Woman dies from hamster bite

2024-10-15 11:03:00

A 38-year-old woman died in Villarreal (Castellón) when she went to the emergency room due to bitten by your hamster. After covering the distance that separated him from his home, collapsed a few meters from the door of the health center. The health services could do nothing for his life.

The case made headlines for a day across the media. The woman felt ill due to the bite of the hamster she had as a pet. But how is it possible for such an accident to cause death so quickly?

It’s true that many pets, including dogs and cats, can cause bacterial infections with their bites. You may also be infected with a virus that is passed on through saliva of the animal. But in neither case would death occur so quickly. What stopped this woman’s heart? Was it perhaps a coincidence? It will not be possible to give a clear answer until autopsy. But now there is a hypothesis which gains quite a bit of strength.

Allergy from a hamster bite

The symptoms this woman experienced before she died are consistent with a anaphylactic shock. This is a extreme allergic reactionWhich is characterized initially for symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, swelling, difficulty breathing, abdominal pain and anxiety. It was said that the deceased went to the emergency room because he felt bad after the hamster bite. Specific symptoms have not been made public. But it’s such a broad picture that they could fit into it.

The woman suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest. Credits: Giulia Bertelli (Unsplash)

If not treated quickly, anaphylactic shock can become complicated airway obstruction and cardiac and respiratory arrest. In this case, the patient suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest upon entering the health center, so it would make sense.

All this would indicate that he had done so allergy and are hamsters. But if it was his pet, how had he not noticed it until now? It seems that for this reason the hypothesis loses meaning, but it must be taken into account that it is an allergy to an animal They could be different components. of your body. Normally these are skin and hair cells. However, in some cases the allergens that trigger the reaction are proteins present in substances such as urine or saliva.

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If this woman had an allergy to hamster saliva, she might not have been aware of it until he bit her and the proteins They passed directly into his blood. This, far from triggering a mild allergic reaction, could directly cause a anaphylactic shock.

Is this a common thing?

Cases like this woman’s are not common. Many people have allergies to their pets. Sometimes it is a mild allergy which can also be avoided by taking some precautions. However, in cases as rare and specific as that of the Villarreal patient, it is difficult to predict what might happen. If I had known, I could have had it at home an injection of adrenaline or antihistamines prepared for such a case.

In short, if you have a pet, carefully monitor your first contacts with their fur or saliva to make sure you don’t have an allergy. These cases are extremely rarebut it’s better to be prepared.

Triggers that cause pet allergies can be in the saliva. Credit: Chewy (Unsplash)

That said, it’s important to remember that, in the absence of an autopsy, we can only speculate. From that moment it will be possible to know if what he suffered from the hamster bite was an anaphylactic shock.