This is UGLY

[vito]

Almost fifty years ago, while living in San Antonio, we went for a family walk after dinner. My then 5 year old son ran on ahead of us, but stopped at the corner and waited for us so that we would all cross the street together. Suddenly he started screaming. In the dark he had not seen that he was standing on a fire ant mound. I scooped him up in my arms and started running back to our house. I turned on the shower and with both of us still dressed stepped into the water to get the ants off of him. Truthfully I thought that his screaming and reaction were because he was just a little boy who couldn't handle pain. Then suddenly it felt like someone had put a lit cigarette against my neck, and then again on my back and then more of the same. The ants that had been on him had crawled onto me and were biting me, and for the first time realized that my little boy was not over reacting. Those bites were really painful! It took two days before the swelling from the bites went down, for both of us, and made me very vigilant to watching for fire ant mounds.

FWIW, I found a solution in those days to fire ant infestations in my backyard. I would pour a gallon or so of gasoline on the mound and light it us. I would first wet down the area around the mound so that the fire would not spread to the rest of my yard. It worked to get the fire ants to give up the mound and move, hopefully to a neighbor's yard rather than mine. I'm glad I no longer live in an area where I have to be concerned with fire ants, although I have read that they are moving slowly northward and eventually will be most everywhere in the U.S.

 

[Jeepnik]

My introduction to living in Alabama in the 80's was sitting down on a park bench and putting my feet in a nest. Gave me an intense hate for those bugs. I developed a scorched earth policy with them. A nest at my place got a gallon of gasoline, 10 minutes to soak in, then a match. After several applications I had no nests and no returns at my place. I bet the neighbors wondered why my yard looked so funny. Most left me alone because " he's a yankee and just ain't right".

Any relation to Lennigan?

 

[KurtC]

There is one more thing I need to tell you guys. About 5 PM yesterday I started to get the shakes. Mostly in my upper body. It was pretty serious shaking. My arms and hands were shaking like an inch side to side. This has never happened to me before. I was just sitting watching TV and it was like 76 degrees in the house. I was not cold but I covered myself with a blanket anyway. About 40 minutes later the shaking stopped. This really scared me as I said it has never happened to me before. I hope it never happens again.

Anyone ever experience anything like this?

Once. I arrived early for physical therapy and the TV in the waiting room had The View on.

 

[freakindawgen]

Keep an eye on that cellulitis I've had it several times, went septic once had the rigors (cold shakes) so bad they knocked me out.

You didn't get bit by fire ants, bad hammer jammer though. Fire ants send scouts out, he finds your leg and calls his buddies, the dirty 1000, and wait for you to twitch realizing they are there. Then they bite all at once. They leave little pimples full of their poison. Have to watch when it rains and washes them out and they swarm together.i used Orthene smells like rotten cabbage. Works awesome. Used to use LPS Supper Cleaner (1,1,1-Trichloroethane) pour it in the mound and watch them come out and die once the hit air. Be a big pile of dead ants in an hr.

Fire ants join together to make living raft in floodwaters | Fire ants inundated by Tropical Storm Harvey's floodwaters have latched together to form a living life raft to survive — and it could happen in Australia... | By ABC NewsFacebook

Fire ants inundated by Tropical Storm Harvey's floodwaters have latched together to form a living life raft to survive — and it could happen in Australia...

www.facebook.com

 

[freakindawgen]

Oh yeah, I'm in Iowa now, no fire ants here! In Florida I wore shorts and flip flops. Never knew I did it till I went up north and someone asked me why I didn't keep my legs still. To keep the scouts off!

 

[peachhead]

Damn. Get better soon. That is horrible.
Fire ants are demons. I use Orthene mostly, but it's a never ending thing. Kill one mound and two more show up. I have actually considered gasoline.

 

[caryc]

One thing the doctor told me surprised me. I showed him my fire ant bite and he said fire ants don't bite, they sting. Is that true?

Did some searching and found out that they do bite to hold on to your skin then they sting to inject their venom. They can sting multiple time during one bite.

After getting stung, I tried hydrocortisone. I had a tube of prescription strength on hand. This really didn't do much of anything. I also tried ice packs. This provided temporary relief from the burning pain. I also tried Benadryl, capsules and the creme. They didn't seem to do much either. I also found out that after the ants sting, small blisters filled with a yellow fluid will form. If you scratch it and break those blisters, this is when an infection (cellulitis) can occur. That is exactly what happened in my case.

I'm going to go out later on and try to find the red ant nest and put down some Amdro ant poison. This time I will used the velcro bands on my pants cuffs so they can't crawl up my legs. I need to get rid of the little buggers. This was on a part of my 5 acres that I don't normally go on. That's why I didn't know that they were there. Any time I see the big black ants, I track them down and put some Amdro ant poison at their hole. Next day, no more ants. Amazing how something so little can be such a PIA.

