Cat bites are dangerous!

[Pilot]

My wife got bitten by her mother's stupid cat yesterday. Was at the vet's & the cat didn't like getting it's temp taken & lashed out, bit Kathy just above the wrist & went right down to the bone. Deep puncture wounds. They cleaned it up at the vet's, but by 4 hours later she had throbbing pain, swelling & redness extending 3 or 4 inches up her arm. A woman she was working with said she used to work at an urgent care center & cat bites were dangerous & she should get it checked out. A call to our doc's office & they said the same thing, said she should go to the emergency room.

At the ER she was told cat bites are the most dangerous of all, human bites second and dogs were way down the list about 12th or 14th. Doc said if she hadn't come in yesterday afternoon she would have been there in the middle of the night with a more serious condition. Said she wasn't leaving the ER until she got antibiotics by IV.

I have always hated that cat. If it was up to me, when my mother in law passes away (she's 92 now), that cat is going straight to cat h***, or wherever evil cats go, but in reality we'll probably send it off to her brother who hasn't visited their mother in at least 6 or 7 years. Serve him right.

 

[daddywags]

My sister had a daughter who was bitten by a cat. She went to the er 3 times and was sent home each time after she was given some oral anti bioatics. She died 15 days later. Cat bites are nothing to play with and require iv drugs. DO NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING LESS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!

 

[SkyPup]

Cat Bite Fever is a zoonotic infection caused by Pasteurella multocida, a Gram negative faculatitive aerobic bacteria that is a normal comensal organism in the mouth and respiratory tract of animals.

It is hyper invasive and can usually be identified by looking at the wound and seeing all the white-yellow cheesy abscess pus and the chessy smell of the pus.

It is uniformly sensitive to Penicillin or Doxycycline though.....

She might need a Tetanus shot and a Rabies treatment too.

 

[czechsonofagun]

I got bit by a cat twice - and each time it was for antibiotics. Hmm, both case actually belong to the category Stupid-Thing-I-Done


1. On our back screened porch was a big noice one morning. I found out our two big dogs - pyr and airedale - are chasing little stray kitten from the neigbourhood around and around. Sleepy like I was I tried to catch it and save it and instead it caught me and later that day i got red lines going up from the bite and had to go to ER.

2. We got two cats for our barn and we had to get them spayed. Now one of them was easy enough to catch in a trap but the other one i tried to get by hand (with gloves of course). I grabbed her good, turned around and the trap closed on me. Soo, there I was - alone, trap is closed and holding in hand really pissed of cat by the scruff of her neck. The trap is impossible open with one hand and I knew that if I let go of that kitty (she was behaving like a tasmanian devil) I will never catch her again. I tried to switch hands and open the trap with one hand but on the end she got me between thumb and index finger really good. I tossed her in the trap and did every possible desinfection to the bite I could think of - except white hot piece of steel - and it got svollen and I ended up with antibiotics again.

I remember hearing it is b/c they have very sharp teeth and they drive those unfriendly bacteria in their mouth deep under your skin.

And all the effort for those two cats was for no use since our dogs killed one of them in next 6 month and drove the second one away to neighbours garage I believe.

 

[sodamo]

I would also add cat scratch as dangerous. I was scratched by a young kitten, really didn't give it much mind as it did appear to be worse than any "normal" type scratch as it healed. Several days later, I'm having vision problems in my left eye. Appointment with my eye dr and I can't even read the big E, although I can "see" around it. So the doc schedules me to some specialist who does all the specialized testing of the eyes. He finds nothing out of the ordinary, so he also orders a series of blood tests, one of which comes back positive for cat scratch fever. Regimen of antibiotics from my family doc cleared it up and my sight returned. - scary.

As I recall, the culprit was something related to the litter box.

Still have the cat - 8 years later - no litter box.

David

 

[Pilot]

Followup: The IV treatment didn't work. By 24 hrs. after the bite, 15 hrs after the IV, redness, pain & swelling extended from her hand to her armpit. Visited the family doc, she outlined the area of redness with a pen & said if it spread beyond that area to go back to the ER. 10 hrs. later we were back in the ER & they gave her a different antibiotic thru an IV. This one worked, with marked improvement overnight. Back to the ER this morning for another dose as prescribed last night & things are looking up.

Anybody want a cat?

 

[cp1969]

Cat Scratch Fever can be misdiagnosed as Hodgkin's Lymphoma. We had this happen to one of our daughters. I don't know if that's a common mistake or if we happened to get an unusually inept diagnostician.

 

[JoeR]

Cat Bite Fever is a zoonotic infection caused by Pasteurella multocida, a Gram negative faculatitive aerobic bacteria that is a normal comensal organism in the mouth and respiratory tract of animals.

It is hyper invasive and can usually be identified by looking at the wound and seeing all the white-yellow cheesy abscess pus and the chessy smell of the pus.

It is uniformly sensitive to Penicillin or Doxycycline though.....

She might need a Tetanus shot and a Rabies treatment too.

Skypup, can you be a little more specific? I think there were some technical terms missing, and some other latin words that needed to be added. (Just kidding)

Joe

 

[bugstruck]

Skypup, can you be a little more specific? I think there were some technical terms missing, and some other latin words that needed to be added. (Just kidding)

Joe

It's a rule for scientists. If you can read it and understand it in one pass it must be rewritten for profuse confusion. Even if it's simple, plain English. He's quite capable of loosing me on the technical stuff before the sentence is half done. Wasn't the first time and won't be the last.

 

[higgy]

This is not true of all science, there is some that even I can understand. The science of beer drinking for example starts off as understandable and goes the other way.

Dane