom and feel free to add your own expe­ri­ences in the com­ments! 

I stepped on a stingray’s tail

Sep­tem­ber 9, 2013 — 64 Com­ments

Stingray 1    Stingray 2

What hap­pened: I was out in the waves with my mom, and broth­er. It was a part­ly cloudy day. Ini­tial­ly, I thought I’d been pinched by a crab, or stepped on a bro­ken shell. It hurt and I was bleed­ing, so I limped ashore and sat down on the sand to inspect it. There was a grow­ing real­iza­tion that it could­n’t pos­si­bly be either one of those because it became increas­ing­ly painful, and whol­ly unlike any­thing I’d ever expe­ri­enced: dull and sharp at the same time, and coursed through­out my entire leg with every heart­beat.  I hob­bled inside and tried to find infor­ma­tion on the inter­net, but could­n’t find much, except, not to use cold ther­a­py (ice) as it is described as “dis­as­trous.” Same with ele­vat­ing above the heart. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for me, I’d read that after I had done exact­ly both of those things, and believe me: DON’T DO IT. I was try­ing to be brave and strong, but it got so bad and 30 min­utes lat­er it was worse and not dis­ap­pear­ing in the least. I cried so hard as my mom tried to look at it, the neigh­bor­ing vaca­tion­ers were extreme­ly con­cerned. My fam­i­ly rushed me to the near­est physi­cian’s office we could find. Let me tell you: the dri­ve was absolute­ly unbear­able. Every heart­beat was excru­ci­at­ing as the ven­om cir­cu­lat­ed steadi­ly through my leg. My pain-addled brain kept think­ing I would have to ampu­tate, it felt like the tis­sues were necro­tiz­ing in my leg with every wave!! The med­ical office treat­ed me with warm water and gave me antibi­otics (they also gave me insight into the fact that locals there don’t get in the water past July). Then I had to go to the near­est imag­ing facil­i­ty (1 hour away) for an x‑ray to make sure there was no for­eign bod­ies still embed­ded.

Treat­ment includes plac­ing the area in water as hot you can stand for 30–90 min­utes… for me the pain relief was almost instan­ta­neous. The hot water also works to relax the mus­cles and hope­ful­ly allow any piece of the stinger to drift out. There is no antivenin for stingrays. It is spec­u­lat­ed that maybe hot water dena­tures the pro­teins that make up the ven­om, but oth­ers dis­agree with that hypoth­e­sis. What’s real­ly impor­tant is mak­ing sure that there are no barbs from the stinger or oth­er for­eign bod­ies left with­in the wound. Most doc­tors will pre­scribe oral antibi­otics in case of infec­tion, giv­en the nature of the envi­ron­ment that stingray stings occur in (ie salt­wa­ter, sand). The physician’s assis­tant down at the beach cut into the area (with local anes­the­sia) to make sure the barb was gone.

The days fol­low­ing and up until a week after the inci­dent, the area felt 100% fine. It looked and felt like a paper­cut on the bot­tom of my foot, and I expect­ed maybe some bruis­ing as I tend to bruise eas­i­ly. I kept bandaids on the site to pre­vent ran­dom oppor­tunis­tic pathogens in, but it had already scabbed up after 2 days. After we arrived back home, I went to work as nor­mal. The first day was more painful than I’d antic­i­pat­ed, but it was long before I for­got about it alto­geth­er.

Then, exact­ly 7 days lat­er the area start­ed itch­ing. A cou­ple things ran through my mind, like maybe the ban­dage was latex-based and my skin had had enough of it (I’m latex sen­si­tive), and that this was a sting like a bee sting and would be bound to itch, so I didn’t think much about it. But. The next day after work, I grew increas­ing­ly alarmed. The area was very inflamed again and there was a sud­den surge of lit­tle red dots all around the sting area, one of which looked like a dou­ble pus­tule. I put a bunch of hydro­cor­ti­sone on it, wor­ried about it and went to sleep. The next morn­ing, I was 100% con­cerned. It looked BAD. The wound seemed cyan­ot­ic, the inflam­ma­tion was a 4x4inch cir­cle sur­round­ing the punc­ture site, the lit­tle red dots were extreme­ly pro­nounced, and it was hel­la itchy.

As soon as I could, I called the office down where I had been seen and talked with the PA who final­ly gave me the radi­ol­o­gy report (noth­ing radiopaque evi­dent in the tis­sues, but they did find an old evul­sion frac­ture at the base of the 2nd toe). I told him about the con­di­tion of my foot and he want­ed to see it, but I was long gone from the area. He then told me to go see my pri­ma­ry care physi­cian and said that he would order an ultra­sound at this point. I called my PCP and got in right away. Called work and they found a temp. Ran off the to doctor’s. The NP was like, yeah that’s not nor­mal. No one knew what to do about stingray stings, so I vol­un­teered what the PA told me. Sent me over to the radi­ol­o­gy office to get an ultra­sound and gave me a sec­ond round of the Aug­mentin I was on.

