Photos.com/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- If this Fourth of July is anything like the last national holiday, Memorial Day, families and travelers headed to the beach will want to keep their eyes peeled to the sand and the sun, not just the fireworks-brightened sky.
Beachgoers who braved the Florida coastline Memorial Day weekend were greeted with the wrong kind of bang -- hundreds of painful stings. Because of steady Atlantic winds, the beaches were swamped with reddish-colored jellyfish, known as mauve stingers, resulting in more than 800 reported stings among the beachgoers.
Now that summer has started, the Florida jellyfish debacle is a sharp reminder of the many stings, burns, nips, bites, and rashes that arise when the temperature heats up and people head outdoors. ABC News spoke with pediatricians, dermatologists, and emergency medicine experts to pull together a guide to preventing, identifying, and treating the various ills that can accompany your summer fun.
Whether you're headed to the beach or just outside to your backyard, read on to protect yourself from enduring the stings of summer.
When Jellyfish Attack
Although there are many different species of jellyfish throughout the coastal United States, the resulting sting is largely the same. When you come into contact with a jellyfish, either underwater or when they're beached on land, small barbs in the tentacles catch on your skin and cause red welts.
If you think you've been stung by a jellyfish (and given how painful a jellyfish sting is, you usually know it), the best thing to do is rinse the sting in saltwater, not freshwater, says Dr. Lee Winans, head of the emergency room at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Fort Pierce, Florida.
"The little barbs are packets of poison, and if you use freshwater, it will cause them to rupture and make the reaction worse," he says.
Rubbing or patting the area can also cause these packets to rupture, so take a shell or credit card and scrape the barbs off the area while rinsing in the saltwater, says Dr. James Schmidt, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia.
Sun Burn vs. Sun Poisoning
We all know we should be wearing sunscreen, but sunburns still happen. The question is, when is a sunburn more than just a "use some aloe and get some shade" situation?
When sunburn is severe, causing blisters or covering a large part of the body, it can result in sun poisoning -- an extension of heat stroke that is marked by dehydration, fever, and headache. Sunburn is a form of inflammation, so when a significant area of skin is inflamed, the body reacts to the inflammation with flu-like symptoms, says Dr. Neil Korman, a dermatologist at U.H. Case Medical Center.
The Bite from the Mystery Bug
Bees and hornet stings are usually not problematic unless you are allergic to their sting or if multiple stings are received at once. Wheezing or excessive swelling around the face or site of sting should be checked out by a doctor immeidately, especially if it seems the person is having an allergic reaction to the sting, says Winans.
As for spider bites, most are harmless, but a few species of poisonous spiders can cause more serious reactions. In the southern U.S., brown recluse spiders can result in large, painful bites that, left untreated, can lead to loss of a limb. Unlike normal spider bites, which get better over the course of a few days, poisonous bites will only get worse and the skin around the bite can start to die, says Winans.
Chigger, mosquito, and fire ant bites, while painful and itchy, are benign. They usually appear as small itchy bumps, or in the case of ant bites, small pus-filled bumps. "Put topical over-the-counter steroid cream on bites, but try not to itch them, that will only open them up to a possible infection," Winans says.
Lyme Disease: Beware the Bull's Eye
A bite from a tick is usually not felt and will not itch, but if the tick is a carrier for Lyme disease, the resulting infection can be severe. The easiest way to diagnose Lyme disease is by the red ring rash that often, but not always, accompanies a bite by a tick with Lyme. The "bull's-eye rash" will develop three to 30 days after a bite and will be accompanied by fatigue, chills, fever, headache, muscle and joint aches, and swollen lymph nodes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you remove a tick from you and experience these symptoms following (even without the rash), see a doctor to get tested for Lyme disease, doctors say, because if not treated with antibiotics, Lyme can cause neurological, joint and cardiac problems over time, says Dr. Korman of U.H. Case Medical Center.
Rash Reaction
Swimmer's itch consists of many small, itchy, slightly painful red bumps that are usually noticed following a swim in the ocean. Usually, the rash is just another form of a jellyfish sting and results when microscopic jellyfish larva get caught in the fabric of one's swimsuit, says Schmidt. Swimmer's itch can also be caused by other parasites present in fresh or saltwater. The rash is benign and can be treated with topical hydrocortisone cream but will otherwise go away on its own, doctors say.
Heat rash is not from contact with any plant or animal but merely the product of skin irritation in damp or sandy conditions, such as wearing a wet bathing suit over an extended period of time. The red, raised, itchy bumps are sometimes referred to as "prickly heat" and occur when the sweat glands become clogged, says Korman.
Rashes from poison oak, poison ivy, or poison sumac are par for the course for summertime excursions into wooded areas, and while annoying, are usually not serious. Approximately 85 percent of the population will develop an allergic reaction if exposed to poison ivy, oak or sumac, according to the American Academy of Dermatology.
Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio
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Photos.com/Thinkstock(SAN DIEGO) -- People who live in jellyfish territory may want to reconsider using traditional remedies to soothe the pain of stings, according to research published in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine.
