- I am Coyote Peterson, and I'm about to enter the nettle zone with the stinging nettle. Here we go. Ah! Today's adventure is proudly
brought to you by our sponsor, Tucktec Kayaks. Today I am on the hunt for one of the world's most
widespread stinging plants, something you may have
even encountered yourself. And my goal is to rank its sting on the plant sting pain index. Now, this plant, the stinging nettle, is often found in an aquatic environment. So I'm gonna, (record scratch)
I just swallowed a bug. They're normally found in
an aquatic environment. So I'm gonna head out on this river to see if I can track it down. But before I can get on the water, first, I need to put my boat together. Wait until you see how easily
this turns into a vessel. (easy-going country music) What's great about the
lightweight nature this kayak is you can actually go against the water. So I'm traveling upstream right now, so that once I find the nettles, I can turn around and go back, and it'll make my return journey a lot easier than my exodus. Nothing more fun than rowing up river. Okay. So when it comes to stinging nettle, a remedy for that itch
is this plant right here. It's called jewelweed, or a touch-me-not. They have these very
distinct orange flowers, and you'll oftentimes find it growing where there is stinging nettle. But I do want to collect
a little bit of jewelweed to see if it truly works as a remedy for stinging nettle irritation. We got our antidote. Now we just need to find the irritant. Ooh. Got a good spot up here
to bring my kayak to the shore and try to make some progress
up the edge of the embankment to see if we can find some nettle. A good shaded area up here,
and some real dense foliage. (laughing) Found some. Check this out. Okay, we got it. That is stinging nettle. And all I really need is
one really good big stalk like that, and we're
going to be in business. There you have it. One very irritating stinging nettle leaf. We got exactly what it
is that we came for. About time to get back to the boat. (pensive music) This is what a successful
mission looks like. On my right, we have the stinging nettle, and on my left, it's possible
antidote, the jewel weed. Now here's the unique thing
about the stinging nettle as compared to the gimpy gimpy
and the giant stinging leaf. We know that both of those
stinging plants in Australia put me in an immense amount of pain. This is definitely going to be painful, but the thing is, it's not
going to last nearly as long. With the giant singing leaf, the first thing that I was stung by, the pain lasted for
about 25 or 30 minutes. With the gimpy gimpy, to date my arm is still
experiencing discomfort. Occasionally it will
flare up with itching, and if I place anything
cold like a Gatorade, a water bottle, an ice
cube onto my forearm, it immediately feels
like there are electric, freezing cold lightning bolts
shooting through my arm. So is it fair to say that maybe I went a little too far
with the gimpy gimpy? Eh, you know, we learned a lot, and we got a lot of
entertainment at the same time, so I think it was worth it. But with the singing nettle, you are going to see
an incredible reaction. And we're going all the way here. We're not just dipping
our toes in the water. I'm going to rub the leaves
up and down my forearm, and you're going to see
that in a matter of seconds, my arm is going to explode with welts, redness, and incredible discomfort. Now, what's causing that discomfort? Well, as we learn from the gimpy gimpy and the giant stinging
leaf, it's the trichomes, the little nettles on
the underside of the stem and the leaves that will
essentially break off and then release the toxins. What does the chemical compound
look like with these toxins? Let's take a look. The cocktail of agony I am
about to intentionally face is made up of ingredients that break down into two categories. Neurotransmitters and acids. Histamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin are what caused the impressive
visual reaction you will see. While three, fun-loving
acids, including formic, tartaric, and oxalic can create
immediate and in some cases, extended waves of pain. Be warned that everyone has the potential to react differently, and for
the sake of this experiment, I will not be holding back when it comes to pushing extreme invenomation. So we're gonna test out a leaf. We're gonna test out the actual stem, which I have a piece of snipped here. And then of course, for the grand finale, a whole bundle that is
covered in trichomes. Now remember, with the giant stinging leaf and the gimpy gimpy, I
simply touched it to my skin. I know that this isn't
going to be nearly as bad, and to give you guys the
best possible reaction, I want to go all the way. So we're gonna get that camera rolling. Without further ado, it is time
to test the stinging nettle and rank it on the plant sting pain index. Here we go. One leaf first. I'm Coyote Peterson, and I'm about to enter the nettle zone with the stinging nettle. Here we go. One, two, three. (groaning) Oh gosh, I can definitely
feel that already. (groaning) Oh yeah, it is. It is bad. Oh, it happens in a real, in a hurry too. Alright, lemme try the
stem. Ah, geez that burns. Oh, oh. Ah, ah, ah. Oh. And some nettles feel like
they're worse than the others. Kind of dust it around. Ah, okay. Okay, okay. Okay. And last but not least, the bundle. Ow. Ow. Oh, the bundle is the worst! Okay. There's definitely more
nettles up near the top of these smaller leaves
than the big leaves. Ah, this is such a bad idea. Okay, let's get this leaf too.
