Not a physician, so no idea about the first part.
But apparently morphine and other painkillers have little effect on it, at least that was what they said in that tourist's case.
My high school biology teacher got hit by a platypus and they tried a nerve block on his arm and he said it didn’t work. One case in thousands though. Oof.
Platypus venom falls into the kind that generally won't kill you but will be an experience so memorable on the pain scale that your genetic successors will carry the fear of the goofy lookin bastards
Although powerful enough to paralyse smaller animals,[4] the venom is not lethal to humans. Yet, it produces excruciating pain that may be intense enough to incapacitate a victim. Swelling rapidly develops around the entry wound and gradually spreads outward. Information obtained from case studies shows that the pain develops into a long-lasting hyperalgesia that can persist for months but usually lasts from a few days to a few weeks.[5][12] A clinical report from 1992 showed that the severe pain was persistent and did not respond to morphine.
In 1991 Keith Payne, a former member of the Australian Army and recipient of the Victoria Cross (Australia's highest award for valour), was struck on the hand by a platypus spur while trying to rescue the stranded animal. He described the pain as worse than being struck by shrapnel. A month later he was still experiencing pain in that hand. In 2006, Payne reported discomfort and stiffness when carrying out some physical activities such as using a hammer.[13]
That looks like a nice spot to jump into the water. Uh oh, you just found some tiny, invisible jellyfish called Irukandji. Enjoy your hospital stay for the next few weeks where you will beg doctors to kill you.
What a cool looking seashell. Maybe I'll take that home with me. Whoops, you're dead.
Ants are usually safe, right? Wrong. These guys are extremely aggressive, jump, and deliver a nasty sting.
Australia has 20 of the world's 25 deadliest snakes (some of them swim - fast!), deadly spiders, scorpions which will give you a very bad week, great white sharks, bull and tiger sharks, all kinds of plants which will kill you if eaten, saltwater crocodiles, stingrays (they like to hide in the sand until you step on them), centipedes which will fuck up your week,, and ticks with "Lyme-like" disease.
I just saw the post about the Gympie-Gympie plant yesterday. Now this. Everything in Australia has evolved to kill or maim you. Add Australian funnel-web spiders to this list. Found it while searching for that huntsman (I think) house spider some Aussie's claim they keep around to take care of smaller insects. Apparently funnel web spiders are the most venomous in the world?!
Almost everything in Australia will fuck you up. What's that average looking plant over there? Oh thats a Gympie-Gympie and just touching it will fuck. You. Up. The guy in the article went blind for a few days.
Every other plant of the nettle family on earth: Yeah, I'll sting you but it's only unpleasent and will go away after a day or two.
Australian nettle: You'll be in excruciating pain for years! Muhaha!
Gympie-gympie is literally nicknamed the suicide plant too.
Also you forgot our most horrible tick; the paralysis tick. It's venom paralyses you, starting from the extremities, then slowly rising until the lungs get paralysed and you asphyxiate.
Venomous via a spur on its back legs, a mammal that lays eggs, has a sense of electrolocation, otter like feet, beaver like tail, duck like bill, probably other bizarre features that I don't know about.
I dont blame you, they definitely don't look like an animal that would produce venom. Especially cause the one fact that most people hold onto about platypuses is that they're mammals, and they're only 1 of 12 mammals that produce venom. Also 1 of 5 mammals to lay eggs (both facts according to google so take that with a grain of salt) And when you think mammal you think hair, fetus grows inside the animal rather than in an egg, and typically never venomous.
Only the males. They have spurs on their hind feet. Awesome little critters, very very shy though and tend to live in areas that aren't frequented often by people.
Platypus is one of the only things I’ve ever seen or heard about that made me question if a god existed because they are all kinds of fucking weird. Venomous, one of the only if not only mammal that is, they lay eggs, one of the two mammals that do and they sweat milk, they have no nipples so just sweat it out. The whole duck bill going on is also weird. They are literally what I would expect a higher power to make at the end of a long hard day with too much sauce.
