Hello! I have been a doctor for 21 years. My name is Georgy Olegovich Sapego. In this article I will tell you about how leeches can harm you.
Leeches are grown in special factories. There they are bred and fed. Leeches eat only one food - blood. Therefore, leeches in factories are fed with blood. But not human, but bull. They eat bovine blood clots and grow.
When I bought leeches at the factory, they were sent in a special package, in a canvas bag with peat. In such a package, everything is regulated, up to the standard GOST twine, with which the bag is tied.
This is necessary because leeches are classified as "medicines and medical products." They are called so - "medical leeches".
There is always an infection inside the leech
It is very important to understand that a leech is not a sterile remedy.
Special microbes live inside the leech. Without these microbes, the leech will die.
Microbes help the leech to digest and store blood within itself. The leech can suck and then not eat for a year. If you feed a leech, it will grow. If not fed, it will decrease.
The bacteria inside the leech are classified as waterborne microbes that can cause infection. And this happens regularly.
From leeches there is phlegmon (that is, suppuration under the skin) or even blood poisoning. Therefore, leeches should not be put on weakened people, small children or patients with impaired immunity.
In addition to medicinal leeches, there are still many different wild leeches. Some are forearm-sized. Wild leeches are full of all kinds of contagion. Therefore, after being bitten by a wild leech, you need to see a doctor. He'll decide on antibiotics.
For the same reason, you cannot catch incomprehensible leeches and be treated with them. You can die like that.
I was told about a private hirudotherapist aunt who dresses up her husband in two layers of swimming trunks and drives him into a familiar swamp. Then he removes the sucked leeches from him and heals other people with them. How do you like this approach?
Do leeches carry infection? - yes, they do. There have been cases of person-to-person transmission of syphilis through a leech.
Blood with hepatitis B virus and HIV was found inside the leeches. I have not heard of any confirmed transmission of viruses, but hepatitis B is very easily transmitted.
And I'll tell you again. Leeches are medicine's cash cows, so hirudotherapists will (pardon the pun) protect their leeches to the last drop of their blood.
They are constantly sick.
One more unpleasant feature of leeches should be noted here. These impressionable persons are sick for any reason. That is, if they get sick, or if they are taken away from food, or if something does not smell good, the leech will fall off and it will be vomited by the eaten blood. So leeches can transmit infection.
Therefore, if you are attacked by a wild leech, then try to remove it without causing vomiting (in the leech). To do this, the leech needs to be very gently, without squeezing, pull and with something sharp (you can use your fingernail) to pry her lip. She has a suction cup in there that sticks to your skin just like a suction cup with a hook under a towel in a bathroom. Well, or like a medical jar on the back. That is, gently pry off the edge of the suction cup and pick out the leech.
The easiest way is to stick something smelly under the nose of the leech. For example, alcohol, any alcohol or perfume. It will fall off instantly, but then it can vomit blood.
Those who keep their leeches at home can then put it in a jar. In a few months, the leech will get hungry and lose weight. This is important, because small leeches have small scars, and large and fat ones have large ones.
Leech scars are small but noticeable. They stay forever.
How to spot a catch
The water in the jar with leeches should be changed every other day. This water will be clear. You can't see anything in it.
If blood is visible in the water, then it may not be dangerous, because the leeches were fed with blood at the factory. It's not dangerous, but strange. Leeches should be supplied to you from a clean jar. Sick leeches are also sick. But these are supposed to change the water twice a day and keep it separately. That is, the water must still be clean.
Leeches in nature live in a swamp. They don't really like clean water. Hirudotherapists know this. They change the water less often, and it turns green. The leeches will be happy there, but a lot of infection will grow, from which you may have something to fester.
You can be sure of a leech only if you bought it at the factory in a bag of peat. From a can you can slip a contagious leech with syphilis. You will not know it.
And some people themselves breed leeches and feed the devil knows what.
Leeches reduce muscle and joint pain because they drain the edematous fluid and inject some kind of secret chemistry. It is possible to put a couple of leeches to a spasmodic muscle on the back once, but to put ten leeches for ten days in a row "on the liver" and other internal organs is stupidity.
After a leech bite, blood will flow for a day. About half a glass will flow out. We'll have to change the bandage a couple of times. I used to take a piece of feminine sanitary napkin and attach it over a gauze bandage. Looking for super maxi thick cellulose pads or something. It's funny when a saleswoman tries to dissuade a man from buying a terrible and thick pad.
If you have been bitten by a leech, and then redness spreads on the skin, then go to the surgeon. Not back to the hirudotherapist, but to the surgeon at the clinic.
