Help with dog bitten by Adder?

[Al Hyde]

I'm only pointing this out as symptoms are slow to develop to completion and it's very important that anyone bitten should seek medical attention immeadiately.
All the best,
Al

[naturelover]

so glad your dog is ok,i had a dog for years and walked here every day,never even thought about snakes mind you this is when i lived in essex,dont know if there are snakes there or not.

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by naturelover

so glad your dog is ok,i had a dog for years and walked here every day,never even thought about snakes mind you this is when i lived in essex,dont know if there are snakes there or not.

Yes there are both Adders + Grass Snakes in Essex, but they usually disappear before you get too close to them!

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Al Hyde

Sorry to say this and no offense CM , Completely untrue. The bite from a European adder must be taken seriously and RARELY are syptoms similar to a bee sting.
RAUK e-Forum: Tagged today

Please read through for symptoms ( which are common among almost all adder bite victims) And this bite was very minor , only one fangs worth. I experienced Nausea with cold sweats , Inflamation up the whole arm and into the armpit my fingers had no mobility whatsoever, a dry mouth , Cold feet that could only be brought back to life with a hot bath. The most painfull part was one week after the bite when the swelling subsides and the whole arm feels like it has been smashed with a hammer.
A friend of mine spent 3 weeks in hospital swollen down the whole left side of his body.

No offense taken - but we need to be clear about what the risks are and what approprate responses should be. Having people fearful of the countryside and/or prejudiced against snakes are not healthy responses.

The adder simply does not carry a venom that is seriously harmful to most healthy adult humans. That is not to say that the consequences of a bite may not be serious but that has as much to do with awareness and preparation as it has to do with reliance on emergency medical intervention.

Anyone spending time in the outdoors, be it garden, park or mountainside should have an up to date tetanous - blood poisoning kills far more people each year than UK adders have killed in the last millenium.

Any serious response to an adder bite is far more likely to be an allergic reaction than a poisoning. Almost any foreign substance can be an allergy source and in practical terms it's a matter of how the individual responds to a cut, bite or ingestion that should guide whether we seek medical intervention. On that basis I agree that comparison between bee sting and adder bite is not sustainable because there is far more probabilty of infection from an adder bite than from a bee sting.

For most people, getting the wound cleaned and having some pain relief will be enough; if there is noticiable swelling then antihistamines and/or anti-inflammatories will probably make life more comfortable. There are dangerous snakes in the world - adders are not one of them.

CM

[WW]

This may be a case where the conservation message that adders are no threat has gone a bit too far. There is a very considerable body of scientific and medical literature that documents that adder bites, while obviously not on a par with mambas or cobras, can represent a serious danger to the bitten person.

True, adders are no threat in terms of national public health statistics. The last adder bite fatality was a small child in 1975. The UK collects an estimated 100 bites per year, so that's ~ 3000 bites without fatalities since then. They are also shy creatures that will avoid confrontation whenever possible, and with a strike range of under a foot, you can pass within a meter of an adder without having incurred the slightest risk. And, as is so often said, yes, far more people die of bee stings than of adder bites.

HOWEVER, there is a big difference: unless you are allergic, a single bee sting is no threat whatsoever, just a minor temporary inconvenience. Moreover, tens or hundreds of thousands of people get stung by bees or wasps every year, most with nothing more than a painful few hours, so there is no comparison with adder bites in terms of risk.

On the other hand, any adder bite, even to a healthy adult, represents a serious risk of substantial envenoming. In a recent study in Sweden, out of 231 patients, 11% had no signs of envenoming (dry bites), 47% had minor envenoming ("local swelling; mild, transient, and spontaneously resolving
systemic symptoms"[e.g., drop in blood pressure, nausea etc.]), 29% had moderate envenoming ("swelling involving the whole
extremity; pronounced or prolonged systemic symptoms" [the latter would involve things like vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, serious hypotension or shock; Al Hyde's bite would fall into the lower half of this category]), and 13% has severe envenoming ("swelling involving the whole extremity and parts of the trunk; severe and life-threatening systemic symptoms" - as above but worse, going all the way to coma). In other words, more than 40% of people bitten had quite serious or even life-threatening symptoms.

It may also be worth noting that very unpleasant symptoms can happen very raidly after adder bites - early collapse and fainting with diarrhea and vomiting are noit uncommon, so the victim may be unable to help him/herself quite soon after a bite. Driving would not be a good idea at that point...

