Fire ants are very aggressive if they or their nests are being disturbed. One thing that makes fire ants are different than the average ants around us is they do not only bite, but sting. First, a fire ant climbs quickly onto a person or object who disturbed them and bite, but it has not finished, it still holds the skin and begins stinging by injecting its venom to the skin.
This venom consist of toxin and protein, pain or burning sensation at the bitten area is caused by the toxic part and the protein may cause some allergic reaction to some people. To get rid from the burning and itchy sensation, most people are tempted to scratch the stung site. But you should not do that, scratching only worsens the infection.
Next, after a few time, the sting is swelling and then develops into a white pustule. Again, some people are tempted to treat it by themselves. Most of them want to pop the pustules since they think it will make the site dry and heal faster. But instead makes it faster, popping the pustules will make the healing process becomes slower, which means they have to endure the pain for a little longer. Why does it happen? does it make the pustule drain faster, doesn’t it? In most cases, popping the pustule only leads to a secondary infection.
Doing no scratching and no popping to the pustule does not mean you can let the pustule alone heals on its own without doing nothing. Without any treatment, the pustule also may becomes infected.
So what is wrong with the infection?
This is the answer of the question : an infection is the main cause of a scarring fire ants bite.
The pustules last for a few days, but if a person does not keep the site clean, those pustules may be infected and may need several weeks to dry and leave brown colored scars. Popping and scratching the pustules also may cause infection which lead to scarring.
So how to get rid of this risk of scarring fire ants bite? The only thing you can do is preventing the scar which means preventing the infection as well.
Here are some remedies for treating the fire ants bites :
- Vinegar, it helps to prevent any bacteria causes further infection on the stung site. It also reduce the itching, so you do not have to scratch the skin and make it becomes infected.
- Lime or lemon, its stop the itching.
- Tea tree oil, it also keeps the bacteria away from the site, so it prevents the bite from any infection.
- Oatmeal bath combined with olive oil and baking soda, it helps to reduce the itching all over the body (if you get fire ants bite on the other parts of body).
- Baking soda paste, by mixing the sodium bicarbonate with water. Baking soda is well known as a neutralizer of any acid, and pH level, so that helps to sooth itchiness.
It is important to note that beside applying those remedies, you should kept the site clean and hands off from the sites (no scratching nor popping).
How if the scar has appeared?
Some brown colored scars will fade after several month, but depends on the level of infection, sometime fire ants bites are permanent. You cannot erase the scar to make it completely disappear. If that is the case, you only can make it a bit unnoticeable by applying deep moisturizing treatment, also applying cocoa butter, vitamin E and Mederma. Make sure you give a massage onto the scars in every application.