We have learned the hard way how to keep our animal alive and healthy. Obviously, the basics of the appropriate nutrition and clean water are always important for all of our farm animals.  

Our tips below concern those things we have found to be a real problem in this area, probably a product of our soil and water bacteria, the prevalence of internal parasites, plus warm temperatures, high rainfall and humidity.  This information may be helpful to others but obviously since we are not vets, this is for reference by others but a qualified person should always be consulted when needed.

We tend to try to find ways that we can care for our animals ourselves. We consult the vet for our dogs and horses when we don't know what's wrong, or when it involves surgery or prescription meds.

CHICKENS & PIGEONS

Fowl Pox - Fowl pox is spread by mosquitoes.  This seems to be specific to chickens.  There is a pigeon pox disease but my pigeons do not seem to get it.  I keep my baby chicks in screened incubators so they are not exposed to fowl pox prior to them being vaccinated with the fowl pox vaccine from the feed store.  Some people vaccinate their chicks at 3 - 5 days old.  With the tiny breeds, like the Japanese Bantams, the chicks are so little and the double needles are so big, I just can't do it till they are larger.    So I keep the mosquitoes away from them.  Just to let you know how prevalent the infected mosquitoes are, I have had unvaccinated chicks in a warmed cage in my house 300 yds from the chicken yard and they became infected.  Yet I didn't even notice any mosquitoes in the house. 

To vaccinate the chicks, you mix the contents of the liquid vial with the solid vial of the vaccine, then withdraw the blue liquid into a shallow container in which you can dip the double needle.  You stick the dipped double needle through the skin part of the chicks "armpit", or is it "wingpit".  The bird squawks a little but quickly recovers. 

Clean Water -

In late 2005, I started changing every open water container every day and adding a small squirt of Chlorox to the water.   Since I started doing this, I  have not had a new case of Marek's disease (the disease that causes chicken paralysis).  .    Update,  2006, I rethought this practice.  If one thinks of the chicken as a biosystem, one wants to promote healthy bacterial systems in the bird.   By using Chlorox, one is essentially  killing all bacteria, good and bad.  I began to worry about the beneficial bacteria needed in the gut.  I am trying a different system.  I change all water bowls every day, and add BAM or EM as neeeded (see below).   In my reading on the subject, some breeders wait two years before breeding their birds so they identify genetically susceptible birds and do not breed them..  The gorgeous jungle fowl that adopt me (the ultimate in sustainability) do not seem to be susceptible at all.

Weight Loss - Wasting Away - De-worming

When I first started with the chickens and pigeons, I was de-worming them but I was not religious about it.  I would have individual chickens or pigeons lose weight, get droopy and ultimately die, sometimes with an additional respiratory problem .  I did all kinds of things to try to save them.  I thought the problem was coccidiosis because I saw some blood in the droppings.  Often I seemed to be able to cure one part of the condition, but just when the bird seemed to want to start eating again, it seemed that the digestive system had been so badly compromised that the food would overwhelm  the chicken's system and it would quickly die. 

I went back to the books and found that some of the intestinal worms can catastrophically damage the chickens' intestines.  I then concluded that my neighbors who raise game cocks  were very correct.  They worm  their chickens on a very strict schedule.  I started deworming with either ivermec, fenbendazole, or piperazine.  I deworm at least once a month, or if I see bloody droppings, or have a bird that seems to be underweight. 

Since I have been doing this, I have many less sick birds.  I pick up my birds a lot.  If someone seems a little light, I give them an individual dose of dewormer to make sure they are clear.

