Skin welts from Naja siamensis venom?

While maintaining a young black and white N. siamensis with a disposition like an angry firehose, two zookeepers developed patches of reddened, raised skin in the areas struck by the venom. One was struck in the arm and the other in several facial areas not directly covered by the goggles.

Mosquitos, ticks, environmental irritants and other such potential and coincidental causes of erythema are certainly a possible differential here. I would be inclined to consider other causes before assuming that topical cobra venom is responsible. Allergy may be a factor, but neither of these zookeepers has experienced any other symptoms consistent with allergy to venom.

Any input on this interesting question?

snakegetters said:

Mosquitos, ticks, environmental irritants and other such potential and coincidental causes of erythema are certainly a possible differential here. I would be inclined to consider other causes before assuming that topical cobra venom is responsible.

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you may have hit it right there, sort of. my initial guess would be that the venom hit on an already irritated area and that the response was something of a joint effort. this was something I had often wondered/worried about when I worked with spitters (back in the day). Luckily, mine were well behaved when it was just me and them...not that they didn't send the occasional parting shot as I closed the cage door, just to remind me.

If I hold a snake that has mites, my forearms get red, itchy irritated patches on them. It's really weird. I can tell a mite problem way before you can actually see the mites.

That's pretty interesting Tanith. I got sprayed on the arms a couple times by your guys but I certainly never experienced anything like that. I did experience itchiness on my arms while driving home one night after getting sprayed even though I had washed it off pretty quickly. I didn't think much of it because I have pretty sensitive skin that gets irritated easily by alot of stuff that doesn't bother most people. (I even use hypoallergenic laundry detergent most of the time). I never got any welts but I imagine I probably would have if I'd scratched at it a lot.
Skin is usually a pretty good protective barrier but small superficial scratches, abrasions or even insect bites could allow some venom to be absorbed.

If it happens again, have the guys take 50mg of Benadryl just to rule out urticaria from an allergic response to the venom.

Did they experience any localized itchiness, pain or discomfort? How long did the symptoms last?

Hello, i wrote this and found it very interesting because we, me and my wife had the same thing with our naja siamensis.
We also had red symptons on our skin and it itchess, but he didnt spit, so it is not always the venom. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isnt, it is something in your head.
But i never had that problem again so it was not my cobra i guess. The red symptons and the itch were gone in a couple of hours and scratching only makes it worse

I have heard of this happening a couple of times before.