Snake Bites

[camtheman77]

Hi everyone, im deployed in afghanistan and have a question. What would be the best initial treatment for snakebites. I am a combat medic and we all got in a large arguement over best path of treatment. Can someone advise please. Thank you!

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[Daiphon]

Hi everyone, im deployed in afghanistan and have a question. What would be the best initial treatment for snakebites. I am a combat medic and we all got in a large arguement over best path of treatment. Can someone advise please. Thank you!

Depends on the snake. All bites, at a minimum, require standard wound care + dT update (though I'd think on deployment that everyone's tetanus is UTD).

Specific therapy such as antivenoms would depend on the species one is dealing with out there and, truthfully, I'm not all that familiar with whether or not there are venomous snakes in Afghanistan.

Whatever you do, do NOT use one of those vacuum extractors (pubmed the "sawyer vacuum extractor" and "it just sucks") or cut the wound... these do nothing other than worsen outcomes and delay healing.

Cheers!
-d

 

[Daiphon]

Nevermind. Here's the PubMed link...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14747806/

 

[deleted109597]

Agree. Find out what your local snakes are, and go from there. In the US, pressure immobilization is bad unless it's a coral snake. Pit vipers cause tissue necrosis, and pressure immobilization worsens local effects. For the vast majority of non-pit viper venomus snakes, pressure immobilization is a reasonable choice. The Army has a good list of endemic snakes of Afghanistan online, and some not terrible first aid suggestions.
Best answer? Early antivenom.