1. Animal bites.
If the victim was bitten by a healthy domestic dog or cat and the wound is small, then it is washed and a sterile bandage is applied. Extensive wounds are packed with sterile wipes.
If bites are received from an unknown dog or cat or other animal, it is necessary to contact a medical institution, because the bite of rabid animals poses a great danger to life .
2. Snake bites.
According to the mechanism of action, snake venoms are divided into three groups:
- poisons that clot the blood, causing local swelling and tissue death(poisons of the copperhead, common viper, viper, etc.);
- poisons acting on the nervous system, causing muscle paralysis, respiratory depression and cardiac activity(poisons of sea snakes of tropical waters, cobras, etc.);
- poisons that simultaneously act on blood clotting and the nervous system, causing local swelling and tissue death(poisons of Australian adders, rattlesnakes).
When bitten by a cobra or other snakes of this group, pain occurs, a feeling of numbness in the bite area, spreading to the entire limb and body. The victim experiences dizziness, fainting, pain, a feeling of numbness in the face and tongue, and swallowing is impaired. Ascending paralysis develops rapidly, starting with lower limbs(unsteady gait, impossible to stand on your feet, and then complete paralysis).
The rhythm of the heart is disrupted. If the poison enters the blood vessels, then death occurs within 15 - 20 minutes.
When bitten by snakes of the viper family, deep puncture wounds, redness and swelling are visible at the site of the bite, the skin becomes shiny, becomes purple-bluish, and blisters and ulcers may form. Excitement is typical, followed by weakness, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, and shock may develop.
When providing first aid from the very beginning it is necessary to ensure the peace of the victim. Can intensively suck out the poison with your mouth (if there is no wound in the mouth). This can be done by the victim himself or by a stranger. Duration of suction - 10–15 minutes with constant spitting of contents.
Cauterization of the wound is unacceptable.
Application of a tourniquet is permissible only in case of a cobra bite, but for no more than 30 - 40 minutes.
3. Insect bites.
Multiple bee and wasp stings can pose a danger to humans, and even more so to a child.
Tissue swelling occurs, the temperature rises, a sharp headache appears, and convulsions are possible.
When providing first aid it is necessary to apply a cold compress to the bite site, give a glass of sweet tea, 1 gram of acetylsalicylic acid, a diphenhydramine tablet to drink, then consult a doctor.
Among acute poisoning poisons biological origin, poisoning as a result of insect bites - bees, wasps, hornets, ticks - are relatively common, especially with the onset of spring - summer period when many of us go on vacation to the forest, to the lake or to the mountains. Often people themselves provoke this behavior by getting insect bites on their skin. This is especially true for bees, wasps and hornets.
Bee venom, due to its high content of physiologically active components, can cause acute intoxication, especially in cases of increased sensitivity of the body to it.
The effect of the poison depends on several factors:
- From his dose;
- Localizations;
- Individual sensitivity.
Apitoxin has a detrimental effect on the state of cardiac activity, affects metabolism, nervous and endocrine system. Pregnant and menstruating women tolerate intoxication very hard. There are often cases of acute allergic reactions such as Quincke's edema, anaphylactic shock. When stung into a blood vessel, even a single one, the reaction is immediate and pronounced.
Venom scale depending on the number of bites:
- A one-time sting of up to 5 bees is a local reaction of the body;
- A one-time sting of 10-20 bees – local plus general resorptive manifestations;
- A one-time sting of 20-50 bees is a phenomenon of severe intoxication;
- A single sting by more than 100 bees is death.
Clinical manifestations of bites
Can be divided into 2 large groups:
Local:
- Sharp, burning pain at the site of the bite;
- Increasing acute swelling of nearby tissues, reaching its maximum development in 10-15 minutes;
- Regional lymphadenitis (inflammation of the lymph nodes adjacent to the site of the bite).
Single bites result in complete recovery after 24-48 hours.
General toxic:
- Dizziness;
- Weakness;
- Chills;
- The phenomenon of urticaria;
- Convulsive contractions of the muscles of the face and limbs;
- Dyspnea,
- Feeling of tightness in the chest;
- Nausea;
- Vomit;
- Loose stools
- Increased body temperature.
The appearance of a coma and collapse is possible. Allergy to a bee sting is also quite common. Apitoxin can cause damage to parenchymal organs and paralysis of the respiratory center. Particularly difficult to tolerate bee stings in the area of the tongue and pharynx. Clinical symptoms are increasing every minute. Swelling of the larynx and pharynx develops with the threat of asphyxia, which can subsequently lead to death.
If the person turns red or has trouble breathing, call ambulance. The consequences can be very serious, including death.
First aid
What does an insect look like?
