Snakebite – horses or people, what to do if you don’t have the money or access to an anti-venine

I read a news article this morning that there is a shortage of snake bite anti-venine’s around the world.  And to pay for giving a horse anti-venine you would nearly have to take a new mortgage out to pay for it (and yes I am exaggerating, but it IS expensive. Someone I know recently paid over $1000 for anti-venine for a dog, so I shudder to think about the cost for something the size of a horse!)

These techniques work for people as well as for horses and other animals, so I thought that I would share with you some techniques that I have learned over my many years of training, that can beat poisonous snakebite.  Maybe knowing these techniques might help you save a loved one’s life one day.

Surround the Dragon for Snake Bite.

If I know where the bite is and am able to do something about it immediately after the bite, then I would use a Chinese technique that I was taught, called “Surround the Dragon”. 

For this version of Surround the Dragon, you take your thumb and using quite hard pressure, draw a circle with your thumb around the bite. I would make the circle as big as I could on the limb.   On my arm, the circle that I draw hard might be two or three inches across.  Or if I had a bite on the top of my finger, I would be drawing the circle hard just above my first joint.

Then I would keep circling, keeping a very strong pressure on the flesh, making the circle a tiny bit smaller on each circle. Overlapping on the previous circle (or in the case of a finger, I would circle just a little bit closer to the tip of the finger where the bite is).  

In other words, this is a very slow spiral, with the bite in the centre of the circle, with each circle overlapping the one before but just a little bit smaller – get the idea?

When you get to the centre of the circle, you push your fingernail in, hard, over the top of the bite and keep it there for about a minute. 

Then shift the position of your finger nail and push in hard again, to make an “X” with the imprint of your nail.

I was told that this is a reliable technique, but I have never had a “just happened” snakebite victim to prove it for myself.  I would certainly be using it if I, or one of my animals, had just been bitten by a snake.  Then I would be running for the Vitamin C.

Vitamin C is very effective on poisonous snakebite

I have however, personally saved two dogs from very advanced snakebite with Vitamin C.  One of those dogs was at the stage of being unable to move.

I have also advised the use of Vitamin C for a number of horses over the phone, where the horses have recovered.

I keep the Vitamin C in injectable form in my fridge for emergencies and use as an intra muscular injection into the neck of a horse. The Vitamin C goes off so you have to replace the bottle every year or so even if you haven’t used it. 

According to Pat Coleby, Vitamin C works slightly faster than anti-venine and of course, you don’t need to know what kind of snake it was like you do with anti-venine.

Pat Coleby tells a story where she administered 50ml of injectable Vitamin C for a suspected snakebite on a horse and she is an expert having supervised many, many cases so I would use her dosage. 

Pat also tells of dissolving a teaspoon of sodium ascorbate into distilled water (sterile) and injecting that intra-muscularly.  1 teaspoon of Sodium Ascorbate roughly equals 5 grams of Vitamin C, so you would normally need 5 teaspoons to make up a dose for a horse who had been snake bit.

Sodium Ascorbate is one of two commonly available versions of Vitamin C supplement.

If I only had the Ascorbic Acid version of Vitamin C and I had a someone bitten by a snake, I would administer that by mouth.  The bitten person or animal can lose their swallow reflex, so the faster you get the Ascorbic Acid into them the better.  However, one of the dogs that I saved wasn’t swallowing too good anymore and I just kept stuffing the Vitamin C powder in anyway.  The absorption through the mucous membranes of the mouth must have been enough, because he came good pretty quickly.

Pat Coleby tells a story of a vet killing a horse by injecting Ascorbic Acid intravenously.  And I have heard that when you have to do an intra muscular Ascorbic Acid injection in an emergency, it is pretty uncomfortable for the horse for quite a while.  Because of that, I prefer to keep the Sodium Ascorbate version of Vitamin C and I keep it in my medicine cupboard in an airtight and dark container.