Let's also clear up the fact that these symptoms have nothing (or very little) to do with either allergies or infection. Allergic reactions to snakebites are very rare in people other than lab workers who routinely work with snake venoms - after all, allergies are usually established through previous exposure, and most people aren't exposed to snake venom in daily life. Infections are rare after adder bites, so this is also a myth. Again, there is a substantial body of medical literature behind all this.

The thing that makes adder bites unpredictable is that it is really a matter of pot luck how much venom an adder injects in a bite - it may inject little or nothing, or you may get the full load. In the former case, you will have little or nothing in the way of symptoms, in the latter, you will be in potentially serious trouble. The problem is that you have no way of knowing in advance, or even when you have just been bitten, how much venom you got.

By the same token, the idea that "antivenom is more dangerous than the bite" is nonsense. Yes, you can have an allergic reaction to antivenom, and yes, this can be fatal if untreated, but this is nowhere near as common as we are often led to believe. However, anaphylactic shock is easily treatable in hospital if the medical staff are prepared (as they should be) and the shock is caught immediately. On the other hand, if you have received a large dose of venom, then the one thing that will clear this venom from your system (and potentially save your bacon) is antivenom, and at that point, the considerable benefits of antivenom will outweigh the relatively low risk. On the other hand, you would not give antivenom to a patient with a mild bite, since the benefits would then be cancelled out by the risks. In a nutshell, antivenom is more dangerous than a trivial bite, but a lot less dangerous than a severe bite.

In summary, while adders represent no threat to users of the countryside, the fact is that an actual bite to a person represents a medical emergency and the patient should immediately be taken to hospital. There is a more than even chance that the bite will turn out to be fairly trivial, but there is also a real chance that it will not.

Understating the danger and encouraging complacency helps no-one, least of all the adder - we can all imagine the tabloid headlines if someone does actually die.

Cheers,

WW

[Jo Richards]

Hi,

As a dog owner myself I hope your dog is fully recovered now?

As an amphibian and reptile conservationist (and just writing a press release on Adders) I think it's handy to put things into perspective. There have been no deaths from Adder bites since the very sad case in 1975, however, have a look at these statistics:

Around 6 people die on Britain’s roads every day
Road Safety Advice, Information and Resources from RoSPA

“Every year in the UK we face the challenge of reducing: about 300 fatalities to workers and members of the public due to reportable accidents at work. 600-750 deaths in work-related road crashes”.

Occupational Safety and Health Information, Resources and Training


“Every year in the UK more than 5,000 people die in accidents in the home and 2.7 million turn up at accident and emergency departments seeking treatment”.

Home Safety advice, information and resources from RoSPA

[There are] “several hundred drowning deaths that occur every year in the UK”.

Leisure Safety advice, information and resources from RoSPA

There are an average of 15 deaths due to anaphylactic shock from various allergies each year in the UK.

From: House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 26 Mar 2009 (pt 0022)

The Adder is the brunt of so much bad press and we really need to get a grip on it!

All the best! :-)

[JaySteel]

Originally Posted by Cotham Marble

Adder bites are no more serious for humans that are bee stings - susceptible individuals may suffer an alergic reaction but 99.9% of the population need nothing more than a paracetamol. Obviously children are more of worry but deaths from adder bites even amongst children are almost unknown.

CM

WW makes a great point. Adder bites shouldn't be underestimated and should always be taken seriously. I'm very much against the scaremongering that the press use to sensationalise any story involving adders but I agree that encouraging complacency or playing down the potential dangers from an adder bite could result in the worse case scenario of someone actually dying from an adder bite. This would have disastrous consequences for our much maligned native snakes.

Quoting from David A Warrell (Professor of tropical medicine and infectious diseases) writing for the British Medical Journal on treatment of adder bites:

"Children usually recover completely between less than a week and three weeks after the bite, but most adults take three weeks or longer, and a quarter take between one and nine months."

regards,
Jason

[JaySteel]

I've only just realised that this thread has been resurrected from over 4 years ago!

[faz]

lol glad you realised

[fairplay]

I'm told the dog died on Boxing Day - it had been given too much Xmas Pudding, kept on farting, six year old boy lit a lighter waiting for the next fart, Boom !! blew the dog up.

Neil.