- Inspect the site of the bite. It usually looks like a papule raised above the skin, in the center of which there is a sting. If the sting is not visible, then perhaps you were bitten by a wasp or the sting is inside the wound.
- Remove the bee sting. The sting includes poisonous glands, a poisonous vesicle, and a nerve ganglion. For this reason, the sting is removed with tweezers or a needle treated with alcohol or any antiseptic so that the poison is not squeezed out into the tissue.
If a bee stings, DO NOT squeeze out the sting.
Never do this! If you start squeezing out the sting, the poison that is still in the sac can penetrate your body.
- After removal, the wound is treated with chlorhexidine or any skin antiseptic.
- Apply cold to the bite site (wet towel, piece of ice in a sterile napkin);
- Apply a piece of cloth soaked in a soda solution (1 teaspoon per glass of water) to the wound;
- You can treat the bite site with Fenistil ointment. It is also recommended to take any antihistamine (suprastin, tavegil, zodak, zyrtec).
Another remedy against a bee sting is to apply to the sting site. baking soda. She really helps. Mix baking soda with water to form a thick paste and apply as soon as possible. "When you bite, an acid hits, and if you apply the baking soda as quickly as you can, it will neutralize that acid," says Stephen Purcell, D.O., chairman of dermatology at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. If you don't have baking soda, dry the affected area and rub it with aspirin; aspirin will help relieve swelling, pain and inflammation.
With the development of general toxic phenomena, pastel mode and consultation with a doctor are indicated. If after 24-48 hours the inflammation at the bite site has not decreased and general toxic symptoms increase, you should immediately seek medical help. You can read about this in our article.
Female ticks
With the onset of spring, ticks become more active in nature. Today, a tick bite ranks first in popularity among all insect bites. And this issue must be approached very seriously, since an almost painless bite can lead to serious consequences to health and even become a threat to life.
Diseases carried by ticks and their symptoms:
The tick is a carrier of such dangerous diseases, How:
- Tick-borne encephalitis– infectious disease with damage predominantly to the brain and spinal cord of an adult or child. Causes severe intoxication and affects the central nervous system. If treatment measures are not started in a timely manner, it can lead to paralysis or death.
Manifestations:
- Chills;
- Fever;
- Headache;
- Muscle weakness;
- In severe cases, central involvement in the disease process nervous system(meningitis, encephalitis, myelitis).
- Lyme disease– an infectious disease with predominant damage to the skin, nervous and cardiac – vascular system. It can be asymptomatic for six months. Often takes chronic forms.
- A red spot around the bite site with clearly defined edges may appear within six months after the bite;
- Fever;
- Stiff neck;
- Lethargy, fatigue.
- Spotted fever– leads to severe brain damage (encephalitis), and also affects the liver, almost the heart. Leads to fatal consequences.
- Sudden rise in temperature,
- Severe headache,
- The rash usually appears as many tiny, flat, purple or red spots (petechial rash). It starts at the wrists and ankles, then spreads to the arms, legs and the rest of the body.
- Tularemia is a rare, highly contagious infectious disease with potential fatal. It can be treated with antibiotics only in the first hours after detection in the blood.
- Temperature rise to critical levels;
- Ulcer at the site of the bite;
- Swollen glands near the affected area;
- Nausea, vomiting.
- Relapsing fever - an infectious disease that occurs against the background of a wave-like rise in temperature up to 4 episodes during the course of the disease.
These diseases can be transmitted after contact directly with the tick itself, or after eating food from an infected animal.
Finding a tick attached to a person’s body is, of course, the very first and most important sign of a bite.
The tick bite itself is painless. This in most cases leads to the fact that a person does not immediately notice the insect. Some time after a tick bite on the body, you may feel itching and burning at the site where the tick was embedded.
There may also be slight redness and swelling. After a few hours, headache, weakness, lethargy, and allergic reactions may appear. This is especially noticeable in people with various chronic diseases, children, and elderly citizens.
How to recognize a tick
The most common affected areas:
- Earlobe;
- Axillary zone;
- Groin area;
- Under the shoulder blade;
- In the chest area;
- Hair part of the head.
After a tick attack, body temperature should be measured and recorded for 10 days. If a symptom such as fever appears from the second to the tenth day after the bite, this indicates that an infectious process has begun in the human body. Key symptom of a bite encephalitis tick in humans - undulating fever. If these symptoms occur, you should consult a doctor immediately.
Human actions when bitten
How to remove a tick yourself
If you notice a tick attached to you, do not panic.
2. A simple way to remove a tick using a thread. Take a thick thread and place it on the tick. The thread is tightened at the proboscis, then carefully twisted. Using slow movements, pull the tick away from the bite site.