Let's not leave anybody out. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Okay. Just all the way. All
the way. There we go. Gosh. Okay. Nettling officially complete. Oh. Ah. Okay. So about 20 seconds in. Yeah,
it starts to build noticeably. You can immediately see the redness beginning to form in my arm. Now, different from the gimpy gimpy and the giant stinging leaf, the burning here is
almost like a rug burn. If you've ever slid on your carpet and you had your knees drag across it, I can feel that burning happening. And that's that mix of chemical compounds that are immediately beginning to have an effect with my skin. Blood vessels beneath the
skin are beginning to expand, that's causing inflammation and giving me all of that redness. Ah. And eventually, there are going to be little
welts that start to form. I'm starting to see them
in several places here. And when you run into something, oh, I just wanna like
get up and move around. When you run into stinging
nettle in the wild, it is, it is unexpected, and it oftentimes will
feel like an insect sting because it just comes on en mass. And if it brushes up against your leg, and then all of a sudden you turn around and you're in a bushel of it, you're gonna get stung
again and again and again. So it causes people to panic. And then you may end up
running in the wrong direction, and the wrong direction could
be deeper into the nettles. So if you find yourself in a situation where you're getting nettled, the best thing to do is to just stop, pay attention to your surroundings, and then slowly back yourself out of what it is that
you've just walked into. And wow, look at that.
It's almost instantaneous. Look at all the welts beginning to form. We are about a minute and 30 seconds in. Now if it happens to you,
calamine lotion, ice, water, all those things should
soothe some of the burning and itching immediately. But in nature, it is
actually the jewel weed and it's aloe like
mucusy internal substance that can alleviate the discomfort. Okay, it has been 15 minutes
since the ultimate nettling, and my arm looks disgusting at the moment. Look at all of these welts. It looks like I have contracted some sort of bizarre alien disease on my forearm. And you may be wondering,
Coyote, does it still hurt? Yes, but it's really not that bad. If anything, it's beginning to itch. And here is the local
remedy that I wanted to try. This is jewel weed, also
known as touch-me-not. Gonna actually slice the
stem open vertically, check that out, see
inside there, all that. And it is a little sticky. Feels a little bit like aloe. Not quite as viscous though. Okay. It's got a cooling sensation to it actually kind of just feels
good to itch all of those bumps. Let's try some more. Nice big piece here. And the bigger the jewelweed stem, the better your chances of getting all of that great
soothing interior mucus. Look at that. Take both of those pieces. Oh, that's the spot right there. I think I just had to hit the jackpot. Wow. Very cool to the touch. Now it is wet, so that's
helping a little bit. With the gimpy gimpy any sort of moisture made it really painful, but with this, I am definitely beginning to
feel some soothing relief. Wow. Holy cow. All right. It is working. Jewelweed, providing relief
for the stinging nettle sting. Okay, I'm just gonna let that set in. Almost instantly, once
I got the right amount of jewelweed mucus on my arm, it seemed to immediately alleviate the discomfort that I was experiencing. Wow, that is really impressive. Now, I did read that it could quite possibly be a placebo effect, taking my mind off of
the discomfort on my arm. But I gotta say, the immediacy of this feeling like it was
burning and wanting to be itched has now completely just turned into a slightly cool numbing sensation. Well, it's been 30 minutes
since I took on the onslaught of stinging nettle trichomes, and at this point, the pain in my forearm is completely gone. Yes, I still have welts.
Yes, it's still red. Yes, it's still kind
of disgusting looking. But what we ultimately
learned is that this plant, while it can be painful to wander into, it's not gonna put you in
momentous amounts of pain. If you find yourself having
wandered into a patch of them, simply stop, back yourself
outta the situation and go the opposite direction. If you do feel that trichomes
have gone into your skin, look for jewelweed because
the mucus like interior will immediately provide you with relief. Now, when it comes to ranking this plant on the plant sting pain index, I would definitely say that it is a one, as compared to the gimpy gimpy's four. So what's next? I'm not sure. Write in the comment section below and tell us what stinging plant should we experiment with next. I'm Coyote Peterson. Be brave. Stay wild. We'll see you on the next adventure. (gentle music)
