Photograph by Mattias Klum
Michael decided to go for a swim. He was on vacation with his
family in Guerrero, Mexico, and it was hotter than blazes. He grabbed
his swimming trunks from where they’d been drying on a chair, slid them
on, and jumped into the pool. Instead of cool relief, a burning pain
ripped through the back of his thigh. Tearing off his trunks, he leaped
naked from the pool, his leg on fire.Behind him a small, ugly, yellow creature was treading water. He scooped it into a Tupperware container, and the caretaker of the house rushed him to the local Red Cross facility, where doctors immediately identified his attacker: a bark scorpion, Centruroides sculpturatus, one of the most venomous species in North America. The fierce pain from a sting is typically followed by what feels like electric shocks racking the body. Occasionally victims die.
Luckily for Michael (who asked me not to give his full name), the bark scorpion is common in the area, and antivenom was readily available. He had an injection and was released a few hours later. In about 30 hours the pain was gone.
What happened next could not have been predicted. For eight years Michael had endured a condition called ankylosing spondylitis, a chronic autoimmune disease of the skeleton, a sort of spinal arthritis. No one knows what triggers it. In the worst cases the spine may fuse, leaving the patient forever stooped and in anguish. “My back hurt every morning, and during bad flare-ups it was so horrible I couldn’t even walk,” he says. Read More
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