Re: To Boem and Trapper

I can't remember the exact year I was bitten, but it was the late seventies/early eighties. I spent a summer of misery. The bite was on the top of my right foot. For a couple of months my entire leg was swollen at least twice its normal size and was blue-black. It hurt so badly I could not put weight on it and was on crutches for a long time. Gradually things got better and the only sign of the bite was a crater like scar, well actually two craters, one for each fang, and a very tender spot on the top of my foot that stayed there for at least ten years. Incidentally, I never experienced the annual return of symptoms that is so much a part of Ozark snakebite lore.
The day after the bite I finally got an appointment at the local clinic and saw another doctor (not the one who was drunk the night before). He prescribed powerful antibiotics, a really good pain reliever and more steroids. I pretty well slept for ten days and had some interesting hallucinations. Lots of neighbors came to visit, convinced I was going to die. I perceived them all coming out of the TV set which set next to the front door. I felt like I was watching them on TV and had no connection to the real world.
Incidentally, it was after that experience and the powerful antibiotics that I first began having digestive problems. I knew nothing about Candida and pro-biotics then, I just trusted the doctors.
To fast forward, one of the doctors I saw about my back suggested that the bite and swelling might have begun the nerve damage that affects me so severely today. The trauma I experienced with the first back injury and later the wreck with the deer just worsened already existing damage. Funny-I haven't thought of that aspect in years. I'm glad y'all asked so I could revive that memory.

As for as how I feel today-its lousy, but that's from exhaustion from overwork, stress and a really bad dietary choice.

edit-a few weeks after I was bitten one of the dogs got a snake bite on her neck. We rushed Tippy to the vet where she received the same steroids I did. She got doggie penicillin instead of Keflex, but she was better in three days while I was sick for months. my bill was hundreds of dollars while Tippy was treated for less than $50.00. I told the vet that if I ever got another bite I was going to see her! Tweet