I have been bit many times over the years, from little hatchling jungle carpets to big retics. I have had teeth embedded in my flesh, bleeding, pain, numbness, etc. This most recent one was a little scary for me, it was last Wednesday. My wife was rushing me to get out of the snake room so we could go to lunch. I had cleaned a few cages and I wanted to move my 6.5' male Peruvian to another cage I had just cleaned. Normally I would use my hook for the feeding response and then just free hand it from there. Well, I was being rushed and like an idiot I reached in and got tagged on the right wrist. Blood starts running out of the holes from the top teeth on top of my hand and the holes from the bottom jaw went all across the artery below my thumb(you know the one where you check your pulse). Within about 10 seconds my wrist area around that artery had swollen nearly 2" off the surface with blood. I started to think that it may not stop and that I would have to rush to the ER. I ran it under running water, applied pressure and luckily it started to subside. I then covered it with a bandage and went to lunch.



As the days went by afterward I had very visible bruising that went into the meaty portion of my thumb and also the other direction into my forearm. I guess the blood had to go somewhere. Each day of weight training would cause the skin in the area to bruise in different spots and push the swelling outside of my wraps and straps. It feels fine now, no pain to speak of and the holes are almost completely healed. I am now very aware of getting bit in arteries, LOL. As for the Peruvian, his mouth was not damaged at all and it was merely his feeding response and my stupid decision to free hand it. Afterall, he did breed two females this season, one of which I am eagerly awaiting at 112 POS.
DM Exotics

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