7 days
7 days – Looks nor­mal for a cut
8 Days
8 days – start­ing to get bumps around the ankle! My feet are weird.
9 Days
9 days – At the doc­tor’s. This pic­ture does NOT do it jus­tice!!!! Round, cyan­ot­ic around the sting zone and the red bumps spread­ing around the ankle.
10 Days
10 days – bumps have meld­ed togeth­er into a rash-look­ing patch around my ankle. Still dark look­ing cir­cle around sting site

After wait­ing in radi­ol­o­gy for about an hour, they let me go only to call me while I was wait­ing for my Aug­mentin to be filled at the phar­ma­cy. The radi­ol­o­gist spoke with me, telling me that there was a LOT of flu­id in the area and they couldn’t see any­thing. She had con­versed with the NP and they want me back next Thurs­day for a re-eval­u­a­tion, pos­si­bly a new ultra­sound, and pos­si­bly a drainage of the area. I’m like, OK, so I sched­ule the appoint­ment. Then the PCP calls me too, to say that the ultra­sound was incon­clu­sive and that I need to come back. The last time I had my ankle x‑rayed it took for­ev­er for them to get back to me…then again they hadn’t been wor­ried about any­thing.

So now it’s almost 2 weeks lat­er. It feels and looks a ton bet­ter even though I spent the entire­ty of Sat­ur­day walk­ing. The red dots all end­ed up meld­ing togeth­er into a large rash on the inside of my ankle, but the inflam­ma­tion has gone down and the area looks less cyan­ot­ic. I couldn’t take it any­more, though, and scratched the HELL out of it last night, open­ing up the scab and mak­ing myself just mis­er­able (well, sat­is­fied and mis­er­able at the same time) because now it itch­es, burns AND hurts. The rash is not red any­more and now looks sort of dull gray, although the itch­i­ness has spread to the back of my ankle. I’m hop­ing that by Thurs­day it’ll look good enough not to have to drain. It def­i­nite­ly hurts when I work, though. Such a pain to deal with while try­ing to work with patients.

2 Weeks
2 Weeks Lat­er — looks much bet­ter, eh?! You can still see the shad­ows of what was, but no red­ness any­more.

Aaaand there you have it.
I felt much bet­ter about the whole thing that day head­ing into the PCP. They saw me quick­ly this time, the assis­tant faked doing a BP, and the nurse bursts in hap­py that it’s look­ing so much bet­ter. I am giv­en an appoint­ment for a fol­low-up ultra­sound. Once again, it was a quick turn­around, and before I know it the imag­ing is being done. This time as I fol­low on the screen, I can actu­al­ly see and make out what’s going on. Clear as day I see the cav­i­ty in my foot. I wait again as the radi­ol­o­gist takes a look. He, him­self, actu­al­ly comes in this time to take a look at the foot him­self. I describe to him what it used to look like and how now I don’t have to limp when I walk. He looked at it and I could see him jug­gling deci­sions in his mind before telling me that hav­ing drainage and surgery in the area is risky, so he would not rec­om­mend hav­ing it drained. Giv­en the sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in inflam­ma­tion, I was advised to keep tak­ing the rest of the antibi­otics.

A few days lat­er the PCP called to give me the offi­cial report. She said, “There is no evi­dence of a drain­able abscess in the area.” Hope­ful­ly the antibi­otics and my body will con­tin­ue to fight the fight and nat­u­ral­ly dis­pel the infec­tion. No word on for­eign bod­ies, so I’m assum­ing that there is not. The area on my foot is still pur­ple, but for the most part it feels nor­mal. Every so often it twinges and throbs a lit­tle (com­plain­ing heav­i­ly after I come home from work), but I’m of the mind that it’s bet­ter…? I guess only time will tell.

Stingray wound 5 months later

Jan­u­ary 17, 2014 — 4 Com­ments

Stingray 5 months
5 months lat­er — Looks like a sting that’s heal­ing. Just a small bump that some­times itch­es and twinges

That’s what it looks like. 4mm x 6mm oval, pink, smooth, light­ly raised lesion. I would have com­plete­ly for­got­ten about it except that more recent­ly it has been both­er­ing me. In the past few months it would occa­sion­al­ly twinge, but in the last 2 weeks it twinges much more often to the point that it becomes a sharp pain. It nev­er lasts long, but it’s enough for me to notice it and won­der what it going on.

My foot doc­tor patient a few months ago told me that the occa­sion­al twinge is nor­mal. I won­der what he meant by that.

Stingray Sting: 7 months later

March 5, 2014 — 2 Com­ments

Anoth­er stingray update! It has been over half a year now since I stepped on the stingray’s tail. It cer­tain­ly hasn’t gone away…in fact it is raised and hurts when pres­sure is put on it. It looks kin­da creepy too, but it’s not uncom­fort­able enough for me to get it addressed again. No doubt every­one will just pon­der over it, take some ultra­sounds, and then send me on my way again. If I step on my foot the wrong way, it hurts, so it makes me thank­ful that it didn’t sting clos­er to the mid­dle of my foot. If it had, then I most like­ly would need it addressed. My guess is that my body is try­ing to push the rest of the injury out, slow­ly. Either that or scar tis­sue has over­grown the area. I feel like it’s not get­ting worse…potentially even a lit­tle bet­ter.

