Monitoring
Patients should be instructed to visit their primary care physician, an urgent care clinic, or an emergency department 48 hours post-discharge to check that the wound is not infected. Some patients may need occupational or physical therapy following severe envenomation.
Patients who did not receive antivenom do not need routine follow-up due to a low risk of subsequent systemic toxicity. Likewise, those with uncomplicated copperhead snake envenomations who received antivenom, but did not develop hematologic venom effects during hospitalization, do not require follow-up because the risk of late hematologic venom effects is small.
Patients who required antivenom administration for other crotaline envenomations should have serial complete blood count and disseminated intravascular coagulation panels performed at both 2 to 3 days and 5 to 7 days post-discharge.[56]
No long-term follow-up is necessary.
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