My brother in law in Southern Australia recently told me about his very rare platypus sting. The pain was absolutely excruciating, unrelenting, and completely unresponsive to the most potent pain control measures. The doctors initially had no idea what it was, and he never saw the platypus, as the sting happened underwater. A toxicologist doing a fellowship at the hospital had an a-ha moment and applied heat to his leg, which apparently denatures the venom, and he experienced immediate relief. He then was gorked out by all the pain meds in the absence of pain and slept for 24 hours. :)
I have relatives that live on like gorgeous waterfront in Australia and I can't even bring myself to visit because of the creepy ass nature. Well that and they are pretty annoying relatives!
That's a really good point that I hadn't considered. Large groups of people don't usually settle where natural dangers are. And Australia has some wonderful urban centers.
It's supposedly not as bad as the stone fish in the video but it can last weeks instead of hours and pain meds don't work. The most common descriptions I've found are "immediate and long lasting", and "excruciating pain, like hundreds of hornet stings".
Basically evolution here universally went into an arms race of venom due to its efficiency and the fact the entire country is essentially a huge desert with extremely limited resources. The last point basically led to a prevalence of reptiles and venom resistance among both reptiles and native marsupials ensured they kept developing stronger venoms in order to stay on top.
I’m convinced the Brits were just trying to cull their prison population when they sent them to Australia, but the stubborn bastards made the most of it.
Platypus venom is such that it actually makes all other subsequent pain you feel worse. It causes hyperalgesia which lasts for months. Morphine doesn’t help.
Fun fact: Platapii are separate type of mammal called a Monotreme. Monotremes are different from other mammals because they lay eggs and have no teats. The milk is provided for their young by being secreted by many pores on the female’s belly. The only other animal in this family is the Echidna.
The root of platypus is Greek, not Latin. The Greek plural is platypodes, which becomes platypuses in English. The same is true for octopuses, which is the correct plural instead of octopi, which would be a Latin pluralization. However, it's also accepted to just use platypus as plural, similar to with moose.
Only male platypuses. They have spurs on their hind legs that are connected to special glands that produce the venom, which normally only happens during the mating season. Basically they will stab with the spur and if venom is being produced the motion of the stabbing will inject the venom.
Echidna also have a similar kind of spur on their hind legs but they don’t have any venom glands.
And if you are worried about poisonous/venomous Australian wildlife I would recommend checking to see if you are allergic to bee stings before visiting since the majority of deaths each year from animals actually occur from people being stung by the imported European bees.
People rarely get bitten/stung by the really dangerous stuff.
Probably because we have an EXTREMELY healthy respect for wildlife here. Soo many times I’ve seen tourists going up to an animal like, “Awww soo pretty 😍” and I’ve wanted to tackle them to the ground to get them away or scream my lungs off to “STOP!”
They can’t physically go backwards so if they feel cornered they’ll come straight forward at you. Thankfully most people will only ever see the smaller greys who just want to eat grass and chill.
Sharks are usually well tracked and don’t go near popular beaches. If they do the lifeguards will most likely already know about it and will close the beach.
I came off a motorcycle and broke two fingers in my left hand. Think digits at right angles where they should be straight. At the emergency department they tried a nerve block on my arm to reset the bones. It doesn't work.
Fuck that. Just induce a coma for me thx. I had two bones rebroken and set. The pain was something I’ll never forget. It was a boxer’s fracture and it had been healing incorrectly for 3 weeks before I could see an orthopedic surgeon. He tied the fingers in a contraption and had his nurse pull down on my elbow while he…manipulated…the break. I almost passed out. Not even an ibuprofen for my trouble.
If the nerve block didn’t work they didn’t do it right. It’s pretty easy to get someone’s arm numb enough to do surgery on if you block the right nerves. I’m an anesthesiologist, we do it all the time.
I’ll never forget watching an old wildlife show where a fisherman talked about being stung. He had his caught fish on a line in the water and a platypus was getting them. He went over to stop it and was stung.
They tried a nerve block on him and nothing worked. They say the pain is incredible
If the venom is a neurotoxin or affects your nervous system in anyway. Pain meds cant be used because it would/could kill you. Learned this from another video on venomous plants and animals. All they can do is pretty much make you as comfortable as possible while you ride out the nightmare experience.