I’ll keep mon­i­tor­ing it. In the mean­time, here are some pics:

IMG_0314

IMG_0309

IMG_0308

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Reader Comments

  1. Anony­mous

    Holy moly! That is strange so many days after it doing that. I am assum­ing they checked for par­a­sites? I got barbed today in exact­ly the same spot. I have had two chil­dren and surgery on my neck and the pain wasn’t as bad as what I felt today. I was in ankle deep water on the coast in Port Aransas, Tx and was tread­ing very care­ful­ly, after last year, hav­ing a 3 ft shark swim­ming right by my husband’s leg in water bare­ly at our calves, when I stepped on a ray. It must’ve been buried because I was look­ing right at the water and nev­er seen it (maybe time for new glass­es). My hus­band saw it when it swam away, said it was about nine inch­es around. I can’t imag­ine even liv­ing through a sting if the thing would have been big­ger. I sure hope your foot con­tin­ues to get bet­ter and you haven’t any more pain. (-:

    aowam
    Sep­tem­ber 26, 2013 at 7:02 am Edit
    When I was read­ing around on the inter­net, hav­ing the area inflame after a week was not unheard of. I’d be curi­ous to know if yours does that too. Not to say that I’m glad you got stung because omg the pain!! I will also take the moment to say that I don’t think the one that got me was as big as yours (not that I saw any­thing). Now a month lat­er, the area still has a scab, it still looks black­ish, but it only tin­gle-hurts occa­sion­al­ly. Hope­ful­ly it’s just heal­ing and I didn’t suf­fer too much nerve dam­age. I wish you the best while it heals and that you don’t get an abscess like I did. 🙂

  2. Anony­mous

    Hi. This is the lady from 09⁄25 that got slapped by the stingray. My foot has been per­fect­ly fine oth­er than around right around the sting area felt hard, but only about the diam­e­ter of a quar­ter and my foot looked bruised. Not too bad, con­sid­er­ing the sub­stan­tial amount of pain I had. Now, 9 days out, this morn­ing I woke up with it itch­ing like crazy and the hard place diam­e­ter is now red. My hus­band said quit read­ing the inter­net, you’re going to end up with a club foot!! Yes, he is quite com­pas­sion­ate (-:. Any­way, hope­ful­ly this won’t ele­vate beyond the insane itch­ing part. I want­ed to ask you though, if you put any­thing on it to help with the itch­ing? I tried Benedryl cream and that didn’t help any so just won­der­ing (and hop­ing) what/if you tried any­thing that did? By the way, thank you for shar­ing sto­ry and pics. It’s inter­est­ing to see how this affect­ed some­one else. I mean if it unfor­tu­nate­ly hap­pened to some­one else. Okay, well, any­way, thanks for the info..

    aowam
    Octo­ber 4, 2013 at 1:33 pm
    I tried using otc hydro­cor­ti­sone but it seemed to make it worse!! So to answer your ques­tion, all I did was take a benedryl. The nurse rec­om­mend­ed also using clar­itin or zyrtec while it was inflamed. Real­ly, besides the antibi­ot­ic I was on it was the test of time. Using an ACE wrap seemed to help keep me from scratch­ing it, but I wouldn’t rec­om­mend an actu­al adhe­sive bandaid because that also seemed to irri­tate it.
    Hope­ful­ly you’ll get bet­ter!! Day 10 was the peak for me! Thanks for shar­ing your expe­ri­ence too because it’s nice to know that I wasn’t the only one!

    Christo­pher

    Hi, I know your post is about 2 years old, but I am where you were. Its been 9 days and it is just now start­ing to itch and become a tad swollen. I am not too con­cerned and I have not seen a doc­tor, as the ini­tial sting was painful, but bear­able.
    Now, read­ing these posts I won­der what/how your out­come was and what you rec­om­mend?
    Thanks
    Chris

     

  3. Lisa
    April 16, 2014 at 4:28 pm Edit
    I was stung by a stingray and 7 days after mine start­ed itch­ing like crazy! I was lucky that the Dr in my Instacare use to work in Hawaii! He said that there is a small per­cent­age of peo­ple who are aller­gic to tiny barbs inside. He said it would take months to heal on its own or he could give me a steroid shot and it should be healed in a week. I went for the shot and the itch­ing and pain was gone in a hour. The entire sting was healed with­in a week or so but there was no more pain or sting­ing. Just want­ed to pass it on for oth­ers that might be look­ing for answers.
    1. aowam
      April 24, 2014 at 10:20 pm
      Now I kind of wish I’d got­ten a shot like that. Would’ve been a heck­u­val­ot eas­i­er to deal with.
    2. Christie

      I was stung 7 days ago and the itch­ing is unbear­able. Do you know what type of steroid it was?

  4. Ian
    April 24, 2014 at 6:18 pm Edit
    I was stung last week at Pass A Grille Beach in St. Peters­burg, Flori­da. The ray got the top of my foot, so all the bones up there pre­vent­ed deep pen­e­tra­tion. I did not seek med­ical atten­tion, as the pain went away quick­ly and a doc­tor friend of mine said that if you don’t feel any more pain, then there is unlike­ly to be any barbs under the skin. It scabbed over, then the scab came off after a day of walk­ing in dress shoes. I put on Poly­sporin and a Band-Aid, and now the wound is is unbear­ably itchy…
    1. aowam

      See! It seems that after about a week is when the itch­i­ness comes about!! I hope every­thing clears up quick­ly for you.

      Christie

      Thank you for this infor­ma­tion. I am one week out from a sting ray bite and woke up in the mid­dle of the night with unbear­able itch­ing to find that it hap­pened to oth­ers. I will call my doc­tor in the am. Any oth­er tips?

      vbroers­ma

      I found rub­bing an ice cube on the area soothed it a bit. It was pret­ty bad for a cou­ple days, and then went away.

      Ian

      I took Clar­itin for a few days, and it did the trick.

