Don't Try This 'Cure' for a Jellyfish Sting

Shahar Lotan is an economic and strategic researcher, a reserve intelligence officer, and a history and geography enthusiast who writes a blog about fascinating and forgotten events and figures. In this column, he exposes famous historical distortions, why they were created, and how they affect us to this day.

If you go to the beach during the Israeli summer, it is not rare to find someone coming out of the water with a face contorted in pain and one word on their lips: "jellyfish." The reaction of many to this moment is to give that same "golden advice" that recommends urinating on the jellyfish sting area to alleviate the symptoms.

Thus, for decades, one of the most persistent, embarrassing, and strange myths of the bathing season has been rolling along. The belief that urine is a "grandmother's remedy" for a jellyfish sting is not our exclusive domain, but is quite common around the world, from the coasts of the USA to Australia. And like many modern myths, pop culture gave it a serious push here, when an episode of the series "Friends" from the 90s turned the idea from a joke into a global sensation that it is well-founded folk knowledge.

However, it seems that the source of the myth is more grounded and relies on a semi-scientific intuition that urine, which contains ammonia and has a certain acidity, can "neutralize" the venom. But the human body and the jellyfish's venom mechanism do not work according to television intuitions.

Let's start with the jellyfish: the Nomadic Jellyfish (Rhopilema nomadica), the species common in Israel, is an immigrant in biological terms. As a primitive species that does not know how to swim, but only to drift in the current, it arrived at the Mediterranean shores from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal, that same ambitious project of the 19th century that led to a wide wave of species migration as a side effect.

Since then and until today, changing environmental conditions, the expansion of the strategic route, and the warming of the water have allowed it to establish itself in giant swarms, far from its natural predators. Its sting occurs on a microscopic scale. Its hunting tentacles are equipped with nematocysts, tiny cells that act as syringes loaded with poison. Some are activated immediately upon contact with the skin, and others remain "cocked" on the body even after the jellyfish is no longer there.

Here the myth comes into play and does damage. When you pour a liquid other than seawater on the area - whether it is fresh water, alcohol, or urine (which is overwhelmingly water) - a change in pressure and salinity concentration occurs around the cells that have not yet opened, which causes them to explode and release more venom into the skin. Thus, urine not only does not neutralize the injury, but deepens it.

And what about vinegar, which is considered the more "serious" solution? Here the answer is more complex. In certain parts of the world, especially against deadly jellyfish in Australia, vinegar has indeed been found to be an effective treatment that prevents further "firing" of nematocysts. But studies conducted in Israel show that the venom mechanism of the Nomadic Jellyfish is different and resistant to an acidic environment, so vinegar is also not recommended.

So why and how does the myth survive? Perhaps because it sits exactly at the meeting point between embarrassment, improvisation, and semi-scientific logic, when in situations of sudden pain and uncertainty, people tend to prefer an immediate and available solution over helplessness. And maybe it's just a good story.

Thus, the recommended treatment is to wash the affected area with seawater, which will remove venom cells that have not yet been activated, avoid rubbing the sting, and seek medical treatment if there is an allergic or particularly severe reaction. Somewhat ironically, the sea brought the jellyfish, but its waters are the best solution in the moment of truth.