The direction I am hoping to progress in is learning how to control internal parasites naturally.  I note that the McMurray hatchery advertises something called Wormguard Plus with Flax.  This product apparently contains multiple types of lactic acid bacteria, enterococcus faecium, and whole flax seeds for the essential fatty acids 3 & 6.  According to the catalog blurb, the product is 100% organic, and rids birds of internal parasites without use of poisons.  Of note is the claim that parasites can not develop an immunity to the product as they do to worming chemicals.   I haven't tried the Wormguard yet.  At $20.45 for 2 lbs, used at a rate of 1 1/4 cups  per 50 lbs. of feed, it seems a little pricey.  I do feed flax seed to my horses to help them metabolize sugars at the cellular level, so I may start adding flax seed to the chicken rations also, and look for other sources of the bacteria.    The concept of properly  nourished animals, with adequate sources of Copper, being able to shed internal parasites was also discussed in an article by Pat Coleby in a recent Acres magazine.  Animals deficient in copper, often as a result of grazing on pastures fertilized with high phosphate fertilizers, are also subject to Crohn's disease, an inflammatory condition of the intestine which reduces the ability of the animal to absorb nutrition.  

I am always looking for natural remedies.  We learned in our permaculture course in Australia that papaya seeds are a natural dewormer.  Papayas are also and excellent supplement to the chickens' diet.   I was away for a year in Australia taking care of my dad.   While I was away, my papaya planting program did not go forward.  Since I have come back, I have been planting seedlings from our own plants or organic seeds collected from organic papayas.  It is my aim to have an  over-abundance, a veritable embarrassment of riches of papayas.  My horses are also avid papaya consumers, even Michigan-raised Sygnet caught on very quickly that papayas are good.

Respiratory

I have increasingly learned how to treat birds that get respiratory conditions.  I don't get very many of them.  Mostly, they occur when the bird is compromised for other reasons.  Many times bird health conditions compound each other.  For instance, if a bird is hurt or gets an eye infection, it tends to not get enough water and food, then it gets quickly susceptible to respiratory conditions.  If I see any bird that is moving slowly or catches my attention as being in any way lethargic, I pick the bird up and look it over for eye injuries or infection. 

Often, if the bird is only recently looking piquey, I sometimes try intubating the bird with an appropriately-sized rubber/plastic tube, and use a syringe to hydrate the bird without risking having it get water into its lungs.  Intubation is fairly easy once you have learned how to put the tube gently down the bird's throat.  Then I use a syringe (without a needle) to pour the water down the tube.   I give 25 - 30 cc of water or more to the larger breeds, and 15 cc to the smaller breeds.  Remember to fill the syringe with air several times and push the water down through the tube with the air, otherwise you'll fill the tube but not get the liquid into the bird.  If the bird needs some calories, I mix up some sugar in the water.

If the bird is very ill, and you see it breathing open-mouthed after handling, try to minimize the handling and the stress on the bird.  If a bird is at rest and its breathing is labored and opening its mouth to breathe, it is often too late to save them.  I always put them in a warmed cage, give them an antiobiotic, and make sure they are hydrated.  Sometimes I have put them in a tented are and misted VetRx in the air with a bubbling mister.   It is very iffy. 

The other thing that I learned is that susceptibility to respiratory disease can be related to inadequate intake of vitamins, particularly Vitamin A.  I put vitamins and electrolytes in the drinking water several times a week.

The above was written before I discovered BAM in early 2006.  See below.    Now I change out the drinking water every day and add BAM at the 800 to 1 concentration (i.e., 1/2 cc in a gallon of water).   I  had one Polish hen who had a broken leg.  While she was recuperating from the broken leg, she was inactive and came down with some sort of infection that caused her face to swell up. I treated her with antibiotics but she was slowly deteriorating and was getting shocky (open mouth gasping) when I would handle her..  As my first test of BAM, I took her off the antibiotics and started giving her BAM at 100:1 concentration in her water.  I would give her the treated water out of a syringe and moisten a little feed with the BAM and hand feed it to her.  Within several days, she was not gasping when I handled her and the swelling on her face was reducing.  She continued to improve, and started drinking and feeding  herself, so I put her in a bigger cage to encourage her to start moving around more and hopefully using her legs.  Unfortunately, a predator of some kind got into the cage and did the poor girl in. 

At the moment, as of March 2006, I believe that addressing internal parasites, meeting nutritional, mineral and vitamin needs and providing clean drinking water are the most successful things I do to keep my birds healthy, in addition to protecting them from cold and drafts, etc.