  5. aowam

    Keep the com­ments com­ing every­one! And thanks for read­ing. I nev­er knew this post would get so many hits! Maybe after enough tes­ti­mo­ni­als we can come up with a work­ing what-to-expect sched­ule, since there’s not much else out there in regards to the mys­ter­ies of stingray stings! 🙂

    Mana

    Hi I was stung 7 days ago on the bot­tom of my foot, amd yes, the pain was excru­ti­at­ing, but the barb did not stay in my foot (checked by a local doc­tor). The swelling went down after day 3 but just yes­ter­day (day 6) it start­ed to itch hor­ri­ficly. The doc per­scribed antibi­otics but I have not tak­en them. What to do now? Also, I want to go to the beach in a few days, is it too soon?

    aowam

    I’m no doc­tor, but I would strong­ly rec­om­mend doing what the doc­tor says…the antibi­otics are a pre­cau­tion because who know what stingrays car­ry and sea­wa­ter isn’t the most ster­ile liq­uid on earth. And take a pre­scribed! All of it! Nev­er take just 2 tabs…always the full course. My wound was wrapped up with gauze and I went out into the water any­ways by day 2. As long as it’s cov­ered (once again, sand/water…germ fac­to­ries) I don’t see a prob­lem. Just don’t push it. I hope it gets bet­ter!

    Ian

    Yes, do what the doc­tor says — and be sure to see a doc­tor! About 10 days after being stung, cel­luli­tis of my foot and ankle devel­oped. A 10-day course of antibi­otics did the trick, and I am now symp­tom-free, with just a dime sized, short lump remain­ing at the wound site.

    vbroers­ma

    I was stung a cou­ple weeks ago in the bot­tom of my heel, and was watch­ing care­ful­ly to make sure the wound was kept clean and would heal with­out infec­tion. I thought I was get­ting back to nor­mal and then on the 7th day, the bot­tom of my foot – about 2 inch radius around the punc­ture- got red, hot, and incred­i­bly itchy. I used ice to give me some relief which worked for a while. The next day the red­ness moved up my ankle – which is the direc­tion I think the barb went – and start­ed to swell so I had some antibi­otics pre­scribed. By the time I got the antibi­otics, the part of my foot that ini­tial­ly start­ed itch­ing start­ed to look bet­ter, so I think it was just part of the heal­ing process, as it seems like a lot of peo­ple have expe­ri­enced. Now I’m almost to the end of the 2nd week and the red­ness and swelling is gone, and itch­es only occa­sion­al­ly.

    aowam

    It’s pret­ty cool that the same chain of events hap­pen to peo­ple!

     

  6. Barb

    Stung on top of foot below big toe last week while surf­ing. Soaked for 1.5 hours in real­ly hot water at Life­guard stand – helped. Seemed to “heal” and then on day 6, got red, swollen, ten­der and itchy. What?!?!? Went to Urgent Care – took X‑rays and found no stinger in would. Said “delayed his­t­a­mine reac­tion” / aller­gic reac­tion, and pos­si­bly infect­ed. Put on antibi­otics. This was my 3rd stingray sting — all have been dif­fer­ent loca­tions, with dif­fer­ent ini­tial pains, and dif­fer­ent heal­ing time after­wards. 🙂

    aowam

    I guess it’s just the stingray!!! It would have been inter­est­ing to see if size made a dif­fer­ence or maybe species? Too bad no one gets a look at the attack­er!

    Ray

    Stung 3 times? Name checks out…

     

  7. strewn­her­en­there

    Oh the itch. Got stung and it hurt! Healed and pain went away after 24 hours. At day 8 the itch­ing is intense. No pain and a lit­tle swollen area. Strange poi­son they give you. I’ll wait to see if it gets bet­ter tomor­row. If not I’ll get some ab’s at the doc. Good to hear I’m not alone here. I’ll keep an eye on it. Not sure if it’s fun­gal or a immune response to the ven­om. Good luck my fel­low vic­tims!

     

  8. Anony­mous

    Hi, I received a sting on my ankle 8 days ago, I did have swelling and a decent bruise but all seemed ok. Then the itch­ing start­ed, I have left it for 2 days, how­ev­er my ankle has swollen and is extreme­ly inflamed and sore. I went to the dr today and he asked if I had a tetanus injec­tion (which i hadn’t), he said that I have an infec­tion and has put me on antibi­otics and steroid cream. I have to go back in 3 days.

     

  9. Chesca

    Thank you for post­ing this!! I know my com­ment is two years lat­er but it real­ly helps read­ing this.

    It has been 9 days since I got stung in Coro­n­a­do San Diego. The itch­ing and swelling just start­ed. It has been both­er­ing me all day and is mak­ing me wor­ried! I have yet to see a doc­tor… Which is prob­a­bly bad but I am out of the coun­try and have to wait anoth­er ten days to go back home! Hope­ful­ly it is still just in the process of self heal­ing. Do you think sub­merg­ing the are in hot water again will help it or boost it to drain on its own? I haven’t tried any­thing to help relieve the itch­ing and swelling, any tips?

    Thanks!!!!

    vbroers­ma

    Ice helped me. The itch­ing was intense but went away after a day or two. It wasn’t infect­ed, just seems to be part of the process of the sting ray poi­son.

    aowam

    I agree with VBROERSMA. To me it seemed to be the process con­sid­er­ing it clears itself up in a few days. Since it’s not ven­om any­more, ice should be ok along with OTC hydro­cor­ti­sones or aller­gy meds if it gets real­ly bad. Good luck! Also, it’s been 2 years, but I con­tin­ue to encour­age posts! 🙂 Thanks for read­ing.