 

[epags]

There is one more thing I need to tell you guys. About 5 PM yesterday I started to get the shakes. Mostly in my upper body. It was pretty serious shaking. My arms and hands were shaking like an inch side to side. This has never happened to me before. I was just sitting watching TV and it was like 76 degrees in the house. I was not cold but I covered myself with a blanket anyway. About 40 minutes later the shaking stopped. This really scared me as I said it has never happened to me before. I hope it never happens again.

Anyone ever experience anything like this?

Only after my covid shot.

 

[Jeepnik]

It's my understanding that fire ants aren't actually ants. They are akin to wasps and such. They don't bite with mandibles and secret an acid. They sting like a wasp and inject a venom that is much more toxic.

Supposedly we have them in my area but I haven't see Any evidence.

Fortunately, about all we have a bees and paper wasps. Neither sting, to me at least, is all that bad.

I do recall seeing, as a kid, red ants. Their bite was worse but from what I hear, no where in the class of fire ants.

 

[blume357]

Fire ant beds are easy to determine... just kick some of the dirt away and step back.... in a second it will be covered with the ants, literally thousands will come up out of the ground and start looking for you. Liquid Benadryl is one of the things to use on the bites... you can get it in ampules that you break and smear on an insect sting.

 

[blume357]

There is one more thing I need to tell you guys. About 5 PM yesterday I started to get the shakes. Mostly in my upper body. It was pretty serious shaking. My arms and hands were shaking like an inch side to side. This has never happened to me before. I was just sitting watching TV and it was like 76 degrees in the house. I was not cold but I covered myself with a blanket anyway. About 40 minutes later the shaking stopped. This really scared me as I said it has never happened to me before. I hope it never happens again.

Anyone ever experience anything like this?

I think I would talk to my doctor about that. I had close to the same thing last month.... but I was sleeping out on my porch in the heat and went in the house in the middle of the night for a glass of water and got the shakes and had to go back out on the porch and cover up for about 10 minutes....

 

[caryc]

Fire ant beds are easy to determine... just kick some of the dirt away and step back.... in a second it will be covered with the ants, literally thousands will come up out of the ground and start looking for you. Liquid Benadryl is one of the things to use on the bites... you can get it in ampules that you break and smear on an insect sting.

Thanks, I don't remember seeing that but I'll look again for it.

 

[john guedry]

Not trying to be difficult but I think we are talking about 2 different pests here. The non-flying ant looking thing, really a wasp. And the "south American" fire ant. The wasp is about an inch long and velvet looking. The "south American" fire ant is "ant size" and attacks by the thousands. Either one gets on you and you know it.

 

[Jeepnik]

If they spent as much money eliminating invasive species as they do telling us how climate change is going to destroy the world, well you get my point.

 

[Randyzzz]

Heal up quick, Cary! Thank the Lord we don't have those up here in Southern Oregon. But I grew up in Southern California, and never ran into any either.

We do have yellow jackets here- they will nest in the ground and when you disturb them they swarm up and attack. I used to carry a can of wasp spray with me when walking the bottom of our property. I've found that brake cleaner shoots almost as far and works a lot faster.

 

[larry8]

Here in SC we have fire ant hills everywhere. Certain times of the year they build their nests and it looks like a small mound of dirt. You know it is a fire ant nest when you kick it and the thousands of ants come out. Where I live we have Bug guys that spray my home inside and out about 4 times a year. If i see any of those ant mounds I call him and he stops over at the end of his day and sprays the mound. No more ants.

 

[freakindawgen]

Ones in Florida are African fire ants.they are tiny.

 

[Pyromike]

In my teens, mom asked me to power wash the back patio. Saw a wasp nest and sprayed it down; not seeing the ONE wasp still on the nest. Was wearing jeans and after a few minutes, got nailed on the inner thigh; little bast@rd went up my pant leg. After dropping pants and dancing around the patio; mom steps in and asks what I'm doing. Had to show the dead wasp on the ground as I'm standing in my undies with a power washer. Mom just shook her head and walked away. I had to show her the welt on my leg. Don't know what she thought I was doing, but that wasp was dead.

 

[gramps]

Sorry to hear of that Cary! Yep, that was a specific type of cellulitis known as erysipelas. This can be deadly if not treated promptly and appropriately. Heal up quick my friend! Talk with your doctor about the shakes. Due to sepsis?
gramps

 

[buckeyeshooter]

Any relation to Lennigan?

No, no relation. Just a bug hating yankee.