Treatment of Injuries

I have tried various things with injuries and eye infections, usually involving treatment of that bird with either oral or topical antibiotics.     As of 2006, I was introduced to BAM (Biologically Active Microorganism), which is made by Harry Arakaki of Organa Agricultural Hawaii, Inc. Now whatever kind of injury it is, I put BAM on it.  If I bird has an eye infection, I put a drop of straight BAM right in the eye.  Chickens get this yukky solid yellow build up in infected areas including the eye.  It is a little gross but the yukky  yellow has gotta come out.  If the eye has been serious infected for some time, either the original injury or the infection may have destroyed the eye and the ultimately the eyeball is pretty much disintegrated and comes out when I am taking the yukky yellow stuff out.  If I'm  lucky, the yukky yellow stuff is built up around the eyeball but can be worked out if I massage the closed eye.  I put some BAM in the eye, then check the eye and reclean and re-treat each day till the eye stays clean.   In one hen, her eye was so badly infected that I thought for the longest time that the eyeball was destroyed.  I used the clean and BAM method till the eye stayed clean each day.  When I checked her a week or so later, to my surprise, the swelling had gone and she had an eyeball which was only slightly clouded.  Update 2006, I now use the analgesic cotton swabs sold for use by humans for mouth pain.   I use the swab to anesthetize the eye area so I can clean it more aggressively in the beginning.  This makes the bird more comfortable and calm while I am working on it and allows me to make a lot faster progress in removing the crud that is impeding the healing.  Before I used the swabs, I had one bird that I worked on for 6 weeks.  I supposed that perhaps his eyeballs were destroyed but finally I cleared away the material and found the eyeballs intact on both sides.  His eyes are free of infection now, the eyes look clear and uncloudy, and the pupils adjust to light levels, but the bird acts as though it can't see.

Before I had BAM....  Muffin acquired a injury from other chickens picking her feathers from her back.  Before I clued into what was happening, the sore developed into an ugly, raised inflamed  area bigger about 1-1/4" in diameter.  I scraped some granular material out of it but everything I did seemed to be making the wound larger.  There was no foul material in there, but it was obviously not healing well.    I put Muffin on twice daily Baytril injections, and started warm compressing the sore.   The sore did not seem to improve, and I wondered if it was getting uglier.  Finally, I decided that it was time for experimentation. I started applying a comfrey leaf poultice on Muffin's sore twice daily.  I microwave the comfrey leaf in a little water for about 40 seconds.  Then I take the warm leaf and squish is over the sore so juice goes down into the sore.  Then I applied Farnum's Tri-Care Horse Ointment over the top of the comfrey leaf to glue it in place.  I also switched to Agricmycin in Muffin's water.  The wound gradually shrank in size but I was not able to fully resolve the problem and eventually Muffin succumbed.  Today, I would use BAM to irrigate the wound.  Now if I see that hens are picking the feathers off another hen's back, I make a duct tape cover over the bare back to protect her and try to relocate her to a cage where the others don't pick her feathers.

One thing that they warn about with comfrey is to be careful with deep injuries that the top layers do not heal over an unhealed bottom layer.

With the dear little General, his wife, Florence, literally hen-pecked his legs.  She pecked at his joints, particularly, his hocks and ankles.  It took me a day or so to figure out what was going on.   Some days after I separated them, little General began to hold up his right leg.  I examined it and was dismayed to find that I could see bone on his hocks.  I now wrap the injury in a microwaved comfrey leaf and cover this with an eleastic adhesive bandage.   The wound did recover and little General regained the use of his leg.   If I were doing this now (2006), I would have treated the wound with BAM.

BAM OR EM?   We have been faithfully using BAM for years and would continue to do so, except that now we have organic certification, we can't use BAM any more because the manufacturer has not applied for and obtained OMRI certification for the product.  So we have switched to EM which is easily available at many locations, such as our favorite feed and fish tank store, Waimanalo Feed Supply.  We can also make up our own EM using purchased EM and molasses in the right proportions.   That is pretty nice.  We use EM in much the same way that we used BAM.   The U.S. Coast Guard uses BAM to protect personnel when they are sent into contaminated waters  in rescue efforts.

