on
February 15th 2006 at 4:15 pm in After having my finger seriously bitten into by my cat I didn’t really take it no mind.
Hell, I’ve seen people bitten by even dirtier animals and they survived without going to the doctor.
For fun, I just started Googling a bit. On familydoctor.org I found this:
- You have a cat bite. Cat bites often cause infection. You don’t need to call your doctor for a cat scratch, unless you think the wound is infected.
- You have a dog bite on your hand, foot or head, or you have a bite that is deep or gaping.
- You have diabetes, liver or lung disease, cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or another condition that could weaken your ability to fight infection.
- You have any signs of infection, such as redness, swelling, warmth, increased tenderness, oozing of pus from the wound or fever.
- You have bleeding that doesn’t stop after 15 minutes of pressure or you think you may have a broken bone, nerve damage or another serious injury.
- Your last tetanus shot (vaccine) was more than 5 years ago. (If so, you may need a booster shot.)
Yikes — that’s 4 out of 6:
- Cat bite. No doubt.
- A bit that’s deep and gaping. If you consider 0.5 cm to be deep that is.
- Redness, swelling and a bit of pus coming out of it. (Hmm, the fever explains my sweaty night, though.)
- Never even had a tetanus shot as far as I can remember.
Hey, if pus comes out, it means the body is doing its work just fine, me thinks.
It it starts pulsating and getting any bigger, it may be a wise move to go to the doctor.
But I’ll blow up that bridge when I get there…
[...] Additionally, the swelling in my finger which she bit is slowly reducing, so I don’t expect it has to be cut open and cleaned, or amputated or anything. [...]
Heh, when the vet was here, late yesterday evening, and my girlfriend mentioned the bite, she warned me that it actually could be pretty serious.
Given the fact that the finger is still in good condition, and it being 3 days ago that she bit me I’d be OK though.
There was a slight chance however that her saliva would have this bacteria in it (long complex name, forgot the exact name of course) that about 10% of the people who get it in their system, well, die.
Heh.