Rules for grabbing a tick with tweezers
First aid
Necessary:
What to do with a tick
Prevention measures:
Remember! The tick never attacks suddenly. In search of a place of attachment, it can wander on the human body for up to 3 hours. Therefore, examine yourself and your loved ones more often. In the forest, wear clothes with long sleeves and cuffs, rubber boots with long trousers tucked into them. Open areas Lubricate your body with special creams or deodorants. If you notice the first symptoms after a tick bite, consult a doctor immediately.
A person can be bitten by a snake, bumblebee, wasp, bee, and in some areas - a tarantula, scorpion and other poisonous creatures. From such bites there is a wound small size and is similar to a needle prick, but the poison penetrates through it, which, depending on the quantity and strength of the bite, first acts on the area near the bite itself, or immediately causes general poisoning.
Poisonous snake and insect bites
Snake bites, but only poisonous ones, are life-threatening. Snakes, as a rule, bite a person in the leg when he steps on them. Therefore, in areas where snakes are found, walking barefoot is prohibited. Snake bites are considered most dangerous when the venom enters the blood or lymph nodes. If the poison gets into the skin, intoxication increases from one to four hours. The venom and its toxicity depend on the type of snake. Cobra venom is the most dangerous for humans. Under the same conditions, poisoning is more severe in women and children, as well as in people who are drunk.
Symptoms from bites poisonous snakes such: burning pain in the affected area, two deep puncture wounds, swelling and redness, pinpoint hemorrhages under the skin, blisters with liquid, dizziness, necrotic ulcers, sweating and nausea, tachycardia and shortness of breath. After thirty minutes, the leg may double in size. With this, the following symptoms simultaneously appear: muscle weakness, loss of strength, weak pulse, drop in blood pressure, fainting and collapse.
What help should be provided after a poisonous snake bite?
- A tourniquet should be applied and twisted above the bitten area so that the poison does not enter other organs (only in case of a cobra bite for about thirty or forty minutes).
- It is necessary to lower the bitten leg and try to squeeze out the blood from the wound where the poison is located.
- Immediately begin intensive suction of the poison from the wound with your mouth for fifteen minutes (you must first squeeze the area of the bite and “open” the wound) and spit out the contents. Next, you need to pull the blood out of the wound along with the poison using a medical jar, shot glass or glass. To do this, you need to hold a lit cotton wool or splinter in the selected container for some time, and then very quickly cover the wound with it.
- Keep the affected limb immobile. You will need to rest in a supine position and drink plenty of fluids.
- You also need to put cold on the wound, rinse the wound with a solution of potassium permanganate, inject adrenaline and diphenhydramine into the wound, then take the victim to a medical facility.
You cannot suck out blood with poison if your mouth has decayed teeth or scratches through which the poison penetrates into the blood. It is forbidden to cut the bite site or give any kind of alcoholic drink.
Bites poisonous insects(bumblebees, wasps, bees) can lead to local symptoms, general poisoning, and also cause an allergic reaction in the body. One bite from such insects does not pose any particular danger. If the sting remains in the wound, it must be carefully removed, apply a lotion with ammonia, a cold compress of potassium permanganate or ordinary water.
Bites from poisonous insects are very dangerous. Their venom can cause, in addition to burning and severe pain in the bite area, general poisoning. The symptoms are very similar to those of snake bites. If general toxic phenomena are strongly expressed, then this indicates the body’s high sensitivity to insect poisons and the occurrence of allergies, which can cause death.
First aid for poisonous insect bites
- The bee sting must be removed quickly and the poison squeezed out of the wound.
- Apply cold to the affected area.
- Moisten and drip validol, alcohol, galazolin onto the bite site.
- Take antihistamines internally: pipolfen, suprastin, diphenhydramine.
- Hot drink.
- If asthmatic syndrome begins to develop, it is necessary to use a pocket inhaler.
- If asphyxia is complete, use tracheotomy.
- Call an ambulance.
First aid for animal bites
The bite of a rabid wolf, fox, cat, dog or other animal causes rabies in a person. Usually the bite site bleeds slightly. If your leg or arm is bitten, you need to lower it quickly and try to squeeze the blood out of the wound.
The bleeding should not be stopped for some time. Then the area of the bite is washed with boiled water, a sterile bandage is applied to the wound, the victim is sent immediately to the hospital, where he will be given a special vaccination, thereby saving him from a fatal disease - rabies.
It is also necessary to remember that you can become infected with rabies not only from the bite of an animal, but also if its saliva gets on the mucous membrane or scratched skin.