Crop Blocking

This is does not happen often but occasionally a bird will have a full crop full of stuff that won't pass.  Sometimes it is a lot of liquid, sometimes you can feel solids in there also.  I have tried various things unsuccessfully on a series of birds and in each case. the bird became weak and died.  Now I have had some success with a slightly unusual method. I had a hen with a crop full of liquid who was alert and  moving around but not eating. I picked her up.  Her crop was so full that as I picked her up, liquid came out of her mouth.  I held her upside down and drained some of the liquid off.  She was a sturdy hen of about 6 lbs.  For a couple of days, I gave her about 5 cc of copper sulphate solution though a tube inserted down her throat, plus I gave her enemas of 50% BAM that I administered by gently squirting material into her vent from a syringe.  My theory was that no fluid was passing into the gut and that I had to keep her hydrated in some way.   The second day I added 100% BAM to the mixture I gave her orally.  On day three, I decided to give her half a Vitamin C and BAM orally, and 50% BAM as an enema   I thought the BAM would prevent the fluid in her crop from becoming putrid, and it did.  I also thought that the bird would be hydrated from the gut.  Apparently that worked also.   After about 5 days, I was just about to give up, and I found the next morning that the crop had emptied and that the hen was getting a little interested in food.   I continued the therapy for several more days until she was eating normally and  I decided that I could terminate the treatment.  Success of this kind is very rare.

Mites

I hate mites. I can't stand picking up a chicken and feeling that itchy feeling on my skin.  At first I used a miticide dust from the feed store for the pigeons and chickens.  About once a month, sometimes more frequently, I dusted each squawking chicken and dusted all the pigeon perches and nests. 

In various online publications I read about using diatomaceous earth to keep chickens free of external pests.  I was getting sick of dusting with poisons so I searched for an online supplier of diatomaceous earth.  I now order if from www.groworganic.com .   I bought food grade diatomaceous earth.  This is important, some of the DE sold contains crystalline silica over 3%.  (World Health Org. recommends less than 3% silica for human/animal consumption).  Food grade DE is used in grain and flour storage for human foods to control insect pest,.

I started feeding DE to my chickens and ducks at every feeding over 6 months ago.  I've also started using it with my horses and dogs.  With the poultry, I have totally eliminated using the insecticide dust on them.    I don't have the mite problem in the poultry any more even though the wild doves come in to feed all the time.  I have probably made a significant dent in the local wild bird mite problem also.  The only time I would dust with insecticide at all is if a new bird comes in with mites and I want to knock them down quickly. 

Also be aware that mite infections can cause the chickens to scratch, causing injuries and infections around the eyes.  If their eyes get infected this often leads to other poor health conditions.  This is another reason why it is important to get rid of mites.

Please note that when using DE, you don't want to breathe it and you don't want to get it in your eyes.  The sharp edges of the tiny skeletons of which DE is composed, will really irritate your eyes till you wash it out.  I know this from experience.

Also, if you have the land and a suitable climate, grow things like neem trees which have insecticidal properties.  You can cut neem boughs and spread the foliage around in the chickens bedding for additional control of external pests.  My chickens and goats both nibble on the neem leaves.

FYI on dog fleas, I don't think the DE can knock down a raging flea infestation; in any acceptable time frame.  Maybe it could be effective if used religiously and perhaps it would work really well on a small property where all the dog's favorite spots could be treated.  My dogs are all on monthly Frontline Plus  or Advantix topical.  I have noticed that if they do get some fleas from exposure to other dogs, I can use the DE dust externally on their coats to knock down the fleas quickly and give them some relief. 

DOGS:

Heartworm - We use injectible ivermectin given orally.  The dosage was confirmed by a veterinarian.  If you do this, please check with your vet to make sure that you do not overdose your animal.

Fleas and ticks -  On a large property like a farm, it is not practical, economically, financially, or environmentally to treat the property for fleas and ticks with insecticides.  All of our farm dogs are treated with Frontline Plus or Advantix which has a adult flea killer and a growth inhibiter.  Fleas do become a little bit less of a problem in winter, but we still have to treat year-round.  In summer when the flea situation can get out of hand, I keep a supply of Program.   I may give each of the dogs a Program pill for a couple of months at the height of the flea season.

