friend's 3 yo got attacked by her cat

[passionatewriter]

she is worried about tetanus. she has several scratches and 5 puncture wounds, 3 are deep and one is very deep (bites).

she is worried about tetanus...what would you advise?

[cartersmom]

Poor baby!

Did the wounds bleed?? If they bled, than oxegen is present and tetanus infection highly unlikely. If there was no bleeding I may be more concerned. With tetanus i know proper wound care is essential. Oxegenating the wound is very important. I would put hydrogen peroxide on the wounds, but I would be wary about covering all the time with bandages them since that would keep the oxegen out. Hopefully someone else will chime in as well. Hope she feels better soon!

[magical1]

Oh my goodness, how horrible. Here I am at the moment trying to stick up for dogs and cats can be just as much of a hazard.

If it were me I would keep the wounds clean and spray with colloidal silver. Lugols iodine would also be good but would need to be diluted. Grapefruit seed extract in a carrier also may be beneficial. Yes 3% hydrogen peroxide would also be worth considering.

Those are just things I use all the time... I have no idea about what stops tetanus in a wound. What about cat scratch disease? anyone know about this?

One of my boys got a rusty nail stuck in his head recently playing at a friends who is having some building done. I cleaned the wound with CS and then just kept spraying it every hour. He was fine and the puncture healed really quickly.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

And vitamin C as well.

Suggestions to three year olds. Cat's don't attack normally, unless provoked.

[Seaweed]

I've never had this problem with the kids & any of my cats but I have been bitten badly. It is alot easier to be rational when it is you who is injured I think & there is no one else around to help. I had an old epileptic ocicat who was an absolute sweetie. I picked him up one day to bring him inside & he had a fit & bit my finger while he was fitting. It was a very deep bite wound. dh was out & the kids were asleep & I am 30mins drive from any A&E. So I thought about it. If I were to go to the A&E what would they do? Probably tetanus & antibiotics. It was a deep puncture would so I let it bleed for a while. 10mins maybe while I thought what to do. Then I took 30g of SA ( OK overkill I know but I never got any bowel symptoms ) & put a clean cloth around my finger to stop the bleeding. When it stopped bleeding, I put a plaster on & went to bed. I changed the plaster the next day. Took a tsp of SA in the morning when I got up. After that, I left it uncovered at night & covered during the day. It healed pretty quick. One of dh's work mates co-incidentally got bitten by his cat at the same time. His arm got infected & puffed up & he had all these antibiotics. I don't even have a scar now.

[Quickening]

Can you get tetanus from animals mouths? I was under the impression tetanus was a soil bacteria mostly - soil, dust, animal shit. Unless the animal was eating dirt or shit, would there be tetanus in their mouths? I thought rabies/cat scratch fever etc would be a more pressing concern from an animal bite. Great suggestions in here so far re treatment.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

If you runyour finger along that dust on your bookshelf, you will find 6 to the power ten clostridium tetani. Between 5 - 10% of us, have it happily multiplying in our guts, and human bits have clostridium tetani.

What you can't see, and don't know, doesn't much hurt you.

In the case of animals, because of what they eat, what they have in their mouths and claws requires good thorough cleaning IMO...

[passionatewriter]

thanks for all the replies.

i gave her some info. on the tetanus vaccine, which i believe is ineffective at the time of injury anyway. i also told her about the TGI (?) but that im not sure its needed.

the wound did bleed alot. the cat was definitely provoked.

im not sure what she did. she didnt post about it.

[magical1]

When Ollie got the nail in the head the parent whos place he was at expected me to run to the med centre and get a shot.

I was so calm and happy that this was the wrong thing to do.

Was this Mother going to rush out and get a vaccine administered?

[passionatewriter]

well, i wouldnt say she was going to run out and get teh vaccine. i think she was listening to those around her. after assisting her w/ some research, i think she was against the vaccine but in favor of the TIG (?). ultimately, i think the issue became overwhelming and she posted that she was going to trust her dr.'s advice...so not sure what she ended up doing.

it did get me to thinking though. not to make this about my friend.

i was under the impression that if a wound bled, it was ok. i was under the impression that a bleeding wound, by definition, was getting oxygen.

the things i read in my vax books were basically to wash thoroughly. i have seen some advice here that is helpful to me, but the question remains..how do you know you washed the wound if its deep? i don't know...seems like a legitimate question.

[Spy]

how do you know you washed the wound if its deep? i don't know...seems like a legitimate question.


You don't. You do what you can and you let the blood carry out the rest if the wound is bleeding, and then you use peroxide to try and deliver more oxygen where you can't reach. Between these three you leave no chances to anaerobic conditions to develop IF there were spores of tetanus, which is often not even the case.