L4 invaluable at Veterinarian visit

This weekend we noticed our cat had a bit of a limp with her back leg. I picked her up to see what was going on and when I spread the pads of her foot I was met with a very pungent, nasty smell and the appearance of a badly swollen digit that was draining into the space between the pads.

After a quick call to the Vet we made an emergency appointment to get her checked out. Since they had to squeeze us in and only had one Doctor on staff for the weekend shift, it took 2 hours to be seen.

When the Vet finally came in she picked up the cat and proceeded to try to examine the foot under the overhead fluorescent lights. Our cat's fur is so dark brown it appears to be black, so needless to say she couldn't really see anything. Out came the Surefire L4 from my belt sheath. One click of the tailcap and both the Vet and I could see everything that was going on with her foot in stark detail (it was pretty nasty) and a course of action was quickly determined.

Her foot was soaked, shaved and disinfected. As it turns out, the Vet believes she sustained a spider bite, probably a Black Widow, on one of her toes. Prognosis is excellent with the twice-daily application of a drying agent (powder) and antibiotics to prevent infection.

The L4 really made it incredibly easy to see what was involved with her injury and the Vet was very impressed by the quantity of light coming from such a small device - much smaller than her hand-held medical illumination tool. The even flood of brilliant white light allowed for easy distinction between the unaffected tissue, dark brown fur, and damaged areas. This is one sweet light that, in my opinion, excels at proving itself to be a worthwhile investment time and time again. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

For those of you who followed the story of our previous cat "Oreo" in a different earlier thread, we had to let him go due to his illness. We now have "Snickers" which as near as we can figure is a Havana Brown, which is a siamese mix. She came from the local Animal Control shelter where she had been picked up as a stray.

Glad to hear your kitty is OK !!!

maybe the vets could take the hint and stock their checkup rooms with one.

good luck with snicker's recovery.

Cool story Dude.

You were "Johnny-on-the-spot with the light".

I didn't know an animal the size of a cat could take a bite from a black widow, and live. Wow.
Is the vet pretty sure it was a widow?

yeah i was wondering the same thing as shankus..

maybe a brown recluse is a more likely culprit.. nc is far enough south for them i'm sure.

Good to hear things worked out well. How do you EDC the L4? Thanks

-Mike

I'm glad to hear your kitty is going to be OK, and that you had the L4 on you at the vet's office. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

A brown recluse bite would be more serious than that of a black widow. I'm guessing the spider didn't envenomate the bite too much, or maybe Snickers pulled her foot away and dislodged the fangs before the spider could envenomate too much. Either way, it sounds like the L4 saved the day. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

It's often the one use when it made a real difference that not only pays for the investment but also justifies the EDC.

Al

L4,
Hmmmmm, Pelican with McModule/BB750/W3 5-watter? Surfire L4 and a rip-off holster? I really like the Pelican 5 watt mod... wife will kill me.

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A brown recluse bite would be more serious than that of a black widow. I'm guessing the spider didn't envenomate the bite too much, or maybe Snickers pulled her foot away and dislodged the fangs before the spider could envenomate too much.


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Black widows use a neurotoxin; brown recluses use a poison that necrotizes the tissue around the bite. Neither are usually fatal to humans but I suspect either would kill something the size of a cat pretty easily.

(I've seen some graphic pictures of brown recluse bites. VERY nasty.)

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Size15s said:
It's often the one use when it made a real difference that not only pays for the investment but also justifies the EDC.

Al

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Truly said Al.
The price paid for a quality light is small compared to the total return they can deliver, often in unexpected ways.
David <>< <font color="blue">

Most spider bites will not cause such a strong reaction. A black widow bite is very possible. Not all widows have equally potent venom. Neither do all brown recluse spiders. I have been bitten by one of those, and it dissolved some skin on my ankle, about the area of a nickle, leaving a large open ulcer that took a couple of weeks to heal. Some people have had it a lot worse, and some have even died.
David <><

are spiders like them posin dart frogs.in the fact it is what they eat that makes the toxins.like the poison dart frogs we get here at pet stores are safe casue they dont have same diet?

