Copperhead bites

[DHB]

From Merck:

Of the roughly 45,000 snakebites that occur in the United States each year, fewer than 8,000 are from venomous snakes, and about six people die.

Actually, you should say "Yup; and the only dangerous pillow fighting is the kind where you're using lead pillows"

[KD]

I always wondered if snakes wrestled?

[crazyhair]

If you are uninsured, or are insured but your insurance wouldn't cover an entire ER bill-what should you do?

For example: If I was bit by a copperhead and I drove to the ER (after thoroughly cleaning the wound) and then just waited in my car for a few hours to see if it were a dry bite or not then I could still seek medical attention immediately when things turned bad or I could just leave and save myself a metric fuckton of money.

My question for those with knowledge of this is: would waiting have negative effects and how severe would they be?
What would be the symptoms I would experience that would indicate I had not received a dry bite?

I understand that you should always go to an ER "just-in-case" but I also know that a massive medical bill on a college student's salary would be pretty unbearable.

[dustonian]

What a sad state of affairs that having to make such a choice is commonplace, even taken for granted.

Anyway... from http://www.sierrapotomac.org/W_Needham/ ... 050704.htm:

"Polyvalent antivenin is the recommended treatment for crotalid envenomation. It is only effective if it is injected into the body within an hour of the snakebite, and even then it can just prevent continued effects not undo prior damage. Antivenin is produced by milking venom from a snake and sending it to Wyeth Ayerst Laboratories in Pennsylvania where it is used to inoculate horses from which serum is extracted that contains the antibodies that counteract the venom. Each vial of antivenin costs $150 and it takes at least 3 vials for treatment of a mild snakebite and up to 40 for a severe bite."

By contrast, these guys found antivenom within 4 hours of the bite helped with the local tissue damage, pain, and suffering:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=14747809

Almost everyone refers to copperhead bites as "generally self-limiting"--meaning it probably ain't gonna kill ya, but you may suffer for a long time, and localized tissue damage is probable due to the hemolytic effects of the venom. So to make a long story short, your path to recovery will me significantly shorter and less unpleasant if you go into the ER and get the antivenom injection. Within 4 hours of the bite should help according to this recent study. Yes, it will be expensive if you don't have insurance. The longer you wait in the ER parking lot, the less effective the antivenom will be. If you wait beyond 4 hours since the bite, don't even bother... just expect a considerably longer road to recovery and the risk of local tissue damage.

All that said, you should know within an hour of the bite if you were envenomated or not... look for swelling, discoloration, and of course, severe mind-boggling pain. Do yourself a favor and "splurge" on the antivenom. In the absence of these symptoms, you were probably not envenomated and just need to deal with disinfecting the bite site to prevent infection.

[camhead]

I understand that you should always go to an ER "just-in-case" but I also know that a massive medical bill on a college student's salary would be pretty unbearable.

Most colleges have pretty sweet student health insurance plans that are cheaper than they are in the "real world." If you are a poor student, you should def. see what your institution has available. I'm really dreading when my wife graduates and we have to get our own insurance.

[krampus]

If you are uninsured, or are insured but your insurance wouldn't cover an entire ER bill-what should you do?

Vote

[dustonian]

hahaha good one kramp

[DriskellHR]

Copperhead bites are awesome! It's like snorting coke while getting a BJ....... You should try it.

[clif]

Copperhead bites are awesome! It's like snorting coke while getting a BJ....... You should try it.

while this is indisputably true, one still has to make the difficult decision between hanging out in the hammock to enjoy the ride or going to the ER to recover the insurance cash.

[clif]

If you are uninsured, or are insured but your insurance wouldn't cover an entire ER bill-what should you do?

Vote

just in case you don't think you're vote can make a difference....(and this may depend if the party has made the ballot in your state, viva the rulz)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/us/po ... wanted=all

edit: http://www.gp.org/2012/ballot-access.html

ok, edit#2: i'm not sure i'll vote just because i don't think it matters and fuck all this. but if we're going to play this game that your vote counts then by god i'm going to make an ass out of myself to prove the point. obama's is completely in synch with gwb policies unless you consider the aca 'healthcare reform' ... which is not unreasonably the same as government mandated subsidies to insurance 'death panel' managers....aka: why the middleman? vote or not i don't care; make a difference or quit bitching.