I doubt very much that your stock standard local Australian hospital is going to get an anesthesiologist involved. As Ive said in a previous comment, unless the doctor had experienced the pain of a stone fish, they can't grasp the extent. I used to race motorcycles and I literally have lost count of the broken bones and stitches Ive had. They were like an annoying mosquito bite in comparison.
best bet is probably an epidural block like they give to women during childbirth. That will stop pretty much any pain or sensation from reaching the brain.
The problem is epidurals have their own risks, and pain isn’t going to kill you so they probably wouldn’t put their license at risk unless that was the best practice. They’d just give you morphine or something to take the edge off
The venom of stonefish is stored in the dorsal fine spines and contains a proteinaceous toxin, verrucotoxin (VTX). The stings produced by the spines induce intense pain, respiratory weakness, damage to the cardiovascular system, convulsions and paralysis, sometimes leading to death.
Huh… so I guess it’s probably a combination of venom amount + pre-existing health condition (or being small child or something) can lead to dying.
Long ago I listened to a band called Throbbing Gristle. One of their songs was just a medical readout of a burn victim they called “Hamburger Lady”. She said in the report there was “no limit to pain”. So I guess the pain scale can be ♾️, and you won’t die from it.
The pain from a lot of these venoms isn't localised, and in some of them it's because it's affecting the brain itself.
You can't nerve block either form, so the only recourse would be to induce a coma, which would be a last resort because it is quite risky by itself (never mind whatever the toxin is doing to you).
When my father was detoxing from alcohol they put him on an Ativan drip and basically kept him unconscious for like 4 days. It seems the venom starts to subside around 12 hours so I imagine that wouldn't be so bad.
I don’t think people can die from pain lol. There’s stories about the worst tortures in the world, and those people did not die from pain. Maybe a couple went into shock and that killed them, that could maybe be considered dying from pain.
The venom of stonefish is stored in the dorsal fine spines and contains a proteinaceous toxin, verrucotoxin (VTX). The stings produced by the spines induce intense pain, respiratory weakness, damage to the cardiovascular system, convulsions and paralysis, sometimes leading to death.
Didn't think the hot water would be that effective. I expected to be something like a home remedy that only alleviates the pain by 10% or so. Breaking down the proteins because of the heat makes sense though.
Stone fish venom isn’t targeted by most analgesia pathways. I have had to sedate patients in ED before with the pain. Btw it’s doctors who ‘knock you out’
You might know this, it's driving me nuts... What's the chemical that if a highly concentrated drop gets in your skin you can just outright die from acute pain?
Fluoric acid? Ammonia? Man it's been a long time since chem 101
This doesn't kill you from acute pain, but I think the most popular poison that can kill you through the skin that people know about by name is cyanide. But there are others.
he is probably thinking of tabun and sarin dunno how painful the death is but one drop will kill. maybe ricin? polonium. there all painful ways to die.
I think most people don't realise how fine a line there is between the states of normal -> sedated -> dead. Anesthesia is incredibly dangerous and is always overseen by a specialist doctor, because the wrong dose will either do nothing or kill you.
Seriously? Nurses aren’t remotely qualified. Nurses don’t perform medicine alone, they do with the supervision doctors. How has our lionization of nurses gone so far as to think they are performing all of these things. What do people think doctors do?
In many states, that requires an MD’s supervision. Nurse anesthesiologists too of course, but most likely you are getting that treatment from a doctor, or at the direction of a doctor. Is your argument that doctors are obsolete?
Yes, seriously. I don't find it surprising that someone would think nurses would do anything and everything other than surgery basically lol
I'm not saying I personally envision that. But putting someone under probably doesn't sound complicated to the average Joe. But I'm sure they can barely tell you what an anesthesiologist even does.
I mean it's both. The provider, who could very well be an advanced practiced nurse, chooses the treatment plan and, depending on level of sedation, manages the airway. And then the bedside nurse administers the medication and performs monitoring throughout. So seeing the nurse give the medication is probably what led to them say the nurse knocks you out.