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raggie33 said:
are spiders like them posin dart frogs.in the fact it is what they eat that makes the toxins.like the poison dart frogs we get here at pet stores are safe casue they dont have same diet?

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That's a great question. I hope someone here can answer it, because I do not know. I do know that for brown recluse spiders, toxicity tends to be related to geography, and that could either be diet or genetic. (Or other factors, such as average temperature, length of growing season, etc.)
David <><

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BlindedByTheLite said:


maybe a brown recluse is a more likely culprit.. nc is far enough south for them i'm sure.

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Brown recluse spiders are definitely at least as far north as Boston and Chicago.
David

seriously? hmm.. i believe doctors misdiagnose 90% of all brown recluse bites.. i'm purdy sure they're not local that far north.. or maybe i need to brush up on my arachnology b4 my 4th year of college..

spiders aren't like the poison tip frogs raggie, no.. alot of highly venomous species of spiders start making their own venom right after birth.. and almost all spider are venomous, even tho like a couple-dozen are only dangerous to humans.. most are too small to bite us or too small to inject any burdening amount of venom..

quickbeam, black widows are a much more venomous species in such that the females venom is 15 times as potent as a rattlesnake.. most cases i've come across, ppl have had heavy sweating, trouble breathing, real bad chest and abdominal pain, heart palpitations, nausea, high blood pressure and fast pulse, excessive salivation.. luckily it's a very slow acting venom and it can be treated hours and in strong ppl days after a bite.. but most ppl's symptoms drive them to a doctor within a half an hour.. whereas a brown recluse bite will kill skin tissue and can require skin grafts if very fatty areas are victim to the bite.. their bites can take months and months to heal, and amputation is sometimes necessary.. and i believe i've heard of deaths in europe from kidney failure attributed to a brown recluse.. or as they are in europe, fiddlebacks..

but in the US i think it's safe to say you need to worry about wolf spiders more than brown recluse..

sorry to write a book, i just find spiders to be fascinating.. i take trips to universities to study species not native to the US, since it's hard to get someone to catch you a funnel web spider and mail it.. (i get bit all too often RESCUING them from irrational ppl--usually women--who wanna squash them just for being there..)

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BlindedByTheLite said:
.... (i get bit all too often RESCUING them from irrational ppl--usually women--who wanna squash them just for being there..)

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I've met quite a few irrational people-some of them women, but none of them have ever bitten me. Perhaps you should get a tetanus shot as a precaution? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Brandon.

There was a police station in Boston infested with brown recluse spiders about ten years ago. There was an article in one of the Boston papers about it, and they gave descriptions of the spiders so that people would recognize them. One officer was bitten and had a bad reaction. We also used to see them in the Chicago area once in a while when I lived there over twenty years ago. That was where I was bitten, in 1976.
There have been human deaths from brown recluse bites in the states, including a little girl who died a few years ago only a few hours after being bitten. She was from a southern state, but I forget which one.
David <><

From the description: Brown Recluse, not Black Widow. If let go, the result of a brown recluse bite resembles Gangrene, and antibiotics don't work, as it is a toxin, instead of an infection. Normally slow acting, though anyone with a compromised immune system, like diabetics, are particularly vulnerable. In these cases, the venom/toxin works much faster than is usual.

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BlindedByTheLite said:

but in the US i think it's safe to say you need to worry about wolf spiders more than brown recluse..



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I must be missing something then. What is it about wolf spiders that you think worse than a Brown Recluse? We have tons of Rabid Wolf spiders (they're not rabid, that's just the name of them) in/around my house. Some of them reach the size of small tarantulas! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif As far as I know, they just have big fangs so a bite is like a bad bee sting (similar to tarantulas) or being stuck by a needle. Am I missing something?