    Chesca
    April 21, 2015 at 12:18 am Edit
    So would you still rec­om­mend going to the doc­tor or just wait it out? It just itch­es, swells and stings some­times.

    aowam

    If it gets real­ly bad and wor­ries you, sure, vis­it a your PCP. Trust your gut here.

    Christo­pher

    @Chesca
    I was also in Coro­n­a­do San Diego and was stung 10 days ago. The ini­tial sting wasn’t too painful, so I just let it be. Today, back in NYC, it itch­es like crazy and is a lit­tle swollen, but no pain. What was your final out­come? Did you end up get­ting it checked out. I am not sure how versed NY doc­tors will be on the sub­ject

     

  10. Chesca

    Also, how long would you say it took for the symp­toms com­plete­ly go away? Like swelling and ten­der­ness? I feel this ten­sion some­times at my Achilles when I flex my feet. Does it all go away after time?

    aowam

    For me the itching/burning/obnoxiousness last­ed at least 3 days, spread­ing to the back of my ankle…somewhat sim­i­lar to a mos­qui­to bite, but as you say it felt more­so because it did tend to want to affect deep­er anato­my. The itch­ing and rash couldn’t have been longer than a week, but for a com­plete full heal from the sting site, it was almost a year before the scab went away. Every so often even now (though far­ther and far­ther apart) the area will twinge, remind­ing me of the inci­dent. It feels like for­ev­er as you wait but soon it’ll just be a mem­o­ry and a cool sto­ry to tell 🙂

    Ian

    I was stung on the top of my left foot. I took plain old Clar­itin to relieve the itch, which might have last­ed for a few days. Devel­oped cel­luli­tis after one week, and was treat­ed for that. It took about 6–8 months for the sore­ness to go away — a mild ache that I’d feel only upon wak­ing up in the morn­ing; some­thing sim­i­lar to mus­cle sore­ness after you work out mus­cles you haven’t used in a long time. I still have a dime-sized dis­coloura­tion around the wound point, and it has now been a full year since the injury/

     

  11. Jan

    I’m so glad I came across this as it’s eased my mind . I was stung 7 days ago and today it’s so itchy red and hot to touch . Also inflamed . The night it hap­pened i felt pret­ty unwell – sick­ly and headache . Do you think I need to go to Doc­tor or does that sound nor­mal . I’m from Scot­land ( was on hol­i­day in Flori­da ! ) and we don’t get stingrays around here ! Thanks for any advice .

    Ian

    I’m not sure if the itch­i­ness is a sign of infec­tion, but the heat and inflam­ma­tion def­i­nite­ly are. Seek med­ical atten­tion, because marine bac­te­ria are not friend­ly to land­lub­bers. As for your headache and sick­li­ness, I felt the same way after my last sausage bap in Glas­gow!

     

  12. Hei­di

    My hus­bamd and I were in Fort DeS­o­to Flori­da last week when I was stung by a sting ray btwn the toes. Oh my God, the pain!!! But Wednesday….EXACTLY 7 days…it start­ed itch­ing like crazy. I am so glad i came across these posts, bcs i thought i was imag­in­ing it. Also the sting area is hard, like a knot, under the skin and it feels like a ten­der bruise when touched. I am not as con­cerned now, know­ing this is com­mon, but i will def keep an eye on it with my doc on speed dial!! Thanks

    Jan

    I went to my out of hours ser­vice today and have been told there is an infec­tion and am now on a course of antibi­otics for 7days . They have drawn around the area with a pen to keep a check on the red­ness and inflam­ma­tion to see if it’s spread­ing . I’m real­ly glad I read this post so that I went to see about it . Hope­ful­ly it will sort itself out now . Thanks for the advice !

     

  13. Keshia

    I’m so glad I read your post, and all the com­ments! I was stung 10 days ago in Port Aransas, TX. I thought I had been bit­ten by a small shark, and I just new my toe had been torn away from my foot. With the amount of pain I felt, there was just no oth­er expla­na­tion. When I final­ly got out of the water, all I had to show for my pain was a small punc­ture, that was bleed­ing pro­fus­ly. With­in 5 min­utes my toe was bruis­ing, so I assumed I has snagged it on some­thing stuck under the water and broke it. After get­ting back to my room and clean­ing it, I tried to ele­vate it, which caused the pain to inten­si­fy. My hus­band, annoyed by my “dra­mat­ic” response to the event, insist­ed that I ele­vate it (as we thought it was bro­ken). I tried for a lit­tle while longer, only to be jolt­ed out of bed to a stand­ing posi­tion because I could no longer tol­er­ate the pain. I then chose to sit in a chair and rest my foot on a chair across from me, keep­ing it lev­el. I noticed red blotchy spots form­ing on the top of my foot, below my toe. My whole foot burned like fire when my hus­band touched the blotchy area. My friend final­ly sug­gest­ed I was stung by a stingray, and we went to the fire sta­tion to get it checked out. They called the EMS, and I was advised to soak it in hot water and apply meat ten­der­iz­er. The hot water took the pain away, and all the bruis­ing was gone the next morn­ing, but I had a clear blis­ter that popped up right below the punc­ture. It con­tin­ued to look bet­ter, but with each day after about the third day it start­ed to turn col­ors. I start­ed two antibi­otics when we got back, on day 6 of the sting, and I’m on day 5 of antibi­otics and my toe is swollen, with dark red/blue marks, and some drainage. The itch­ing is insane at this point, and I was about to go tell my PCP how much he didn’t know (he told me the oth­er day it looked fine). So I am glad to see that this swelling and itch­ing phase seems to be the final lit­tle storm before the calm!

