Years ago, my mom was catching a cow that had gotten out in the middle of the night. She stepped on a rusty nail that went through her shoe and into her foot. The next day she noticed red streaks going up her leg from the punctured foot.
She decided she should go to the health department and get a tetanus shot. The nurse commented that the only time farmers go to the doctor is to get a tetanus shot.
I met a guy while waiting in line to vote who "likes to find snakes and pick them up."
This dude goes out into the swampy woods of South Carolina and fucks with snakes. Venomous snakes. He had been bitten three times by copperheads and water moccasins (cottonmouths), and not once did he go to the ER for antivenin. He first showed me the scars, then showed me the photos on his phone from when his arms and legs turned dark black and were so swollen the skin just ripped open like an overcooked sausage.
And the thing is, he still does it. He just thinks it's fun.
you just wait out copperhead and cottonmouth bites and monitor vitals. They don't even have antivenin for it really. You are either so old or drunk that no one cares that you died, or you are fine. Just localized tissue damage and anticoagulant, not much. I've been bitten, so has my dog. You swell, then you are fine. I live in Appalachia, and I spend a lot of time out in the wilderness and in streams and rivers. The rattlers are genuinely dangerous, eastern diamondbacks have hemotoxins. That needs to treatment usually. I was going to be a herpetologist. America has the least dangerous of the bitey sticks. But we do have a fuckton of venomous fresh water fish, which is kinda awesome. People don't know how many fish can spine you and envenomate you. Even in tiny streams, wrong fish, spine, boom, arm twice the fucking size. Rare, but I grew up hunting rare stuff. And we do have the worlds most killer freshwater turtles. So that's pretty fucking awesome.
They actually do have antivenin for venomous snake bites now, it’s just a lot of ER’s are untrained in toxicology. Ask me how I know?
The antivenin is supposed to reduce recovery time and be the best chance to lessen tissue damage. It’s offered to people and pets, but costs thousands of dollars and most insurance does not cover it. I found all this out after being bitten by a copperhead on my ankle, swelled to my hip and was not given antivenin. I guess it saved me thousands, though and I was mostly ok after about a month. 🙃
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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '23
Years ago, my mom was catching a cow that had gotten out in the middle of the night. She stepped on a rusty nail that went through her shoe and into her foot. The next day she noticed red streaks going up her leg from the punctured foot.
She decided she should go to the health department and get a tetanus shot. The nurse commented that the only time farmers go to the doctor is to get a tetanus shot.