Health precautions when treating fish:A post from Facebook in early February from a forum member explained in rather graphic, I do apologise, terms his rather unfortunate experience, I have copied the text below:
"Good morning everyone. over the years, I have written on the importance of wearing gloves, when treating our fish, the importance of wearing gloves when cleaning your ponds and filters.
On Sunday I treated koi with ulcers and mouth rot. On Monday I noticed puss and redness on skin, I squeezed out some of the puss (really painful). Tuesday, I went to the doctors, and asked the doctor to lance the finger, I was told they no longer do that and was given antibiotics and told to go to the local hospital, after a 4 hour wait to be told that it looked like I had removed all the puss, my reply: NO I haven't, so was advised to carry on with the course of antibiotics. Thursday evening the index finger was very painful, so back to the hospital, after a 3 and a half hour wait, I insisted the finger was lanced, a small incision was made and a small amount of puss came out. Then I was told that the infections under my nail and they can not deal with that and was advised to go to a different hospital which was 8 miles away, I was given paperwork and hospital rang ahead to inform of my arrival, I arrived at the new hospital at 5.50am, somewhat surprised to be seen in 15 minutes by a specialist doctor, who examined it and took an x-ray and explained that the nail had to come off, (ouch). |
Pain relief given to numb the index finger, crunch, pull, more cutting and pulling, nail removed. Then more cutting and flushing, squeezing, finally a bandage was wrapped around the index finger.
On my way home at 6:45am. The reason for my post, I am very aware of catching infections from our hobby and take precautions every time. This time was no exceptions, I was unaware of a very tiny pinhole cut on my index finger. Please remember my story and take precautions around your ponds my friends!". I am sure you can see the lesson here, wearing gloves is a good idea but check them for wear and tear first. A few weeks later another post turned up on another Facebook page with another rather unpleasant case. A Hobbyist posted photos of his diseased fish.
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As can be seen from the photo, the fish were suffering from a serious infection. Regrettably for the Hobbyist he was most concerned that he was himself suffering from the same infection. He has not confirmed what his diagnosis is.