Treating Snake Bites

[Optimistic Paranoid]

Around 8,000 people are bitten by poisonous snakes in the US every year.  About 8 die from it.  So literally, your chances from dieing from a snake bite are about 1 in  1,000.  The snake may, or may not, inject any poison at all.  If it does, it may inject a lot, or, if it's recently used it's venom to hunt and feed (which is the purpose of the venom in the first place) it may have very little left to inject.

The main thing to know is that all the old info on snake bites is wrong.  DON'T carry a snake bite kit.  DON'T cut near the bites and try to suck the poison out.  It doesn't work.  The only real treatment is to get your butt to an emergency room for treatment and observation - it can take up to 24 hours for symptoms to become bad. 

Here's an article from a backpacking magazine that gives a good overview:

http://www.wildbackpacker.com/wilderness...nake-bite/

Here's an article from a professional medical journal for emergency room physicians.  It's a worthwhile read, just ignore some of the big words, you don't really need to know what "coagulopothy" means.

https://www.aliem.com/2017/06/envenomations-snakebites/

If you have a dog, be sure to red this article on snake aversion training:

http://www.truckcampermagazine.com/campe...ling-dogs/

It can be heartbreaking to be faced with finding thousands of dollars to treat your dog or letting him die.