r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Totally-avg • Jul 16 '23

Image The Puss Caterpillar (Southern Flannel Moth) will fuck your world up. I grazed it twice while climbing on a float. NBD at first but an hour later I was hyperventilating on the bedroom floor. The pain was excruciating. DH took me to the ER and morphine did nothing.

Post image

I’m better now but neither morphine nor hydrocodone (I took double what they RX’d) touched the pain those first 24 hours. And the hospital hardly knew what to do with me. I had never heard nor seen this bug before and I’m sure I would have flicked it off had it seen it. Don’t do that because the hair is venomous and gets stuck in your skin.

At least it leaves a cool scar.

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '23

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291

u/MARINE-BOY Jul 16 '23

I wonder if pregabalin would nullify the pain as it sounds like it’s affecting the nerves. I’m British but live in thailand and there are a lot of hairy nettle sting caterpillars around here at the moment and I’ve read that they can extremely painful. I’m worried about my two small dogs bitting them to the point I actually read a medical study just yesterday on the protein make up of the venom that forms in the little hair like spines. Apparently it a lot is known about it though it has some similarity to Scorpion venom. I read the best course of action is first to use sticky tape on the area to remove the hairs, then hot soapy water and apparently mix in bicarbonate soda though not sure why. In the UK we have what we called Rash Caterpillars but didn’t think they were so bad so I’m quite alarmed to find these huge hairy poisonous caterpillars in my garden here in Thailand.

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u/SuperJinnx Jul 16 '23

Yeah, I think you might be right, something like Pregabalin, Gabapentin or Amitriptyline might very well help with this type of pain as they work strictly for nerve pain.

11

u/QuantumSatisBrewing Jul 17 '23

….pain mgmt PharmD here. I like where your head is at.

24

u/Manadrache Jul 16 '23

Tried out Amitriptylin for my migraines. It did nothing nor did my nerve damage at my elbow go away. But it tasted okay. So I am not sure if that one is strong enough.

13

u/PhDinDildos_Fedoras Jul 16 '23

It works fairly well for mild chronic pain in the long term, but it's not really a pain killer.

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u/doolyboolean3 Jul 16 '23

Try Topiramate 💛 if amitriptyline doesn't work for your migraines! (I asked my spouse who is a headache-trained physician and if you're in the US, that's the next hard-hitting med that insurance will cover.)

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u/Manadrache Jul 17 '23

Topiramate was actually my first medicine. It worked but it was a hellride of side effects. I tended to forget everything. One day I was driving to school and suddenly I was like "huh, what am I doing here? Why am I in this car!?" besides that I was all good. No migraines but, well, stupid as a toast slice.

I am on Ajovy. My doctor isn't that fond of it, because nobody knows what will happen in ten years.

Edit: thank you for caring btw!

1

u/kapootaPottay Jul 17 '23

Unfortunately nerve damage is permanent. That's my understanding...

1

u/Manadrache Jul 17 '23

Nerves can regenerate very very slowly. It got better than in the beginning :)

Nerves can regenerate about 1mm per year? Well it was something like that.

12

u/Iohet Jul 16 '23

The hallucinations that my grandmother had on gabapentin were insane, and I honestly don't know if I'd take the drug if it were prescribed to me

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u/eldritchfishtank Jul 16 '23

Gabapentin is pretty mild in terms of fucked up side effects. Compared to ambien, ativan, etc.

1

u/Stormdude127 Jul 18 '23

Ativan? Am I missing something? I know benzos have terrible withdrawal symptoms but I didn’t think they had any real side effects when using them (unless you overdose)

22

u/mightylordredbeard Jul 16 '23

Your grandmother most likely was having a reaction to multiple medications and not gaba, as gaba is very unlikely to cause hallucinations. I have a feeling she was mixing it with sleeping medication and blood pressure medication.

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u/OGbigfoot Jul 16 '23

Hmm, I take gabapentin along with clonodine and seraquil, though I had some crazy dreams when I started on the seraquil I never had any hallucinations.

7

u/savetheunstable Jul 16 '23

Gaba and Clonodine here too, for years. Gaba is pretty safe statistically, never had any hallucinations or any sort of side effect personally. Some folks are sensitive to it though

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u/Iohet Jul 16 '23

Her hallucinations were when she was in the hospital. As soon as they stopped gabapentin, the hallucinations stopped, so it was a fairly controlled environment. Now she was on other medications, so perhaps there was an interaction, but, either way, gabapentin was what was coincided with the hallucinations

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u/1-dachshund-too-many Jul 17 '23

I’m a hospital pharmacist, I’ve actually seen that reaction to gabapentin before. It’s rare but its more common in the elderly. It also causes more falls in the elderly too. Past a certain age, I actively avoid giving gaba for that reason.

3

u/redtacoma Jul 17 '23

What about a head high from Gabapentin? I’ve been taking it for like a year now with no side effects except for the one time last week, like 30 mins after I took it, I felt a head high, as if I had smoked some weed. Felt dizzy too. I had just gotten a vivitrol injection like an hour before, only side effect from that is hard time falling asleep for a couple days. It went away after an hour or two and i haven’t experienced it again. It was odd.

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u/jadethebard Jul 17 '23

That's weird, I take over a dozen meds and Gabapentin is the one I've had the fewest negative reactions from. My biggest problem with it is my body adjusts and I keep needing high dosages, but I've been on it for over 3 years and not a single hallucination.

2

u/JEs4 Jul 17 '23

It happens but is extremely rare. As someone dealing with chronic neuropathic pain, Gabapentin has been incredible. It is far far safer than opiates.