    Keshia

    Oh, and I guess there’s no spe­cif­ic antibi­ot­ic that is bet­ter than anoth­er? I am cur­rent­ly tak­ing Doxy­cy­cline and Cephalex­in togeth­er.

     

  14. Christo­pher

    Good to hear I am not alone on this and seems like where I am is the same place and just con­firms that it was a stingray
    I was on Coro­n­a­do Beach in San Diego and was stung 10 days ago.
    The ini­tial sting wasn’t too painful, so I just let it be.
    Today, back in NYC, it itch­es like crazy and is a lit­tle swollen, but no pain.
    Won­der­ing if I should ride it out or get it checked out? I am not sure how versed NYC doc­tors will be on the sub­ject

    Ian

    I was stung in St. Pete’s and a week lat­er I went to the ER in sub­ur­ban Chica­go, and they knew exact­ly what to do — so I think you’ll get good guid­ance in NYC.

    Christo­pher

    Thanks Ian. How’d the ER work out after being stung a week?

    Ian

    It was a smart move. See my June 2014 com­ment above.

    Jen

    I’m in Ten­nessee. Haven’t been to the doc­tor because they have absolute­ly now clue about stingrays. How did your get ?

     

  15. Amber Largent

    I was stung about a month ago in Buce­rias Mex­i­co on the pacif­ic coast 2 days before Christ­mas. I was in the water for all of 2 mins when I put my foot down to ride a wave in (I was only waist deep) when all of the sud­den there was this pain that felt like a knife pierc­ing into the bot­tom of my foot. I imme­di­ate­ly thought I had stepped on a sharp she’ll or had been stung by a jel­ly­fish, but with­in sec­onds I was over­come with some of the most excru­ci­at­ing pain I had ever expe­ri­enced in my life. In dis­tress and grab­bing my foot, my boyfriend scooped me out of the water and car­ried me to shore. Some­one came run­ning down to the beach as I was wail­ing in pain and informed us that it was a sting Ray that stung me. I was car­ried to the bar on the beach where the locals knew what to do. They soaked these leaves found on the beach in hot water that appar­ent­ly have some med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties for such a wound. If I had not had as quick of action or knowl­edge about what had hap­pened to me as fast as I did, I’m sure my out­come would have been much worse. I was riv­ing in pain for about 90 mins, it had sub­sided some­what after the ini­tial 30 mins and a few shots and a pain killer lat­er (I was in Mex­i­co, real med­ical care was lim­it­ed). On a side note, I did have some lady try­ing to push her pos­i­tive ener­gy into my wound… I had to tell her to move and that it was not work­ing… Some­one was talk­ing about cut­ting me open and I said that was not hap­pen­ing, not here, not on a beach. Instead I had peo­ple slap­ping the ven­om out of the wound while I laid face down on a chair. I think the guy that got me was a lit­tle one, and the punc­ture wound on the arch of my foot is real­ly small. How­ev­er it doesn’t mat­ter the size I learned when it comes to ven­om, I guess they are just as ven­omous as babies as they are adults, the only thing that dif­fers for these types of injuries is the size of the tail and species, but all in all the pain from the ven­om is the same. I rat­ed my pain at 9⁄10 and im glad it sub­sided quick­ly. My part­ners fam­i­ly had to see me in prob­a­bly the worst states of my life, which was some­what embar­rass­ing. I also had sev­er­al peo­ple ask me the fol­low­ing days lat­er that had seen me deliri­ous­ly and inco­her­ent­ly cop­ing with my pain how I was doing. My reac­tion was omg you actu­al­ly had to see my like that and I was some­what mor­ti­fied. I got a tetanus shot as soon as I had returned to the states 4 days lat­er. A month lat­er and I’m still sore around the punc­ture site. I can wear shoes fine, went snow­board­ing just fine, but if I put pres­sure in one par­tic­u­lar spot (usu­al­ly hap­pens when going up the stairs or step­ping on uneven sur­faces) it still hurts/is sore. There is what appears to be either still swelling or hard­ened scar tis­sue by the punc­ture site. It’s not red or any­thing, but I still keep an eye on it. It def­i­nite­ly itched A LOT a week after­wards. I also had a few instances of sharp shoot­ing pain. I still find the itch to return from time to time though, but not as bad­ly. Time will tell if there is More dam­age. It went through an area where there are a lot of ten­dons (the arch) so we shall see. Thanks for all that have shared, helps me bet­ter under­stand my injuries as well.

     

  16. Tom

    Its crazy to see so many peo­ple with sim­i­lar symp­toms as what I have. I was stung on the inside of my right heel in Puer­to Penasco, Mex­i­co, 9 days ago. When it hap­pened, at first I thought I was being bit­ten by a small crab, and a sec­ond lat­er it felt like some­one dropped a cin­der block on my foot. I said some choice words, picked my foot up out of the water, and noticed that I was bleed­ing pret­ty bad from a spot on the heel of my foot. I got out of the water, at which point some friends sug­gest­ed it was from a sting ray. They checked for a barb, and luck­i­ly noth­ing was embed­ded in my foot. The pain got real­ly intense imme­di­ate­ly, and I couldn’t move off the cool­er that I chose as an ini­tial rest­ing place for at least an hour. The pain var­ied minute to minute, but at some points I had a dull pain all the way up to my hip. I rest­ed my feet in the hot sand, and may have inad­ver­tent­ly bro­ken down the ven­om through doing so, because it became less intense about 2 hours lat­er. My foot was a bit swollen, and had a dark blue/purple line head­ing about 2 inch­es up towards my ankle, but I was able to walk home 3 hours after it hap­pened, and hob­ble around that night.

