shot in the eye by an orange zooanthid

[CiXeL]

yes. i was a moron. yes. i should have worn eye protection. yes. i am well aware that was very dangerous. needless to say i will wear eye protection next time i frag (and i did immediately after the incident) but anways...

yesterday around noon i was fragging my colony of orange zooanthids and one of them squirted fluid into my eye when i tried to rip it off the rock with tweezers. i went to the bathroom to immediately rinse it out and kept my eye under the water for a few minutes. everything was fine until around noon today when i looked in the mirror and realized that now half of my eye is all bloodshot. i rinsed it some more and it seems to be a little better but pretty much the same. i imagine your advice is going to be go see a doctor but has anyone heard of this happening before? do the polyps host bacteria that could inflame it or is this a reaction to a chemical (palytoxin eek!) that has since been rinsed out and will clear up on its own.

 

[Anonymous]

You'll probably be fine, but you should call a doctor in any case. I think saltwater in your eye would probably give similar results...

Similar story: I got what I thought was a spider bite on my inner thigh about a month ago, which spread to a red area about the size of a football (no joke) 3 days later, with yellow and purple patches. There was even a red wavy line going up my leg, shaped like a blood vessel. I thought it would just go away, but my entomology prof told me to go to the hospital ASAP. (Yes, I took my pants down for my professor) The doc told me it was a secondary infection that inflames the blood vessels and would eventually get up to my heart. They prescribed antibiotics and I'm fine now. It never hurts to be cautious.

 

[CiXeL]

was it a violin spider? i hear they necrose the tissues.

 

[Anonymous]

Not sure....all my prof said was that it could have been a bedbug, but more likely some type of spider. She said it's impossible to tell just by looking at it. Never heard of a viloin spider, I don't know if we have those in Norcal.

 

[bphelps]

Matt_Wandell 1000 posts! Where's the party?

 

[Anonymous]

thanks for noticing....I didn't. This officially makes me a {squat} club member!

 

[Anonymous]

Not sure....all my prof said was that it could have been a bedbug, but more likely some type of spider. She said it's impossible to tell just by looking at it. Never heard of a viloin spider, I don't know if we have those in Norcal.

Soooo...you took your pants down in front of a female prof, huh? You sly dog, you. ;-)

 

[Anonymous]

I had an infection that did the red line up my leg too

I was told by my doctor, whenever you get that red line going up your leg/arm GO TO THE DOC!

 

[Chooch]

I got shot in the eye while scraping some mushrooms off of liverock. My eye became infected, bloodshot and was tender for a couple of weeks. I would recommend seeing a doctor just to be cautious. It's not worth jeopardizing your eyesight and from the other stories recounted here you don't want to risk any secondary complications.

 

[CiXeL]

yeah i just scheduled a doctor's appt for 1pm. what other kind of secondary complications have occurred?

 

[CiXeL]

they gave me an antibiotic gel to put in my eye. its conjunctivitis from whatever bacteria was in that zooanthid.

I must be one of a select handful of people who ever caught pink eye from a coral.

also got an interesting story (the doctor studies parasitology) about a guy who got an eye parasite when he was at the zoo and a sealion sneezed on him. apparently a parasite lives deep in the nasal passages of sealions and can also live in your eye. learn something new everyday.

 

[Anonymous]

Conjuctivitis is what they said I had too. Did you ever know that there's a piscine tuberculosis that manifests itself as a skin infection in humans? It's entirely possible to get it if your fish have it and you have open sores on your hands/arm when you contact the water they're in.

Sharkky, what can I say? I'm not the smartest guy, I have to use some sly tactics to get an A grade sometimes...

 

[Quigonsean]

That red line is a sign that you have blood poisdoning. Had it got to your heart it would have a good chance of killing you. Besides if your prof was a hot chick ik could've got cool.
It wouldn't have been a fiddleback spider. You'd have had a ulcer looking pit down to the muscle about the size of a kenedy 1/2dollar. It would also be black in that area too.

Sean

 

[Anonymous]

Well, it did turn black where it bit, but only about the size of a pimple. Now I wish I had taken a picture of it.

Ya know, this is why people died when they were like 25 back in the stone age. Here I am young and fit and a friggin spider bite could have up and killed me if I didn't live in the twenty first (or twentieth) century....kind of scary.