3 rare and strange reactions to snake bites

It is no longer pleasant to think of a snake crawling and showing its terrifying tongue. Much less think about the bite of one of them. In addition to being frightening to most people, snake bites can still cause very unusual and severe symptoms in a small number of cases.

According to Live Science, the rare effects of venomous snake bites have been reported by researchers over the years, recording strange and quite different reactions that go beyond initial dinghy pain and other venom effects.

There are currently over 3, 000 species of snakes in the world, 600 of which are poisonous and another 200 are considered potentially harmful to people because their poison can cause health problems, according to the World Health Organization.

WHO also lists snake bites as one of its 17 "neglected tropical diseases, " which are conditions that cause a significant number of illnesses and deaths, but generally receive less attention from people in developed countries. Below you can check out some of the rarer snake bite reactions.

Spleen rupture

A man in Asia suffered a rather unusual effect following a viper bite on his right foot.

According to the report published in the September issue of the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, this 60-year-old patient was admitted to a rural hospital in Korea after the snake bite, which happened while he was picking fruit in an orchard.

According to the report, he received the antiphid serum two hours after being bitten, but on the third day after the bite, his foot swelled a lot and the pain of the bite got worse.

What happened was that her blood's ability to clot was impaired in a condition called coagulopathy and doctors could not reverse it, even if they administered additional doses of serum. The next day, the man reported severe abdominal pain.

Soon then doctors discovered that the spleen had ruptured and they said that blood clotting problems had probably caused this damage. "Her bleeding was so severe that her spleen ruptured, " Dr. Scott Weinstein, an Australian toxicologist, was not involved in the case study.

The solution found by the doctors was the complete removal of the spleen, which made the man improve, being discharged in good health 20 days after hospitalization.

Hormonal problems

The Russell viper is one of the most venomous snakes in the world and, in some cases, its bites can cause bleeding in the pituitary gland. This damages the organ and may prevent it from performing its basic function, the production of hormones, including those that regulate sexual functions.

In a report published in October 1987 in The Lancet, researchers examined 33 cases of patients bitten by Russell's vipers.

As if stinging and stinging pain (and other effects) were not enough, some of these patients developed severe hormonal changes, resulting in decreased libido, loss of pubic and armpit hair, erection problems in men and periods menstrual irregularities, scarce or absent in women.

This rare side effect may result from bites of only a few specific Russell viper populations living in four or five points of Asia. The bad news is that the damage of the poison cannot be reversed. When people develop this reaction, they need to receive hormone treatments for the rest of their lives or the symptoms will persist.

Giant leg mass

Imagine being bitten by a snake today and the effects appear only in forty or fifty years? Lucky, unlucky or something a little weird? It happened to a woman in Malaysia. She was bitten by a venomous snake on her left leg when she was just 14 years old, but when she was in her 50s an unusual swelling appeared on the spot.

She developed a large mass on her leg that was painless but became very large and uncomfortable. When the doctors radiographed the mass, they found what appeared to be an enlarged cavity encased in a tough, calcified membrane, but they did not move the site.

About five years later, the woman returned to the hospital with the worst leg and doctors found that the mass became infected and was breaking her skin. The doctors then removed the mass and the wound completely healed one month after surgery. A rare case of delayed effect poison.