    Fast for­ward 3 full days lat­er; I’m home and went to the gym for the first time since the inci­dent. I did some mod­er­ate car­dio and think I might have flushed what poi­son was remain­ing in my leg out into my sys­tem, because I got real­ly sick lat­er that night. For the next two days I had no ener­gy, chills, a mild headache, was nau­seous and expe­ri­enced ver­ti­go if I moved my head or eyes around too fast. It was weird, and not like oth­er times I’ve had a nor­mal cold or flu… Am I wrong to assume it had some­thing to do with the sting a few days pri­or?

    Last night was 8 days since it hap­pened, and it start­ed itch­ing con­sid­er­ably. Today it looks a lit­tle red, is a bit swollen, and is ten­der above the scab. I’m a bit con­cerned, and am going to watch it tonight and tomor­row, and head to the doc­tor if it doesn’t improve.

    Any­way, I thought I’d quick­ly share as well to add my expe­ri­ence, as it was inter­est­ing read­ing all of yours! I’ll update this if any­thing else changes!

     

  17. Jill

    My daugh­ter was stung and was put on Bactrim. Nine days lat­er, her wound became quite inflamed and she devel­oped a rash all over her body. I gave her 10 mg of Zyr­tex, but hives began to appear. I took her to the aller­gist who added anoth­er dose of Zytec 10 mg plus a stronger anti­his­time at night called Hydrox­yzine HCL 25 mg 1 to 2 tab Even on that dose her rash got worse. By the sec­ond night, she is start­ing to get some relief and it might be start­ing to calm down. The dr also added a new antibi­ot­ic, Cipro as my daugh­ter has oth­er sen­si­tiv­i­ties and the dr was con­cerned about poten­tial infec­tion at the site because it was so inflamed and warm.

    Thank you for your comments.It helps to know oth­ers had delayed reac­tions too.

     

  18. Christy

    Did you ever soak it in hot water? I don’t know how you man­aged the pain with­out it! I also stepped ON a stingray’s tail. You are the only oth­er per­son I have come across who has also done this. We must be pret­ty lucky. 😉 The stingray must have dragged it’s tail across the bot­tom of my foot because I had an inch long and inch deep gash along the bot­tom of my foot. I was gush­ing blood all over the beach and want­ed to die from the pain. This was over 2 years ago and I still get those lit­tle red itchy bumps all around the scar. I feel like there was a barb the doc­tor must have missed. Now when­ev­er my friends get pricked on their ankle or top of their foot and com­plain about the pain, I’m like… Don’t even talk to me about it. Try hav­ing a huge gash on the bot­tom of your foot. Haha. I am SO care­ful now at the beach!

     

  19. Jen

    I’m on day 9 and expe­ri­enc­ing the same things as the orig­i­nal poster. My sting is in exact­ly the same spot. The itch­ing is unbear­able at times. The doc­tor called me in 500 mg of Kaflex to be tak­en 3 times a day for 10 days. As for now with the way it is I’m not sure it’s help­ing.

     

  20. Jen

    Day 9 (yes­ter­day) I end up going to a walk in emer­gency clin­ic. The swelling was so bad and painful I could hard­ly walk. I request­ed a steroid shot because of pre­vi­ous post. The swelling was down quite a bit by day 10 and no pain. My foot is more of a deep pur­ple now but no itch­ing or pain and I’m thank­ful for that. He did pre­scribe me a sec­ond antibi­ot­ic to take along with the first one.

     

  21. Pen­ny

    Very thank­ful for the post and com­ments. Being stung by a sting ray is a unique sit­u­a­tion! I’m at day 9 and yes the itch­ing is awful and the punc­ture spot is inflamed. I think it will be like sev­er­al of these peo­ple and will set­tle down soon.

    Jen

    I went Fri­day evening (day 9) and got a steroid shot. At day 11 is still swollen but not as bad. Clar­itin helped me with itch­ing

    Pen­ny

    Thank you!!

     

  22. Mariya

    Thank you so much for all your posts. It was very help­ful. I would like to share my expe­ri­ence. I got stung by stingray 8 days ago at Clear­wa­ter Beach, FL. I was walk­ing in the shal­low water as I was exit­ing the water. I felt sharp pain in my feet. The pain was unbe­liev­able. Only peo­ple who expe­ri­enced it could under­stand it. I also expe­ri­enced some shock and I couldn’t move my foot. Luck­i­ly my hus­band was near­by and cared me to the shore. I am so grate­ful there was a life­guard on duty. He gave me a buck­et with hot water, so I could soak my foot in to relieve the pain. The pain went away in about 3 hours, but I couldn’t walk that day. Overnight my foot felt bet­ter and I even was able to attend my friend Birth­day. The next few days I didn’t feel any pain and I was able to return to my nor­mal rou­tine. Until today (8th day) my foot got worse. It is itchy, hot, red and swollen. I am so glad I found this blog. It is big relief to know that these symp­toms are com­mon. Will keep you post­ed with my heal­ing process. Thank you.

    ian

    You’ve been to the hos­pi­tal, right?

