Why are tourniquets not recommended as a first aid for a snakebite?
Why are tying the tourniquets or restricting bandages not recommended or in fact to be avoided to treat a snakebite before getting the proper medical attention?
Closely related questions:
- Am I able to "open up" a snake bite and suck the venom out of it?
- What are the first aid precautions to be taken in case of a snake bite?
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I keep on telling people that they should never try to restrict the blood flow by using a tourniquet or a tight restricting bandage. It has been a stupid myth among people, visualizing that the snake bites a person and the venom gets mixed in blood like you dip a color paint brush into the water bowl and water turns into a different color. This is not how it happens.
Most of the snake bits are Subcutaneous, sometimes Intramuscular (Ones that you might have taken on your hips when you were kid) and very very rarely Intradermal (Just a scratch along the layers of the skin) rather than being Intravenous (Injecting liquid substances directly into a vein), unless the snake fangs are so big and you are utterly unlucky.
Now how does it correlate to sucking venom out of a snake bite? Taking a deeper dive, you'd need to know how the venom gets into the victim's blood, what People usually call as Envenomation which means absorption of the venom into the bloodstream. The venom is absorbed firstly into Lymphatic System, which is a part of the Circulatory system. Again, Lymphatic system does not carry bloodstream, it carries Lymph. Lymph gets mixed with Blood at left or right Subclavian vein. But before that, the Lymph is passed through Lymph Nodes. Lymph nodes act like a filter for something that doesn't belong to the body, something which is foreign. But, these are not meant to deal with any kind of Toxins. So they get exhausted and that results in swollen or tender lymph nodes. That exactly why the ones who survive a snake bite sustain significant damage to Lymphatic system.
Ask anyone who has had a serious scorpion bite, or tell your doctor that you have been bitten by something you don't know about. The doctor might check your body for swelling around groin or armpits. That's where the Lymph nodes are. Later the toxins reaching Kidneys do their damage.
The point is, does the venom directly gets transported through bloodstream, no, it doesn't! using a tourniquet to stop the blood flow is a useless thing to do. The aim should be to prevent lymphatic spread rather than restricting the blood supply altogether.
The reason behind roughly explaining how it takes place, is to clarify why do should do certain things.
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There are several issues with tourniquets for snake bite:
It's likely too late anyway
The venom will spread rapidly though your system (as Weda says, the lymphatic system is the main carrier, not blood). The chances of you getting a tourniquet on before this has happened is minuscule.
It keeps all the venom in one place
Even if you do somehow manage to contain the venom, it's all in one place now! This means that a single area gets an incredibly high dose of venom. Bear in mind many snakes deliver a bite strong enough to kill several adult humans, now concentrate all that venom into a single limb. The damage caused is massive. The tissue dies and infection gets in.
The tourniquet is likely going to damage the limb as much as the bite
Stopping the blood is going to (obviously) starve the limb of blood. This is going to cause necrosis (dying off of tissue) which causes infection. Tourniquets are not to be used lightly. They should only ever be used as a last resort to prevent someone bleeding out. A limb that has had a tourniquet applied for a long period of time is a dead limb and will likely need to be amputated.
Eventually the tourniquet needs to be removed
So now you have large amounts of damaged tissue, etc in this single limb; eventually someone has to remove this tourniquet or else you're going to lose that limb anyway. Doing so releases all the venom and damaged tissue, necrosis, infection, etc. into your blood stream. Rather than containing the venom, you've concentrated it and released it anyway along with lots of other nasties...
The best thing to do if you get bitten, is to get antivenom FAST! Your priority should be this; don't waste your time or effort trying to suck the venom out or contain it. Simply get to the nearest antivenom ASAP.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/13648. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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