Bee sting for kids, worse than you may think

Children playingIt is the practice of most parents to overlook bee sting in children. Experts warn that, in fact, a bee sting may be worse than was previously thought, considering that a sting may trigger a dangerous anaphylactic reaction that is potentially deadly, reports Sade Oguntola.

MANY people assume that bee stings should not portend any danger in children, especially because of the sweetness of honey produced by them. But Mrs. Kike Adekola, a teacher in a secondary school in Lagos, would never agree with this, because her six-year-old boy had a bee sting recently when he went to pick oranges at the back of their house.

Mrs. Adekola, recollecting the incident said, “he rushed into the house, crying, with his eye swollen and shouting pain, pain, pain! I was scared because I could not imagine him going blind, looking at him, and considering the fact that he claimed it was from a bee sting. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where the doctor said he was lucky that the reaction from the bee sting was minor and that, in some instances, such people end up dying.”

How bad is a bee sting for kids? Experts say a bee stink may be worse than can be imagined. For instance, a study in Israel that assessed how many of stung school children ended up with life-threatening conditions in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found that one in every 25 stung children developed a life-threatening reaction.

Even though the frequency of reported allergic sting reactions in children might not correlate with cases brought in for treatment in the hospital or correlate with the severity of the allergic reaction, they pointed out that a sting may trigger a dangerous anaphylactic reaction that is potentially deadly.

Honey bee stings release pheromones that prompt other nearby bees to attack. The main component of bee venom responsible for pain in human is the toxin melittin; histamine and other amines may also contribute to pain and itching.

The researchers, using 10,021 questionnaires to analysethe problem, found most of the children (56.3 per cent) had been stung at least once. Of these, 20.5 per cent had a strong local reaction, involving a swelling more than five centimetres across and remaining for two days.

They also found, from responses to these questioners distributed to 97 Jewish and Arab schools with schoolchildren with ages ranging from 13 to 14 years, that only 11.6 per cent reported a mild systemic reaction, while 4.4 per cent had a moderately severe systemic reaction, involving stomach ache, loss of consciousness and breathing difficulties.

Part of their findings also was that a third of all children known to suffer from allergies developed allergic reactions to bee stings, compared to only a quarter of the children not suffering from allergies at the time of the sting.

Children suffering from allergic sniffles, skin irritations and asthma are in a higher risk group of developing an allergic reaction to bee stings, and scientists have found that in children with asthma, reaction to bee sting is usually worse.

Dr. Soji Ige, a physician at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State, explained that as trivial as many would want to see bee sting, in some children, it could be very deadly. According to him, “a bee sting can cause allergic reaction in people. They react to the product of the sting from the bee. Such may have redness of the skin at the spot affected, some people redness of the eye and in some instances, they may have the most severe type of reaction, anaphylaxis.”

According to Dr. Ige, “This is potentially fatal because the anaphylaxis’ reaction can occur within minutes of the sting and is life-threatening. It can lead to death. This is a severe form of allergic reaction, which is widespread. It affects all the organs of the body, the lungs, the wind pipe, the stomach, heart and so on, thus the reason for its fatality. “

Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction that occurs rapidly and causes a life-threatening response involving the whole body. This reaction can lead to difficulty in breathing and shock, ultimately leading to death. For an anaphylactic reaction to occur, the individual must have been exposed, in the past, to the substance that causes the reaction, called the antigen. This is called “sensitisation.”

A bee sting, for example, may not cause an allergic reaction the first time. Another bee sting may produce a sudden, severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis or anaphylactic shock. These reactions usually occur within seconds to minutes of exposure. Occasionally, they are delayed. You may develop sensitivity and anaphylaxis to a substance that you have been exposed to many times in the past without a reaction, and often, people don’t recall the previous exposure.

Anaphylactic shock occurs because the body’s immune system reacts inappropriately, in response to the presence of a substance that it wrongly perceived as a threat. This mechanism is so sensitive that minute quantities of the allergen can cause a reaction. The released chemicals act on blood vessels to cause the swelling in the mouth and anywhere on the skin. There is a fall in blood pressure and, in asthmatics, the effect is mainly on the lungs.

Ige submitted that the reaction to a bee sting could really be worse in people already having other allergic problems such as asthma, allergic rhinitis and eczema. According to him, “it can even be worse when patients have allergic asthma and also poorly controlled asthma. This allergic reaction can affect the kidney, leading to kidney damage; so it is a very severe form of reaction that we are always very careful about.”

In the Yoruba speaking part of Nigeria, he said, the saying that the bee sting can kill is based on the principle that some have develop an anaphylaxis reaction and later die. According to him, an individual need not have more than one bee sting to react severely to the sting.

Dr. Ige said that an allergic reaction to the bee sting is expected to be more severe in extremes of ages— people that are too young or too old. ”It would be worse in people that have a background of allergic diseases than those without allergic diseases. But since by merely looking at an individual, you cannot determine those that may develop the severe allergic reaction or anaphylactic shock, every person that has a sting should see a doctor to ascertain if there would not be any major problem thereafter.”

He discribe as untrue, the notion that the bee sting can be used in treating different ailments, adding that “just one bee sting can cause an allergic reaction, setting up a reaction that could end up in death in some individuals.”

Meanwhile, the expert pointed out that in case of stings from other insects like wasp, drugs like penicillin, tetanus toxoid injection and food items like peanut, tree nuts (e.g. almonds, walnuts, cashews, Brazils), and sea foods can cause allergic reactions, such as redness of skin, eyes, and hives as well as anaphylaxis.

He said, there is a spectrum of allergic reactions and so people need to be careful, stressing that allergic problems such as asthma, eczema and allergic rhinitis tend to run in some families.