Snake Bite From the ER

Case: Mati Fuller

On Sunday the 16th of July, I received a call from a lady that sounded extremely upset. She said she might have been bitten by a black widow, or some other nasty creature, and that she had already been to the emergency room twice, and they didn't believe her. I told her to come over right away, and within 1/2 an hour she showed up. She could barely walk and had to use crutches, which she was lucky enough to have from a previous injury. As soon as she walked into my office, I could feel my hairs standing on end. There was something about her energy that made all my warning bells go off, and I thought to myself "oh, no, this is bad!" She started telling me her story even before I got my pad and pen out, talking a mile a minute, and jumping from subject to subject.

I asked her quickly if she had always talked that fast, and she said "no" and added that she felt like she was in shock, and that she was heading for a heart attack. She told me she went to the local bar a week ago, and she had to walk home in the dark, because nobody came to pick her up, as they were supposed to. Since we live in the country side, there are no street lights, so there was no way for her to see where she was putting her feet. She had had a few drinks and didn't notice that something bit her, but by the time she came home after walking 2-3 miles, she felt really horrible. She noticed that her foot looked very swollen, and she couldn't sleep much that night because she felt really jittery.

The next day she felt so bad that she decided to go to the local emergency room. Her foot was blue and swollen from internal bleeding, she was feeling shaky, fuzzy headed, nauseaus and very dizzy. She started getting severe palpitations with hyperventilation, her blood pressure was so high that her veins were standing out on her hands, and she thought she was going to have a heart attack. At the hospital they looked at her foot and thought it was a peculiar bruise. They listened to her heart and told her she was fine, and the nurse told her that her veins were standing out, too. Then they sent her home with a prescription for percadon. While she was waiting for her percadon, she almost fainted twice, and had to vomit in a trash can.

She kept getting worse, and a few days later, she went back to the emergency room again. This time she was very panicky and hysterical, because she felt like she had been poisoned by something very bad, and that the poison was killing her, and this time they gave her a prescription for valium.

By the time someone gave her my phone number, she was completely desperate. Her foot looked awful, as the pictures show. It was very swollen with a big bump right in the middle of the leg. There was internal bleeding all the way from the ankle almost to the knee, all the way around the leg. The color was black/blue/purplish, and the foot felt very hard and icy cold. There were two marks on the bump, which looked like fang marks. I thought they were too far apart to be a spiderbite, besides, you don't get internal bleeding like this from spider bites, so I figured it must have been a snake. She showed me her veins standing out, and how her hands were trembling. I asked her to stick her tongue out, and it was trembling, too. She was so weak at the time, that she could hardly stand up. After repping quickly, I came up with Lachesis, and under antidotes in the materia medica, it states that Lachesis antidotes Crotalus Horridus (rattle snake). I know that there are rattle snakes in the area, so that is what I think it must have been.

I gave her one dose of Lachesis 200c, just to see what would happen. At first she started feeling better, and told me to give her more, which luckily, I didn't to. Within about 2 minutes, she got a wild look on her face. She told me hysterically that she didn't feel well, and she started hyperventilating. She got severe palpitation and sweat pouring down her face. I thought "oh, no! The remedy is too strong!" and quickly gave her a dose of Lach 30c. The aggravation passed and she started feeling better. You could see her whole body starting to relax, and she started talking slower almost immediately. Within about 5 minutes, the color of the foot even started to change a little. After about 10 minutes she smiled and told me she felt much better. I made her a bottle of Lach 30c to take home, and I told her to put a few drops in a glass of water, stir it, and sip it throughout the day. I told her to fill it with more water when she ran out, stir it again and keep sipping until she really started improving.

I stayed in touch with her every few days, and did a follow up after about 8 days. She told me that she never had any more episodes of hyperventilation or heart palpitations after she started on Lachesis 30c. She had felt a slight constriction in her throat before she came to see me, and that was gone, too. The mentals were much better, and she was speaking at normal speed. The foot started itching inside a couple of days after she started the remedy. Then the color started changing, and the swelling began to subside. First the bluish/black color changed to a dark red color. Then the dark red changed to bright yellow, and slowly her normal color started coming back. At her follow up, the foot looked almost normal, except for a big blackish spot at the ankle, and there was still some swelling and hardness around the area of the bite itself. She was feeling really good mentally, and felt that she was no longer in danger. I changed the potency to 200c, since her life force is much stronger than it was a week ago, and she is able to handle it much better now. She is still improving, and she is very happy with her progress.

This is definitely the scariest case I have had so far. I was actually afraid she was going to die in my office when her heart started acting up, but luckily the 30c potency was able to calm her down and get rid of the aggravation. I find it amazing that nobody at the hospital could see that something had bitten her, and I am very grateful that we have such amazing remedies to work with. I love homeopathy! I am also grateful to the British Institute for everything they have taught me. Without this background, I wouldn't have had any idea what to do in this case, but luckily I had enough knowledge to pick a remedy that was able to turn around this potential disaster. With an untreated rattlesnake bite, she could have possibly lost her leg, or even worse, died, so I am very happy that I was able to help.