What Happens If You Get Bitten by a Centipede? Symptoms and Effects After a Bite

The centipede is a venomous, predatory terrestrial arthropod, also known as Tianlong, Baijiao, Wugong, and so on. Its body is made up of many segments, each bearing a pair of walking legs. Common centipedes come in three types: red-headed, green-headed, and black-headed. Along with snakes, scorpions, geckos, and toads, they are known as the “Five Venoms.” Let's take a look below at what happens if you get bitten by a centipede!

What Happens If You Get Bitten by a Centipede?

Centipedes are venomous animals. A bite from a small centipede causes only local redness, swelling, and pain. A bite from a large tropical centipede can cause lymphangitis and tissue necrosis, sometimes with purple patches appearing over the entire limb, and in some cases systemic symptoms such as headache, fever, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and even delirium, convulsions, and coma. If you are bitten on the hand by the red-headed, black-bodied, yellow-legged centipede found in the Yangtze River basin, the bite site will quickly produce severe pain; generally within 2 hours the elbow joint becomes severely painful, within 3 hours the armpit becomes severely painful, and after 4 to 5 hours there is a dull ache in the chest. However, it usually does not cause a fatal danger, and after 4 days the symptoms gradually disappear.

How Toxic Is a Centipede?

The centipede ranks second among the Five Venoms in toxicity, surpassed only by the spider. It belongs to the class Chilopoda of arthropods. Its first pair of legs is hook-shaped and very sharp, with a venom gland opening at the tip of the hook, commonly called the forcipule, venom claw, or toxic limb, which can discharge venom. After a centipede bite, its venom glands secrete a large amount of venom, which is injected through the venom gland opening of the forcipule into the bitten person's subcutaneous tissue, causing poisoning. Moreover, different species of centipedes have different toxicity levels, and size also has an effect; generally, the smaller the centipede, the lower its toxicity. The most venomous centipede in the world is the Scolopendra subspinipes, widely distributed across many countries and regions of the western Pacific.

What Should You Do If You Get Bitten by a Centipede?

1. Prevent spread: Find a strip of cloth and tie it above the wound to prevent the venom from spreading. It must be loosened once every 15 minutes, otherwise the bitten area will also become necrotic. After tying it, go to a hospital immediately to seek treatment from a professional doctor.

2. Clean the wound: If you cannot get to a hospital immediately, after tying the wound, disinfect it right away with soapy water or alcohol. If the wound feels intensely burning and painful, it is recommended to take a taxi to the hospital, because driving yourself risks dizziness on the way and causing an accident.

3. Herbal antidote: For a centipede bite, apply heat-clearing and detoxifying Chinese herbs to the wound. Find houttuynia (fish mint) or dandelion in places with weeds, crush them, and apply externally; these two herbs have heat-clearing and detoxifying effects.

4. Suck out the venom: If the above methods cannot be done, then first apply ice around the wound to relieve pain, cut open some skin, use a suction device or cupping tools to draw out the venom, and then clean the wound with potassium permanganate solution.