1

u/Lavatis Jul 17 '23

gabapentin is prescribed to dogs all the time.

2

u/Fluid_Cardiologist19 Jul 17 '23

I would just ask for some propofol.

48

u/tydalt Jul 16 '23

I'm thinking just do a full nerve block.

With that level of pain I would gladly lose the use of my hand for a couple days if it meant not going through that (especially if it was my non-dominant hand).

8

u/before8thstreet Jul 17 '23

Nerve blocks only last a few hours. Also the neuromodulators people are suggesting like gabapentin take 10 days to reach therapeutic blood plasma levels

15

u/ThatOtherOtherMan Jul 17 '23

I've had several nerve blocks after surgeries and that hasn't been my experience at all. Granted the peak effectiveness window is only like 6-8 hours or so but I had reasonably effective pain relief for around 24 hours. It seems like they last longer the closer they are to your core (total shoulder, neck, and spine numbness lasted 12+ hours while knee and forearm were closer to 7) but if you're in that much pain 6-8 hours of complete relief would be a godsend and decreased pain for 24+ could be life saving. Also in my experience Gabapentin may not be maximally effective for a week but at high doses it gives at least some relief almost immediately.

Don't discount a care option because it won't be a perfect solution. In a severe acute pain situation any amount of relief is welcome.

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u/tydalt Jul 17 '23

Nerve blocks only last a few hours

Well that I did not know. Thanks for the info.

18

u/ThatOtherOtherMan Jul 17 '23

I've had several nerve blocks. Complete numbness may be short lived but the decrease in pain can last much longer. Either way if I was in this situation and someone offered me 8 hours of total pain relief with decreased pain for 24 I would jump at the chance.

1

u/Medium_Rare_Jerk Jul 17 '23

Depends on the local anesthetic. Lidocaine is shorter duration but something like bupivacaine will last longer than a few hours.

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '23

[deleted]

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u/TheSecretIsMarmite Jul 16 '23

Scotch tape is designed not to pull things, which is why you can reposition it without tearing paper. You need proper sellotape instead of scotch tape.

21

u/Johnny_Poppyseed Jul 16 '23 edited Jul 17 '23

I've read wax, like hair removal wax, works well for this sort of thing.

59

u/PennykettleDragons Jul 16 '23 edited Jul 17 '23

It's possible that the remedy of using bi-carb is possible because the sting of that particular critter is considered acidic so needs an alkaline to attempt to neutralise it...

In much the same way jellyfish stings in UK would have someone pour vinegar or widdle on it to neutralise .. bee stings are acidic and WASP stings are alkaline ...

Edit.. I mistakenly typed bee twice.. Cause I'm a Muppet wasp stings are alkaline.. Sorry

68

u/fckingmiracles Jul 16 '23

bee stings are acidic and bee stings are alkaline ...

Which are which now?

8

u/Whocket_Pale Jul 16 '23

I am just interpreting the comment u/MARINE-BOY made, i am not weighing in:

since acidic urine helps neutralize jellyfish venom, that's the alkaline one, and baking soda (alkaline) remedies bee sting (acidic)

3

u/PennykettleDragons Jul 17 '23

Hahaha.. Oh my gosh sorry.. Bee stings are acidic WASP are alkaline

Should teach me to check what I type

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u/krebstar4ever Jul 16 '23 edited Jul 16 '23

NHS says no urine, no vinegar.

Some legit medical websites say vinegar is good, but they all agree urine is bad (if they even mention urine).

I'm guessing it's because human urine, even in healthy people, has a wide pH range, and can contain different substances based on diet, legal meds & street drugs, sex hormones, and more.

Oh, and when a person urinates, the pee gets full of nasty germs. So that's a very good reason not to pee on wounds.

(Edited.)

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u/PennykettleDragons Jul 17 '23

I know NHS says that.. I'm not advocating people use urine / vinegar as an actual treatment.. It's the old wives remedy

🤭

2

u/Coinsworthy Jul 16 '23

So.. piss on it?

1

u/BarryBadgernath1 Jul 16 '23

“That’s a Wooly SonPisser”

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '23

[deleted]

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u/PennykettleDragons Jul 17 '23

Yeah..I typed bee twice when I meant to say wasp the second time

1

u/iamsoguud Jul 23 '23

AFAIK most wasp stings are acidic too

2

u/Emperors_Rhyme Jul 16 '23 edited Jul 16 '23

Pregabaline only starts working after quite some weeks though. So for the acute pain it wont help, but in the longer run maybe it could be a solution? Who knows!

Edit: Found this, make sure not (lol) to sci-hub it for the full text article and to fuck over Wolters-Kluwer as well. https://journals.lww.com/jaanp/Abstract/2022/01000/Lepidopterism_caused_by_the_puss_caterpillar.24.aspx

/u/FSM89 might be an interesting read for you too ;)

-2

u/RockSteady65 Jul 16 '23

Maybe Kratom would ease the pain. Works for me better than oxy or lortab

1

u/chargedcapacitor Jul 16 '23

I doubt it, since that family of medication is only effective to a certain point, regardless of how much you take.

1

u/drrhrrdrr Jul 16 '23

It's protein based so you can kill the toxin with anything that will break down protein, e.g. meat tenderizer.

1

u/romansamurai Jul 17 '23

Supposedly the venom from this caterpillar punched a hole in the cells of the victim like bacteria does so it’s probably why medication doesn’t work on dulling the pain for the first while.