[pct-l] Animal Attacks

[Tortoise]

Don't want to be too scary or alarmist. But people have died from seeming 
innocent little  infections. some of that stuff is resistant to almost all 
atibiotics with most of the immunity coming naturally from exposure to the 
other germs antibiotic output.


Tortoise

<> He who finishes last, wins! <>


Georgi Heitman wrote:
> Donna sez...'there is a great deal of doubt that the bite....was from a
> brown recluse.  Apparently brown recluses are not native to CA'
> 
> I've heard that too, tho some sort of bite (two tiny, close together 'fang'
> marks) virtually destroyed a knuckle on one of Dennie's index fingers.  And
> in Eastern Contra Costa Co. in the S.F. bay area, the hottest  part of that
> part of the state, I know personally of two people who were absolutely laid
> low after receiving a bite as they worked on their gardens or in the brush
> around their homes.  Both cases involved some sort of a flesh destroying
> mechanism, one man was hospitalized, had skin graphs and was out of work for
> months.
> HST, a hiker came in here a couple of years ago with what looked like a
> spider bite and a nasty one.  Dennie, a neighbor who is a nurse and I all
> concurred and with some pushing and pulling, he was finally persuaded to go
> to our local hospital's ER.  He was told that 'no, it's not a brown recluse,
> but we're sure glad you came to see us, because it's worse, and you're about
> 24 hours too late'.  After a heavy dose of antibiotics he was sent back to
> us...was sick as a dog for about a day and a half...high fever, vomiting,
> some other bad stuff....from a flesh-eating staph infection.  Staph is
> present on everyone's body.  Basically, from what I understand, Donna's
> right again, it's a boil...what causes a boil to go septic in that
> particular way (flesh-eating) instead of just being a nuisance is something
> I don't quite get, but the doctor in ER said something about any scratch or
> nick in the skin can go septic just exactly like our hiker's did.  That
> doesn't really sound like a boil  but then, I really don't know how a boil
> starts to begin with.  What I do get is that keeping abrasions clean seems
> paramount if one is to avoid such infections.  I also think I've read that
> this particular strain of staph is one that's becoming more resistant to
> antibiotics, which don't sound good to me.  Our hiker left here with heavy
> doses to be taken orally for I know not how long...but if I recall reports
> back correctly, he spent quite a lot of his trip across our notoriously hot
> Hat Creek Rim ducking behind bushes...probably should have stayed in bed
> another day...he was maybe more than 24 hours too late to have avoided the
> symptoms associated with this infection.  Still, all in all, he was a lucky
> young man.  He might have chosen to ignore the wound until it got really
> bad...such staph infections can become life-threatening.
> Spider bite?   Staph infection?  Who knows for sure?  BUT...cleanliness in a
> must where wounds are concerned...that would include blisters and poison
> oak, I would think.
> Take care, all of you,  arrive here healthy!
> FireFly
> Old Station, CA
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