Centipede bite facts

When people think of bugs and insects that bite, they usually think of spiders, ants, mosquitoes, wasps, and bees, not centipedes. But centipedes sometimes do bite, and it is good to know what the symptoms are and how to treat the bite.

Many people are terrified by centipedes even though they rarely bite. These bugs have a pair of pincers or legs that look like claws, and they are located at the top of their body, just behind their head. These pincers can pierce the skin, and the centipede then draws venom from pouches, inserting them into the skin. This venom is not deadly, or to be more precise, it is not deadly unless no fewer than 1.000 centipedes attach at the same time. To date, not a single case of death from centipede bite has been reported in the United States.

Centipede Bite Symptoms

When a centipede bites a person, it leaves a mark that resembles a snake bite, with a pair of tiny puncture marks on the skin. The area around the puncture marks will soon develop a series of painful blisters.

Centipede bite symptoms can be divided into two groups-localized and systemic.

Localized symptoms include pain, redness and inflammation, tingling, itching or burning, and inflamed or painful lymph nodes. There is also a non-amplifying and localized death of living cells, which takes a few weeks to heal, while the other symptoms usually go away two or three days after the bite has occurred.

Systemic symptoms may include anxiety, euphoria, headache, fever, high blood pressure, nausea, heart palpitations, and general weakness.

This is as bad as the symptoms are going to get for most healthy adults. However, people who are more sensitive to insect bites and tend to have more severe allergic reactions may be at risk of anaphylactic shock after a centipede bite.

Treatment for Centipede Bite

Here are some of the steps to follow after a centipede bite. The first thing to do is to wash the affected area thoroughly, using soap and running water. If the area is already inflamed, it helps to wrap a few ice cubes in a clean cloth to ease the pain and prevent swelling.

The pain can be relieved by taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen, and as for the itching; it can be eased by dabbing an antihistaminic ointment like Benadryl directly to the affected skin. Calamine lotion works well too.

However innocuous these insects may seem, in case of a centipede bite it is best to see a doctor because there is always a possibility of a secondary infection or wound necrosis.

As for the home remedies that work well on centipede bites, the options include crushed onions, green papaya, meat tenderizer, and believe it or not, urine, preferably the one’s own.

Centipedes are predatory venomous arthropods. They possess segmented bodies consisting of 15 to almost 200 segments with one pair of legs per segment. Their fangs are a pair of modified legs called forcipules which contain venomous glands. Centipedes are ancient insects. The earliest fossil records of centipedes in their current form have been dated to over 400 million years ago, which has allowed them to develop into very effective predators.

Centipedes are usually active at night and prefer moist warm climates. Thus, presentations for centipede bites are more often occur during summer nights. Bites are often seen on the hands and feet. Bites to the feet are often due to centipede proclivity for hiding in shoes and due to people accidentally stepping on these arthropods while barefoot. Bites to the hands are more common in children or patients who attempt to handle the centipede.
Centipedes are found on every continent except Antarctica and are present in all 50 states in the United States of America. Overall, centipedes prefer warm climates, and so are more frequently found in the southern states of the USA, particularly in Hawaii.
Studies have shown that between 1979 and 2001, only 6 deaths in the USA are attributable to centipede bites, compared to 1060 fatalities from bees, wasps, and hornets over the same time frame. Further, in these cases of mortality from centipede bites, the etiology of how the centipede venom caused death was not identified.
Centipede venom is a pharmacologically diverse and potent substance. Venom can include bioactive proteins, peptides, and other small molecules. These can have myotoxic, cardiotoxic, and neurotoxic effects. Currently, there are approximately 50 identified constituents of centipede venom, all with different properties to block or activate ion channels. The biochemistry of centipede venom is an area of recent exploration where much is still under investigation.
Centipede bites can have a wide range of symptoms, but the most commonly reported is localized pain. Victims describe the pain as an immediate, localized burning that ranges in severity, though most often reported as very severe. It also ranges in duration from 30 min to 3 days.
Systemic effects are far less common, but when they do occur, they can have significant consequences. The most acutely dangerous systemic effect is anaphylaxis. Neurologic manifestations include headache, lethargy, anxiety, and vagotonia. Cardiovascular effects are rare, but case studies have reported hypotension, tachypnea, palpitations, vasospasm, and acute myocardial ischemia. Other systemic effects include fever, chills, nausea, lymphangitis, and rhabdomyolysis. Centipede bites also carry a risk for tetanus transmission.
There is no specific antidote for centipede venom. If systemic symptoms occur, treatment is mainly supportive or related to the specific symptom. For example, anaphylaxis treatment will be the same as anaphylaxis related to any other allergen with epinephrine. In the case of myocardial ischemia, therapy will be similar to cardiac ischemia of any etiology (i.e., aspirin and percutaneous coronary intervention).

✓ Fact confirmed: Centipede Envenomation Erica J. Ross, Zohaib Jamal, Jennifer Yee; August 8, 2023.