Flesh Eating Bacteria  - Apparently this bacteria is around all parts of Hawaii and the world but only rarely causes a problem.  See http://www.ha.org.hk/qmh/micro/strept.htm)  We have had only one experience with it when Kilakila, my Dobie-Rottweiler, became infected with it after being bitten by one of the neighbor's dogs.    Kilakila thought they were playing and they tore a hunk out of his side.  I looked at the wound, it seemed clean so I didn't treat it.  He woke me up the very early the next morning to let me know that it was hurting him.  I washed it off and put some antibiotic on it, but it was already infected.  Even after a treatment course of antibiotic, a panel of hard tissue was forming under the skin on his side and spreading downward to his underside (necrotising fasciitis.streptococcal gangrene).  Eventually, the tissue all along his underside was involved, swollen, with the skin broken down and exuding fluid.  He was a mess.  By that time he was on a four quadrant antibiotic and pretty much catatonic.  I warm-compressed all the affected areas several times a day, sort of massaging the inflamed tissue.  He slept under a heating pad to help keep circulation to the affected areas.  I monitered wound progress photographically and sent photos, temps and assessment info. via a daily email to the vet.

Gradually he recovered completely.  About three weeks later, he was thinner but up and about.  He  recovered completely without needing any surgical removal of the necrosed tissue.

NOTE:  This experience has dramatically changed the way I handle cuts and scrapes.  I pay attention to even the smallest scratch.  I clean any cut as soon as possible and apply an antibiotic ointment and cover the cut.  That evening, I will soak the affected part in very warm water with Povidone or some kind of antiseptic in it.  This seems to stop local infections pretty effectively so that injuries heal up quickly.  Having seen the flesh-eating bacteria in action, I definitely have a lot of respect for its capability.  See my write-up below about warm compresses used on cellulitis after a centiped bite.

Toxic Bacteria - Leptospirosis???? / We Don't Know  - This happened  (December, 2003) to, guess who? Kilakila!  He threw up in the early a.m., and was seen drinking a large amount of water (a suggestion of kidney problems) later in the day.  He then disappeared for the day and could not be found till 9:00 p.m., when he was located on the lower lawn.   He was stone cold and very lethargic and still throwing up clear liquid.  I dragged him to the house, blanketed him, gave him Peptobismol  and  warm drinks of Pedialyte, and lay down with him to try to warm him up. (the vet later suggested Pepto might not have been the right choice because it has salicylates in it, but it did stop the vomiting).  The next morning, his paws, lips and ears were still quite chilled.  His gum refill time was okay and he was not dehydrated.  I wrapped him in a blanket and took him to Makai Animal Clinic in Kailua.   He was able to walk into the Clinic under his own steam.  Dr. Tom at gave him an antibiotic (metronidazole)and took a blood specimen for tests.  He noted that Kila's temp was still sub-normal.

I took Kila home and rugged him up under blankets and a heating pad till he was toasty.  When he was not drinking water by himself, I made him drink mucho warm water fortified with sugar and Pedialyte.   The following day, Dr. Tom reported that Kilakila's blood test showed  grossly abnormal kidney and liver test results.  Kila was in kidney and liver failure.  He was a dying dog.   Dr. Tom prescribed doxycycline for 14 days.   I tried to get a urine specimen  when Kila started to urinate again, but I discovered that my dog just does not want to urinate with me around.  He would stop in mid flow.  We don't know if it was Lepto or what. 

I kept Kila isolated from the other animals for several days.  Kila's recovery from this second health challenge was nothing short of miraculous.    Eventually, I lost Kilakila but he lived the life he loved till the end, chasing damsel flies,swimming in the dog pond, throwing his own sticks and fetching them, and checking in with me throughout each day.  What a beautiful and unique dog he was!  When we buried Kilakila up on the hillside, our missing peacock showed up as we were digging the grave.  It was a magical touch to a sad occasion.

My ducks are de-wormed at the same time as my chickens.  Otherwise, the ducks seem as healthy and disease-resistant as the chickens are disease-prone.  Ducks are tough with one exception.  Some ducks seem to get foot problems, like bumblefoot.