Man is part of nature. He is the same living being as everyone else living on Earth. The world around us cannot always please us. There are also dangerous situations, into which a person falls either intentionally or by pure chance. Today we want to talk about human interaction with representatives of the class of reptiles and insects, the method of defense of which is to defeat the enemy with poison.
The spring-summer and summer-autumn periods are especially rich in requests for first aid for snake and insect bites. It is during these seasons that fauna life is in full swing, and representatives of the human race actively begin to visit natural landscapes.
Let's start with snake bites. The most common representative of snakes, most often found on our territory, is the viper. This is exactly what we will talk about.
Symptoms and help for snake bites
Pathogenesis
Snake venom contains a whole spectrum of biological active substances, such as phospholipase, hyaluronidase, lecithinase and others. Each of them performs its own function. For example, phospholipase helps the poison penetrate the blood and activate lecithin, which in turn destroys all blood elements and body cells. Such exposure causes irreparable harm to the body in the form of cardiotoxic, anticoagulation (reduced blood clotting) and cytolytic (cell destruction) complications. Also, snake venom increases the degree of vascular permeability, which leads to tissue swelling and necrosis at the site of injury.
Clinic
The first obvious symptom of a bite is severe swelling, which can affect the entire limb, and unbearable pain. Next, the poison begins to act on the victim’s nervous system. A feeling of fear, anxiety, and excessive psychomotor agitation appears. The deterioration of the condition is characterized by the rapid development of cramping abdominal pain, dyspeptic disorders (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea), angioedema of the face (Quincke's edema). The most serious complications that occur in the first minutes of injury are low blood pressure and loss of consciousness.
How to behave in the first moments after a defeat?
First, it is necessary to squeeze out the first drops of blood from the bite site and suck out the affected blood, provided that the person sucking out the poison has no damaged oral mucosa, all teeth are intact and there are no diseases oral cavity, and there is also some liquid that you can use to rinse your mouth after. It is strictly forbidden to apply a tourniquet if affected by snake venom. Having taken all of the above steps, you should immediately transport the injured person to the hospital.
First aid for bites the snake begins with washing the wound. Next, you need to administer mono- or polyvalent anti-snake serum according to Bezredko in a dose of 500 to 1000 IU intramuscularly. If the case of damage is complex, then another vaccination is carried out, but with intravenous administration of the drug.
For the purpose of prevention, antitetanus serum is administered in parallel.
A circular (circular) novocaine blockade of the affected area is also performed.
To stabilize cell membranes, prednisolone is prescribed at a dose of up to 500 mg per day.
Under the control of a coagulogram, 5000 units of heparin are administered subcutaneously or intramuscularly 4 times a day.
Medical care for snake bites also includes immobilization of the limb and its cooling.
Carry out preventive measures for acute renal and liver failure.
In parallel, symptomatic therapy is carried out.
Poisonous insect bites
A single bite of one insect introduces 0.05 to 0.3 mg of poison into the body. For some people this is quite enough to develop a strong allergic reaction, up to the development of anaphylactic shock.
Etiology
Amines include: histamine, dopamine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine. The venom of ordinary honey bees, hornets and wasps, which are also natural and frequently encountered creatures in our climate zone, contains wide range biogenic amines, proteins and polypeptides, as well as enzymes.
Among the polypeptides and proteins there are: mellitin, MSD-peptide, wasp and hornet kinins.
Enzymes: phospholipase A, phospholipase B, hyaluronidase.
Pathogenesis
Insect venoms have a local inflammatory, neurotoxic, destructive (blood cells and tissues), hepatotoxic (release of toxins into the blood) effect. This causes an excitatory and then inhibitory reaction of the central nervous system (CNS), which is a consequence of ganglioblocking, anticholinergic and
hemolytic action. The degree and severity of the damage depend on the number of bites, and therefore the amount of poison injected, the location of the bites and the individual susceptibility of the body. A single sting by approximately 500 bees is usually fatal.
Clinic
The local reaction is characterized by the appearance of burning pain at the site of the bite, the formation of a pale whitish papule with a ring of hyperemia of various diameters. The most clinically pronounced bite is to the face. In this case, very severe swelling appears with often subsequent lymphadenitis.
Symptoms
The appearance of chills, shortness of breath, increased body temperature, dizziness, occasionally nausea, vomiting, decreased blood pressure, convulsions, respiratory depression. Complications from bites can be in the form of hemolysis (destruction of blood elements) or hemoglobinuria.
First aid for bites and emergency measures
You need to start by removing the sting, which must be done for the first 3 minutes until the poisonous sac is emptied. Then cold is applied to the bite site and a novocaine blockade is carried out. At the same time, stabilization of cell membranes, measures to protect the kidneys, symptomatic treatment, forced urination are carried out, and blood alkalization is carried out according to indications.