I just wanted to say thank you to all the posters here for the information you have provided. The internet is a wonderful tool filled with forum posters such as yourselves that help clueless people like me with the mysteries of our natural world.

A short (hopefully) explanation.....My daughter attends a small environmental college located just off the shore of Lake Superior in Wisconsin. Part of her studies this year include a field studies program where they collect, count, tag, clip, collar, record, etc. various Wisconsin wildlife.

Her recent field study had her netting and counting fish. Being a large mammal gal, she has had limited experience with fish. When she was told to empty the net, she just reached in and started to do just that. Her professor had warned against bullhead stings, so she was relatively unconcerned when she was 'hit' by what looked like a small bullhead. Being the stubborn female she is, she continued to untangle the fish until it was free, not asking the professor for help &/or information until right before release. She showed him the fish and asked for an ID because she'd been stung an additional 2 times. It was in a fact a Madtom Tadpole.

The 3 stings resulted in a severe hot tingling escalating to an almost completely numb sensation from her finger tips to her shoulder, pain ranging from moderate to severe and back to moderate over a 3 day period, an elevated temperature (100.9 - 101), and increased heart rate. ---No respiratory distress-- Neither heat nor ice relieved the pain. Ibuprofin helped not at all.

Thanks to you forum members and your postings, she is (while I type) sitting in the local hospital's (Ashland, Wisconsin) walk in college clinic about to request an Epi-Pen in case this happens again.

THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!!

I believe you can actually build an immunity if you work with them and are stung on a regular basis. I was involved in the tropical fish wholesale business for quite a few years and was always getting stung and got to the point where I hardly noticed them. I was forced to get a real job afer I married and had children, but later returned to work part time in the business. The first time i got nailed by pimodella I was surprised how much it hurt. About a week later I got it by an Arius catfish and thought I was going to have to go to the hospital. Then we got in Heteropneustes fossilis, I was very careful with these, there have been deaths attributed to their stings. Within 6 months I was back to the point where if I got nicked I hardly noticed it.