One question that has always bothered me is “Does peeing on a jellyfish sting actually help it?” My grandparents live on the Chesapeake Bay and have their own dock and boat, so growing up I spent a lot of time down there on the water. Most of the time we spent there was in the summer, and thats when the jellyfish would be abundant throughout the bay. As we tubed and swam in the open waters, we often got stung by jellyfish, and yes it does hurt and sting very badly, but I always wondered if peeing on it would actually help. When you’re out on the boat, there’s no time to go home and take care of it, so you jut have to deal with it, but if peeing on it actually helped it would be invaluable. Of course, we have tried it and sometimes it seemed to work, but I always wondered if it was actually physically helping or if it was more of a psychological thing where we just thought it helped so we noticed the pain less. And the answer to this question is no! Peeing on a jellyfish sting actually makes it worse!

Friends made the idea of peeing on a jellyfish sting popular when Joey peed on Monica’s sting one episode while they visited the beach.

Some of jellyfish’s skin cells are stinging cells, or cnidocytes, these of which have organelles in them called nematocysts that contain venom. These scnidocytes are scattered along to length of a jellyfish’s tentacles which is how they sting you. I’m sure most of us have been stung by a jellyfish before, and yes it does stink, it stings right away and is very painful. Sometimes the sting even gets itchy, but beware, itching will only make it worse because it activates the nematocysts, transferred from the jellyfish’s tentacles to your skin, and causes them to release more venom. According to Joseph Burnett, a dermatologist and the University of Maryland Medical Center, and Christopher Holstege, a toxicologist and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia, the best quick treatment of a sting is to rinse the area out with salt water. The salt water deactivates the nematocysts that are on your skin. Freshwater will hurt it more because the addition of saltwater dilutes the salts outside the cell and in reaction to this change the nematocysts releases more venom.

As for urine, the case is the same as freshwater, it only hurts you more. The concentration of salts and other compounds in one’s urine can be too dilute and similar to freshwater, therefore it was the same effects as the freshwater does just causing the stingers to release more venom. According to the Red Cross better treatments are to pour saltwater or even vinegar over the sting area. Acids in the vinegar help to neutralize the jellyfish sting.

In the end, finding out that peeing on a jellyfish sting doesn’t help isn’t too surprising to me. I never was convinced that it worked, but I still wondered, “What if?”, and know that I know the truth it makes sense to me. One thing I would be interested to know though is if some people carry the ability to be immune to jellyfish stings, or a test to see which common house hold items would provide the best healing benefits to a sting. I think there would be some items that would surprise you on how effective they are! So now you know, the only thing peeing on a jellyfish sting will get you closer to is more pain and the suffering of having someone pee on you!