The domestic cat is disappointingly known sometimes as an animal with dangerous mouth bacteria. Humans have mouth bacteria too which is probably as dangerous as the bacteria found in the mouths of cats but we never mention human mouth bacteria. By contrast cats get a bad reputation because when they bite somebody it’s a bit like injecting bacteria under the skin of the victim where it multiplies, sometimes (not often) causing a bad infection which requires antibiotics to cure it. And there’s cat scratch fever which is bacteria on the claws of cats which can cause a nasty infection too (dogs could do this too!). The anti-cat brigade latch onto domestic cats’ mouth bacteria and criticise them for it! Let’s be fair and briefly mention dogs.
THERE ARE MORE BITE STORIES AT THE BASE OF THE PAGE.
That’s the long introduction which leads me nicely to a large pet dog, Ted, who was bought on Facebook for £1,500 and who was described as a ‘giant teddy bear’. I’ve written in the past tense because Ted was put down despite the description. Is it wise to buy a pet on Facebook? Isn’t it against Facebook rules to do it?
On the day of his brother-in-law’s funeral on 19th August Mark Day, 62, was bitten by Ted the Akita. His brother-in-law was killed by Ted’s bite. It caused a cardiac arrest and death. The bite became badly infected causing his heart to fail three days later. Ted obviously had very potent mouth bacteria. The bacteria in dogs’ mouths is Capnocytophaga Canimorsus. It can cause fatal infections as reported on this page. Up to 75% of dogs have it. It can be found in cats’ mouth too.
When Mark Day was bitten, he developed sepsis because of the same mouth bacteria. He had to have both legs and some of his fingers amputated. The photographs are incredibly distressing on the Daily Mail website. I can’t reproduce them here because the advertisers won’t like it. But I think that Mr Day just about escaped death by the look of him.
He lost all the fingers of his left hand and at least two of his right hand. Both legs were amputated below the knee. His face may also have been disfigured slightly. His wife, Mrs Day said that it has been a nightmare. They can’t believe it’s happened. Firstly, the shock of her brother and then her husband.
The dog bite caused Mr Day’s temperature to soar and his legs felt like blocks of ice. His organs were failing and he was put into a 10-day coma to save his life. When he woke up his feet were black up to about one-third of the way up his legs. He didn’t know whether the rot would keep coming up his body.
So back to cats. I have a page on how to tell whether you have a cat bite infection which you can read by clicking on this link. I also have a follow-up page about the kinds of antibiotics you need to deal with said infection.
If you have a cat bite infection you must act quickly. I’ve not read any stories about cat bites leading to sepsis but you will find that there are a reasonable number of hospitalisations because of cat bites. The reason is this: the victim does not take steps to deal with the infection. Cat bite infections can be dealt with very easily and simply with antibiotics although it might take some time to resolve. But if you leave it alone hoping that it might get better on its own, you might be mistaken. You might end up in hospital in A and E. The key is to watch the area of the bite and see how it develops. Most often it will resolve on its own but not always.
