If someone got bit by a snake or other deadly venomous creature on their hand of foot would isolating the poison in that limb by applying a tourniquet be a good/potentially life saving thing to do..?
Logic being the infected blood cannot reach the vital organs/systems granting time to get treatment or anti venom.
If not then why.. ?
In: 19
No
First reason is that in most snake attacks the adrenaline rush of seeing the snake as well as the pain of a bite will increase heart rate and this will increase the speed that the venom starts circulating in the bloodstream ; this happens in seconds.
The second reason is that unless you have someone nearby to help you, its not that easy making a tourniquet on the upper limbs by yourself, and a lot of snake attacks are done on the upper limb due to instinctively protecting your head and torso with it.
The third reason is that a tourniquet on lower limb greatly reduces your mobility. Think on the times you took too long in the toilet seat, tried to get up and noticed that your legs were tingling and it was hard to keep yourself upright as well as pain. If you are applying a tourniquet on your leg strong enough to impair blood flow, you are subject to losing the mobility as well. How can you get medical care if you can’t even leave the area?
The fourth reason is that a venomous snake bite is likely to have proteolytic enzimes. Even if you somehow block the venous return temporarily to avoid venom on the bloodstream, there will be a lot of muscle tissue damage. When removing the tourniquet, this broken muscle tissue circulating into the bloodstream will block the nephrons, leading into a acute kidney injury, which is one of the biggest reasons of late death post snake bite.
The idea of a tourniquet as a counter to snake bite is a very old one, but most data collected about venomous snake bites show that tourniquets are useless or deleterious in preventing deaths and amputations.
Just don’t do it. Don’t waste time in trying to do a tourniquet when your number one priority is reaching a facility with emergency care ASAP and get antivenom plasma ASAP.
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