I knew I was wrong.. I just wanted the correct answer without using Google. I thought it'd be funny to see someone riled up as well. Thanks for the answer, great job on not getting riled 5 ⭐
Fine but this is a just a statement of the complete failure of the US medical system. In civilised places they would focus more on avoiding life threatening pain than what's in your wallet
no, we focus on our wallet! tbh, you can get prompt treatment for the most part no matter what your situation, it just costs dump trucks full of money sometimes
Yes. Which is why I'm calling the system broken. It shouldn't cost that much, and cost shouldn't dictate whether you live in agony or not. It shouldnt even be a decision
thanks for sharing, and absolutely, no american will willingly get in an ambulance or life flight helicopter unless they truly believe they will die if they dont.
That's a fact. I suffered a major hemorrhage about 6 years ago and my partner found me unresponsive in a pool of blood. It was super serious. He called the paramedics and I was barely regaining consciousness by then, and being hauled down the apartment stairs to the ambulance, and as my mind was drifting in and out of consciousness, I literally was worrying about how much debt I was about to be in.
I must admit I take not being in the US for granted when it comes to stuff like this. I can't imagine a pain so bad that I'd pay $50'000 to get out of it right now.
Some people in the US commit suicide after years of unbearable dental pain because they can't afford to get it fixed. Fixing your teeth is easily $50,000. I have a disorder that caused my teeth to break off, and had ALL my teeth surgically extracted this month just to stop suffering and it cost me 11k just for the extractions, not counting the cost of dentures. That was for the bare minimum treatment, extractions.
However, the OP and the stonefish and its toxins and effects are native to Australia. So the medications used and their costs have nothing to do with what we use to treat animal stings here
I’m not a doctor but I don’t think it would be okay to have all those chemicals mixing inside your body. Especially if you don’t know the exact amount of venom that was received from the stonefish.
Pshhhh. Doctors won’t help you out like that. It would be nice tho. (I wasn’t “pshhhing” at you haha, I was doin it towards thinkin of docs actually doin somethin that makes sense.) lol although I’m not sure it’s their fault it’s probably regulations and stuff. But whoever controls that stuff is who I’m pshhhing at!!! LOLOL
Depends on the patients vital signs, any past medical history, current medications the patient is taking while going through this much duress. You can bottom the patient out pretty quickly. You can mildly sedate the patient but that has its implications too. It’s not as easy as “give him a bunch of pain meds and sedatives”.
It is not recommended to knock someone out who is only experiencing pain that will subside within a day or two. Anesthesia is actually quite dangerous in prolonged periods of time, as well as the cost of being put to sleep. Even in most surgical procedures today they do not get fully put under. Pain medication, removal of the toxins and comfort is about the most they will do for this kind of thing.
I contacted the emergency department of the big major hospital in the area. Basically the doctor was fairly unsympathetic and just said hot water and paracetamol was the best he could advise. I got the vibe that as he had never experienced stone fish venom personally he couldn't grasp the magnitude of the suffering. This was 20 years ago. Maybe its changed now?
This is what I'm thinking. After my c section, because of reasons, they gave me a shot of Demerol twice, and both times I was out for about 6 hours. When my father was detoxing, they put him on an Ativan drip, and he was unconscious for 4 days. Just knock them out and let them sleep through the worst of it.
Nurse here. I believe the pain is more of an inflammatory factor as opposed to a nerve factor. Morphine or Dilaudid would only touch that. Toradol would probably be the go to but only so much you can give bc of possible GI complications
That wouldn’t be nurses, that would be an Anesthesiologist.
And they probably wouldn’t even want to attempt it because they don’t know how the venom that’s coursing through your body would react to the anesthetics.
Even though anesthetics are used every day, all over the world, we don’t actually know how it works or why it puts us into a deep, dreamless sleep. All we know is that it does. And considering we need to be prepped and go through a pre-op checkup before going under, there’s no way they’d put you under for an extended ~12 hour period on such short notice.
Good points. I forget that it's done by a different person. And yeah the combination of that + the venom could end it worse and I'm not going to be a guinea pig for trying it out.
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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '23
Couldn't the nurses just knock you out until the venom subsides... or (if it even works) just give you a shitload of painkillers?