please shuffle your feet....
 

Took a stingray to the foot today at BB.....
It hurt extremely bad, probably the worst pain ive ever felt... Not exagerating...

Thanks so much to the kiter( cant remember his name ) who packed up my kite and even took most of my crap to the car... You Rock Bro..

Watch out for those little f'ers they will ruin your day for sure..

Also i cannot forget the rangers at ft desoto those guys are awesome :)

thats unusual for this time of year, normally you don't see them until the water is 75-80 degrees. I guess you had a painful reminder for all of us not to let our guard down:( knock on wood ive never been hit but ive sure kicked a lot of those things over the years. Did they use the bucket of hot water trick on ya?? supposedly it helps quite a bit with the pain. Anybody else heard that??? cuz i'm definetly not a marine biologist

The barb on a stingray is not a hollow bone with venom running through it. A lot of people think that the barb is similar to the fangs of a venomous snake, however, it is not. The barb, or bone sticking out of the base of the tail, is just that, a bone with many little barbs. When stepped on, the bone pierces the skin/bottom of the foot and gets stuck in place because of all the barbs. This then pushes in a variety of toxins and bacteria, causing extreme pain, and the possibility of a severe infection.
Be sure to get some antibiotics and let that foot heal well!!! Get well soon!!!!

Stingray toxin
 

The toxins associated with stingrays are proteins. Heat breaks down proteins and thus the toxins. The only treatment is to soak the area in as hot of water as you can tolerate (but not so hot as to cause burns). And of course, applying topical antibiotics should reduce the chance of infection after you're done soaking.

Hope that's of some help ;)

Here is a decent link.

I got one in the hand 20 years ago when doing marine research (gill nets).
It hurts for sure. If hit bad, I personally would go straight to the emergency room for fear of infection if nothing else.

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/sting...article_em.htm

Proper treatment of the initial symptoms is important but dealing with potential infection may be even more significant. I have heard of a number of these that became chronically infected with complications for some months due to no to poor antibiotic therapy.

A pretty recent medical paper with good information appears at:
http://podiatry.files.wordpress.com/...f-the-foot.pdf

Heal well and fast!

I've heard hot soapy water.

The other important thing is to be sure the wound heals from the inside out. Sometimes, the superficial layers of skin heal first, and bacteria gets closed in to the wound, therefore, creating a horrible infection. Oral antibiotics are usually necessary, and how about a tetanus shot? Have you had one recently?? You really need to watch this!!! Even if it feels better today compared to yesterday, that doesn't mean an infection is not brewing. Pain in the jaw can be a sign of tetanus.

thanks for the links
 

I havent had a tetanus shot since i was in the Coast Guard... so probably 7 years ago...

Although I cant walk on it, it does feel a lot better... but it feels hot, which makes me think it might be infected...:confused:

The rangers gave me the hot soapy bucket thing.. but seemed lax on medical care, bascially said if it looks infected it is ... then I should go to the hospital... otherwise I just deal with it... ( they were nice and all )...

They also said the booties might help but probably not... and I said "well that sure sucks":rolleyes:

All I can say is I hope that Never Happens Again...:shock:

Thanks for the informative link Rick.

How many folks remember or have every heard of "pungi sticks?" Back in the day, these sharpened sticks were dipped in aged poop, etc. to increase the virulence and severity of resulting injuries. Ok, in a stingray, the anal pore is situated just forward of the bony process or spike. The spike as a result has a frequently renewed coating of skate gut bacteria and whatever else might happen along to get mixed into the mucous covered elasmobranch "pungi stick." Unlike the bamboo variety the skate version is brittle and prone to fragmenting. So in your undoctored wound you may have embedded fragments liberally coated with skate gut saute.

If you read that article you will see something about "aggressive" antibiotic treatment. This doesn't imply a good dosing with Neosporen or even taking a mild antibiotic orally. They mean something more potent and aggressive. I can recall a lady windsurfer going to the ER in the Melbourne area sometime back. I think she just got some oral antibiotic. She had a lingering infection impacting muscles in her leg for about five months. It was later concluded she didn't receive an appropriate course of antibiotic treatment.

It may not become severely infected after all, some do however. So, trust to a liberally dosing of Lux soap and warm water if you feel optimistic or have it looked at and receive some appropriate medication.

You're welcome Scott. I hadn't seen the article before. It was written after Steve Irwin's accident.