Making a Homeopathic Medicine for Snakebite

To make a homeopathic medicine for snake bite, ideally you need some traces of the venom itself.  I got my venom from a guy I know who keeps snakes for a hobby, but you could get your venom in an emergency by scraping around the site of the bite. 

If I didn’t know where the bite site was, but just suspected a snake bite, I would use fluid (spit) from the person or animal’s own mouth to make the medicine. 

What you need to have on hand

You need either a trace of the snake’s venom or some spit from the person or animal and two very clean containers (I use proper dropper bottles but you could use two old jam jars and a teaspoon if they were clean enough) and a supply of clean water or alcohol for the medicine and clean water for washing out the equipment at every step.

Procedure

  1. Fill one bottle with water and put into the bottle a trace of the venom or the spit.
  2. Succuss 46 times.  You do a succussion by hitting the bottle firmly against the palm of your hand, or on a book. (For more information about succussion click here) One succussion is one hit of the bottle, so you hit the bottle against your hand or book 46 times.
  3. Then take one drop from that first bottle and put it into the empty second bottle, then fill the second bottle up with water or alcohol. We have good water here, so I personally use water mostly and just use alcohol for the last step.
  4. Succuss the second bottle 46 times.
  5. Tip out the first bottle, rinse thoroughly with clean water, then take one drop of the diluted mixture from the other bottle and put it into this bottle, fill it up with water and succuss 46 times.
  6. Keep changing bottles 4 more times, (6 times in total if you include the 2 times that I have just described ) each time taking one drop from the previous bottle and putting it into the clean bottle, succussing each diluted mixture 46 times.

Administration of the medicine

  1. Give the person or animal 5 drops every one minute, for 6 times.  Spoon it in roughly if a spoon is all you’ve got, it will be fine.  The medicine does not have to be swallowed or anything else fancy, it just has to go on the mucous membranes to be effective, so getting it on the inside of the lips is good enough.
  2. Then, give the person or animal another 5 drops every two minutes for another 5 times.
  3. Then give them another 5 drops every 5 minutes for another 6 times.

My combination treatment of snake bite

If I know where the bite is, I would:

  • Do my version of Surround the Dragon.
  • Bandage the bite site and both sides of the bite site with a firm bandage.
  • Get some Vitamin C into them, injection if I had it, by mouth if not.
  • Make the homeopathic and get that into them while I was going for the doctor or vet to supervise any remaining symptoms.

If I didn’t know where the bite site was, but suspected snakebite, I would:

  • Get some Vitamin C into them, injection if I had it, by mouth if not.
  • Make the homeopathic and get that medicine into them while I was going for the doctor or vet to supervise any remaining symptoms.

If you have tiger snakes or other deadly snakes in your area.

You only have about 15 minutes from tiger snake bite to death on some animals, so having some homeopathic anti-venine on hand could be useful.  I wouldn’t like to have to spend the time making the medicine under that kind of pressure.  I have Tiger Snake homeopathic available for $40 per bottle.  Email me jenny@bookswithspirit.com if you want some.  Kept under the right conditions, it should last indefinitely.

If you have particularly deadly snakes in your area, then you might like to get a tiny trace of venom from your local snake enthusiast, to make a homeopathic ahead of time too.

After all this talk of poisonous and deadly, please remember folks, that snakes are amazing beings who do not want to bite anything that they can’t eat.  Click here for the story about my snake encounter that changed the way that I think about snakes.

Paralysis tick

You can make a homeopathic antidote for the paralysis tick in exactly the same way, using the body of the tick itself or some spit from the person or animal.

For instructions for making free homeopathic medicines  for equine influenza, horse flu, swine flu,

and any other viruses that you can think of,  here is a list of useful articles:

And while I’m here, there are two reasons for putting these health articles up on my website.  My books on this website might just save someone’s life too, maybe even as dramatically as a snakebite treatment.  At the time of writing this article, there were four books here – for horsey and non-horsey people alike.  All my books come with my personal “love this book or get your money back” guarantee.  So click here to go have a look at them!