Our duck eggs are sought by cancer patients.  Apparently, duck eggs are alkaline (basic), chicken eggs are acidic.  According to our clients, cancer cells don't thrive in a basic environment, so some cancer patients adjust their body's environment by eating alkaline foods like duck eggs.  We are very careful to discard any eggs laid when the ducks are being wormed or given antibiotics.

Bumblefoot

Imelda, our first Pekin duck, seems to have a tendency to get bumblefoot when the weather get cold and mucky.  Last year, Dr. Tom treated her with antibiotic  and the infection slowly responded.  This year, I couldn't face another expensive course of antibiotics.  I decided to try something else, and hooray, it worked.

First I made her a duck boot out of neoprene.  See the pictures below. 

For a few days I gave her a daily oral dose of Tylan 50 antibiotic (1 ml)  I also did something I learned from the game cock people, I dribbled some Tylan right into the boot and on the wound.  I also daubed her foot with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) to try to reduce swelling and increase circulation.  So the foot was in a moist, clean boot. 

The callous covering the wound became soft after a day or two and I kinda dug at it each day till the wound opened up.  Then I'd sluice Tylan and DMSO in it and wrap it up again.  Finally, the callous came out altogether and there was a nice clean hole in her foot.  At that point the wound seemed to shrink rapidly over the next few days.  I decided to discontinue oral antibiotic and just treated the wound.  The swelling and inflammation which had been large, hot and angry looking was deflated to less than a third of the size with no redness.  The scab area is about a 3/16'' in diameter.    See picture below.   All of this happened in about a week and a half.  So it has been a much faster recovery than the previous 2 month treatment with oral antibiotics.  I'm not afraid of bumblefoot any more.   

I didn't take any photos of the wound when I started.  At that point, I didn't have any confidence that I could treat it successfully.

Bottom of the foot showing the small scab in the upper left.  The soft pink area around the scab was hard and inflamed at the outset.

Boot in place on the foot, secured with velcro closures and with a safety cord of bungee material which is threaded through holes cut around the top edge of the leg section.  The bungee is not tight around the leg, it just keeps Imelda from stretching the neoprene and pulling her foot out of the boot. 

Imelda wearing the duck boot.

PEOPLE

Human Feet

I wear riding boots or closed shoes every day on the farm in Hawaii's tropical climate.  Some years ago I noticed that I was getting a burning sensation on the top surface of my feet and a tendency to get something nasty happening between my toes, even if I dried them really well .  I tried all the human foot care preparations.  The results were so-so.  Then I tried Fungisan, a horse anti-fungal on my feet every morning and that worked better than anything I had tried.  One day I was reading up on animal care and chanced upon a statement about the use of vinegar as an anti-fungal.  I began splashing vinegar on my feet every morning before I put on my socks.  The vinegar did the trick.  If  I miss a couple of days, my feet start to burn again, but it clears up immediately when I use the vinegar again.  It also seems to have improved since I have drastically reduced the amount of sugar I consume, improved my intake of essential fatty acids and generally upgraded my diet and supplements.

Centipede Bite That Turned to Some Kind of Nasty "itis"  (cellulitis or even mild fasciitis, maybe)  October 2009  How I fixed it.

