Venom Allergies.

[brodieizzard]

Hey all. After the unfortunate passing of Dingo Dinkelman, I’ve only just for some reason heard of being allergic to snake venom.

I’ve got a couple questions regarding this as I keep some mildly venomous snakes at the moment and eventually going to get some R3 elapids after doing my snake handling courses.

For starters, how will you know if you’re allergic to snake venom before you’re actually bitten and find out the hard way?

If you’re not allergic to venom, is it possible to become allergic in the future? After speaking to the australian reptile park in somersby, they mentioned some of their workers have become allergic over time due to all the milking of venomous snakes they’ve done. But for the regular person not milking snakes, is it still possible to become allergic at some point in time.

This post is pure curiosity as Im always interested in things reptile related and this is something I have no knowledge on.

 

[Herpetology]

It’s be rare to be allergic for the first bite. You can become allergic after your first antivenom.

Dingo had many bites and many anti venoms

 

[Sdaji]

Unless you get tested (which isn't cheap or convenient) you won't know you're allergic until you have an allergic reaction.

I'm not aware of any cases of people being allergic to venom on their first exposure.

The more exposure you get, the more likely you are to become allergic. It's very unpredictable; you may just build up resistance and never become allergic, or at any time you may develop anaphylactic allergy and quite suddenly die on your next exposure.

I am... I suppose... a 'regular person' - I spent many years keeping large numbers of venomous snakes and I still play with them reasonably often, and I've milked a handful of snakes, but I've never worked in a venom lab (I've visited a few but never routinely worked in one). I had an allergic reaction to a snake bite which in just a few minutes stopped my heart and breathing, I lost consciousness with my last thoughts being that they would be my last ever thoughts and that was where my journey ended, and I gather it was about 3 minutes after that I woke up in a different room with my shirt cut off and paramedics injecting me with more adrenaline. If they'd been a few minutes later I'd have been correct about my journey ending that day.

If you took that same snake bite, or I had taken that same one six months earlier, it would have been a mild sting in the finger, I've literally had worse mosquito bites than what the venom itself did, which is why I wasn't being careful with that snake. I'd been given very had advice about allergies from professionals which lead to me not being concerned about taking small doses of venom.

I've had two friends killed by snakes which are commonly listed in books as "harmless" (both very fully informed, experienced and capable, both were in unusual circumstances).

Snake enthusiasts routinely downplay the dangers of snakes, which does result in human deaths.

My advice based on what I've observed in others and what I've experienced first hand is to avoid bites from any venomous snake, including mildly venomous species. Having said that, I still sometimes take risks with mildly venomous species - take that in the same way you'd interpret a smoker's advice not to smoke.