Good luck

hot=inflammation which in this case likely means infection. Id think about seeing the doctor. i

Disclaimer- I am a Veterinarian, not an MD so take my advice with a grain of salt(not that you haven't already gotten a bunch of good advice)

Stingrays are of a family of marine animal known as Chondrichthyeans which means they are 100% cartilaginous. They, and they're stinger contains no bone. The stinger is cartilage, which is worse, because as it hits and is pulled out(which is most often the case in accidental stingings of humans), small pieces of the cartilage can be left under the skin. If this happens, you're looking at long-term pain until it is either broken down by your body, rejected and ejected by your body, or flushed out by the ER doc. As you've been told, the barb is coated with slime, which is a natural irritant, but which also allows bacteria to stick to it. The slime is a proteinaceous material, which is why the old fisherman's trick of dunking it in hot water may help. Heat denatures protein. Also, the heat of the water, may kill certain bacteria(by no means not even close to all bacteria).

If seen by an MD, they would likely give you a tetanus shot, eventhough it's not really needed. Tetanus(lockjaw) is caused by the bacteria Clostridium tetani, which does not live in saltwater. The bacteria is a soil contaminant that lives on anything on land, hence you get a shot if you step on a nail. Most Drs give you the shot even if not really needed if you haven't had one in 10 years to cover their asses, and cause all its going to hurt is your arm.
What you do need to worry about is other bacteria. Coliforms(E. coli) and its friends are the ones you'd most likely be infected by. Although rare, a very serious infection would be Vibriosis, which is what makes you sick when you eat bad oysters. If injected, it can cause gangrene, or blood-borne infection(sepsis). Of course there's plenty of other bacteria that could also infect. You'd likely get Rxd plain old Amoxillin or maybe Cipro depending on how likely the Dr thought serious infection was.
The redness and heat you're feeling is likely just inflammation, which is not a big deal. But, it COULD also mean infection which is bad. You could take advil or aleve, and watch it, or even soak it in warm water and epsom salts to alleviate inflammation. What you really SHOULD do is go to the Dr as everyone else suggested, cause the last thing you need is to be layed up for weeks cause you need surgery to remove infected tissue.
I hate going to the Dr, and often just treat myself since I have access to antibiotics, but if this would have happened to me, I would have been in the ER that nite getting it flushed out heavily, and getting the right antibiotics.
Sorry for such a long post and the unsolicited advice, but I thought a good explanation may get you to the Dr.
Hope it heals quickly, and try to lay off the Steve Irwin impersonations in the future(was that joke in bad taste?). Good Luck
Richard

good info dude!!! even if you had NO idea what you were talking about you used enough big words to make it sound totally legit!!!! LOL :) Seriously though it's good to know these things since stingray "stings" are pretty common. I was bit by a brown reclouse spider a few years ago and then ended up with a MRSA staph infection in the bite. So take everyone's advice jason and get it checked out cuz infections are no joke!!! hopefully its no big deal and you'll be able to score this week's cold front

This is good stuff, I am glad so many people had info about it... Thanks

Yea I guess i will go to the dr tomorrow just to be safe...

Hey upon further inspection of my foot, I can see that it actually got me twice... Once in the heel (bad one) and once in the center of my foot...

Thanks for all your imput.. U guys rock... :)

Go to the doctor, a walk in clinic will do. Don't want to mess with that, especially as it could infect the bone!!

Jason, I know what you need for your birthday...When is it, and what size do you wear?
Get well soon my brutha!
Booties ROCK!

thanks Steve..
 

Im down for that....!:D

But dont worry its not till july4.... (10-1/2's)
Ill be 30...!!!!!!! Wow I feel like an old man :rolleyes:

Although with the beatings ive been taking on the water recently, I guess im glad im not any older...

~all booties rock...

Just messin with ya bra, I dont think booties would have totally saved you, but may have helped a little. I have generally always worn booties and still got a few MINOR scrapes/cuts. If I didnt have booties I would have had a couple of nasty ones. I have definitely stepped on rays and other moving things but hadnt caught the barb before. The soles come in thick, thin, narrow or wide, but my personal favorites are the brown ones...
Brown Booties ROCK!:rolleyes:

yea i know........

the rangers said booties would not have helped... well not unless their made of steel....:rolleyes:

It will surley teach me to stay on my board from now on ..
;-)

update....
 

No infection...yet... but their is an inch long peice of spine in my foot...ouch
Going to need surgery to get it out. Pretty excited about that..(Yea right)
I wonder if it can just stay in their?

The good news is that they found it. Left alone as an ongoing source of possible infection you could have been in a world of hurt in times to come. Recall that talk about gangrene and cutting out chronically infected putrescent flesh, ugh, but possible. It costs and is a pain but you want to get it done. Hang in there and feel better fast, after proper treatment!