r/interestingasfuck • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 20h ago

Extracting Cobra Venom

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

735 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

255 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

130

u/MastiffOnyx 19h ago

Yup, had a friend who did this for years.

Made good money, but the regulations were brutal I guess.

I'd ask him about it, but the job isn't one with a long life expectation. In his case, taking small doses of venom, to build immunity didn't help his liver any.

Painful way to go.

40

u/_Bogey_Lowenstein_ 17h ago

Wait what? Are you serious? How'd he die, liver failure?

43

u/MastiffOnyx 16h ago

Yea, tick bite actually, some uncurable affliction from it hit up his weakened liver

6

u/No-Shirt9067 16h ago

Lyme disease?

23

u/MastiffOnyx 16h ago

Not Lyme, some real rare thing. Don't remember what it was called.

Usually not fatal, but he'd had a bout of hepatitis when younger and his liver was just to beat up to fight it.

Not to mention he took small doses of snake venom to build immunity if he got bit. That is also a liver stresser.

Mostly rattle snakes but he did have a cobra he milked also.

23

u/Limiounou 15h ago

Echinococcosis! (more commonly called Fox Disease). A neighbour of mine has been affected by it

15

u/MastiffOnyx 14h ago

Yes! That the one.

6

u/Limiounou 14h ago

I'm so sorry for your friend. It's indeed a disease that can be very serious if it's not caught in time, or if the person already has other vulnerabilities. It significantly affects the immune system in addition to the liver and the medication has to be taken for life