    Mariya

    No, I haven’t seen a doc­tor. Will go to Urgent care tomor­row, if the symp­toms remain, or get worse.

    Ian

    Hot, red and swollen = infect­ed. Best of luck!

     

  23. Kay­la

    I stepped on one a 5 years ago and it still hasn’t healed cor­rect­ly. Most of the time it has a cal­lus over it, but from time to time it soft­ens and the lit­tle bit of tis­sue that did grow back is stringy (only way I can think to describe it) and boy does it hurt. Hope­ful­ly your’s won’t do this. To add to my won­der­ful first trip to Flori­da, I was stung by a jel­ly­fish 2 days lat­er and found out I’m aller­gic to benadryl. Fyi I didn’t go to the doc­tor for any of it

     

  24. Jen

    Thank good­ness for this blog!! I was stung by *some­thing* on 5⁄16. we had no idea what it was that had got­ten me, but we knew that i bled like mad and had a decent v shaped cut on top of my foot and it hurt like a B, like some­one ran my foot over with a car, for about 6 hours. We were at a semi remote beach so no life guards, no one around to ask their opin­ion. since the pain and bleed­ing final­ly stopped we skipped an ER trip. 8 days lat­er my foot swelled up and turned red and itched, so fur­ther research led me to here, which con­firmed, i was stingrayed. a round of antibi­otics and pred­nisone has helped. I’ll keep mon­i­tor­ing as some com­ments above have me wor­ried about long term effects.

     

  25. KeBron

    Got stung 8 days ago in SD. Itch­ing like hell and whole foot swollen today. Thanks for blog i know itll be ok. On antibi­otics now. If i dont post again, they worked!

     

  26. jane

    wow — amaz­ing to have found this blog that has obvi­ous­ly been going for years. I’m sit­ting here at 3.30am in Syd­ney, hav­ing been stung 16 days ago, try­ing to work out why the wound has sud­den­ly become so painful at night that it wakes me up. Ini­tial pain at the beach was appalling, hot water soak­ing at hos­pi­tal was mag­i­cal, I was checked that no barb remained, healed well and quick­ly with just a bit of red swelling left after 2 weeks, and then sud­den­ly 2 nights ago in the mid­dle of the night I had an hour’s pain that was sim­i­lar to the ini­tial pain (although nowhere near as excru­ci­at­ing). Now I’ve got it again tonight. But once I get up it goes away. Some­thing to do with lying down and hav­ing my foot ele­vat­ed? It seems oth­ers have com­ment­ed on that ini­tial­ly — but after this amount of time? Any ideas? I don’t think it’s infect­ed. And I had a bit of the itch­ing peo­ple have talked about, but not any more.

    aowam

    For me at least (it has been a cou­ple years) I had that off and on for an entire year, grad­u­al­ly decreas­ing. Nev­er could find a repeat­able source or rea­son.

     

  27. Melody

    I got stung this sum­mer, not know­ing what it was until I did some research and deduced that it was a stingray sting- due to the symp­toms I had. It felt like a crab pinch when I got stung and my toe was imme­di­ate­ly bleed­ing when I got out of the water. After about 30 min­utes, I felt an unbear­able amount of pain that would not sub­side. My friends thought I hit my foot on a rock and didn’t believe that it hurt so much. I lit­er­al­ly layed on the beach and cried for an hour while they went to rite aid to get me bandaids because there was no life­guard on this beach. I remem­ber just not being able to move my foot because I didn’t want the pain to increase. Get­ting to the car was dif­fi­cult and I had to hop on one foot. When I got in the car, my friends pro­ceed­ed to wash the wound with water but I don’t know if it was the fact that it was an open wound or if the air was cool but I could feel the air hit­ting the wound and it was such an unbe­liev­able pain I couldn’t keep still and just kept cry­ing. After the inci­dent I would wrap my foot and slow­ly walk because it hurt to walk for about a week. Towards the end of the week it start­ed get­ting bet­ter, how­ev­er it didn’t start to itch. I was able to walk but as the days went by my foot and toe, where the sting was, was swollen, hot, itchy and red. The skin felt hard and half of my foot was com­plete­ly red. I end­ed up hav­ing to go to the Emer­gency room and got an x‑ray done, an antibi­ot­ic shot and was pre­scribed antibi­otics to take for 10 days. They told me if the red­ness spread any fur­ther I would have to be hos­pi­tal­ized and be giv­en IV antibi­otics. Thank­ful­ly, it got bet­ter and I was able to return to nor­mal func­tion. It’s been almost 6 months now and the only thing I have to say is that I still have a brown mark from where the stingray stung, won­der­ing how long it will take for that to go away. Also I can’t tell if it looks like my toe is the slight­est bit more swollen than my oth­er one? But idk how that would be if it’s been so long. All in all, that was the great­est pain I’ve ever felt in my life and I wish we would’ve known what it was so I could have got­ten imme­di­ate med­ical atten­tion. Hope­ful­ly this helped any­one out there and feel free to ask any ques­tions! 🙂

    Dav­eo

    It is crazy pain for a few hours. Good news it does go away quick­ly. Keep an eye out for infec­tions, neosporin and keep it clean. This is not the end though, the itch gets crazy crazy intense for 2–5 days. After that it is over. Hot water is the imme­di­ate treat­ment. Not too hot to burn you though. It helped me a lot. This is the ini­tial treat­ment that life­guards use. It actu­al­ly breaks down the tox­in pro­teins. Hang with it. You will be fine!