I was spreading wood chips in the horse pens when I felt the unmistakeable sting of a centipede bite on my ankle inside my boot.  I quickly removed my boot but did not find the offending critter.  Since it didn't hurt a great deal, I just ignored it and went on working.   Later in the day, I had forgotten that it happened, but my foot started to hurt as though I had sprained a muscle.  I knew that I had not done anything of the sort, so I decided to go riding, thinking that it would work itself out.  Bad move!   By the time I got back, it was hurting so much that it was all I could do to put the tack away, feed the horses and limp to the house.  Thinking that it may indeed have been a sprain, I tried to decide whether to apply warmth or ice it down.  I decided to take a warm bath while I pondered what was going on.  At some point it dawned on me that this was the foot on which I had had the mysterious bite.  Then I wondered if the warm treatment might not help the venom to spread.  So I tried pain meds and ice for a while and groaned a lot.  The next day, my foot was significantly swollen all around below the ankle and each successive day for a week it was more swollen each day.   I took to wearing an ace bandage and wearing a Croc on that foot.   I could  bear weight on the foot, but I could had to limp along like Chester in Gunsmoke (for those who remember that TV series).  I couldn't flex the foot at all, curl my toes or anything without a lot of pain.  At a certain point I could clearly see the two bite marks in the swollen tissue on my ankle.  I did some research online on centipede bites.  I was heartened to know that no-one dies from them and that the symptoms can be variable in type and severity.  I took OTC pain meds all the time, slept a lot and waited for the swelling to go down thinking that it was resulting from the action of the venom.  The swelling continued to increase and spread.  My toes were starting to get that stretched sausage look.  I went back to do some more online research.   That's when I found out about gems like eosinophilic fasciitis, compartment syndrome and that a man in Turkey had died from nectrotizing fasciitis after being bitten by a centipede.  Any normal person would probably have thrown the problem at an MD at this point, but I thought that I did not have one of the heavy duty bacterial infections, but but that I seemed to have a spreading "itis".  So I turned back to what I know, how to treat dog and horse injuries.  I began to do warm compresses, 40 minutes, 4 times per day.  Actually I ran a warm shallow bath with Epsom Salts and Hot, Noni Lavender lotion in the water.  The Noni - Lavender may not have done anything for my foot, but the lavender smelled great.    My foot was very sensitive to the heat so I had to gradually build up the warmth.  I used two, water-soaked. facecloths which I wrapped around the foot and the ankle to keep the areas warmed.  Using the washcloth to disperse the pressure, I massaged the parts of the foot where the swelling seemed to have  underlying stiff areas, to break up these stiff areas.  I also started to try moving the food to do thing like curl my toes, point, or push the heel down, or bring up my toes.  It was all painful and I couldn't move it much at first.  The next morning, there was visible improvement, so I kept doing it, sometimes getting up at 3:30 a.m. to work on my foot.  I also used my therapeutic laser device and that seemed to help with the pain, particularly at night.  Interestingly, it seemed to me that as I was breaking up the swollen, inflamed areas, I began to have some headaches as though my system was dealing with a toxic load.  That happened in waves and each time I drank lots of fluids and rested if I felt tired.  After about four days, the swelling was down enough so that I could get the foot and ace bandage into my boot with the laces greatly extended.  I started walking more and trying to flex the foot.  I was still really vulnerable to taking a wrong step on rough terrain and triggering a big pain jolt as a part that was stuck came unstuck.  Just over three weeks from the bite, my foot felt well enough to take my mare, Sygnet on a 15 minute walk in hand up the trail.

What is the moral of this story?  I think it is to treat centipede bites with serious, warm compresses/gentle massage from the get go.  The researchers think that centipede venom may break down with warmth.  If, after the initial 4 hours, the area gets very painful and starts swelling you may want to consider getting antibiotics and having the doctor give you instructions on what to look for while taking the treatment to tell you that you have one of the serious bacteria at work, and that you should immediately go back to have the bacteria identified and  get started on the right combination of antibiotics.   Throughout, use warm compresses.  You may have to use a protective coating, like Udderly Smooth, to protect your skin if it dries out and becomes crusty. 

FYI, Glenn got cellulits on his leg from being "spined" by a tilapia while transferring fish from our breeding pond to our aquaponic system fish tanks.  The additional moral of the story is to wear eye protection, thick gloves and a protective suit when doing harvesting tilapia. Streptococcus iniae is one of the main pathogen hazards involved.  Dr. Allen Riggs, the State aquaculture vet alerted us to this bacteria.  Streptococcus iniae can cause invasive cellulitis and in some cases other problems such as endocarditis.  If you get spined by a tilapia, get medical help as soon as possible and make sure your doctor knows that you may have been exposed to Streptococcus iniae and uses the appropriate antibiotic.  The doctor treating Glenn also directed him to do warm compresses on the leg.

Liz

Amended November 3, 2009