Effects Bites Leeches

Effects bites leeches
Although some types of blood sucking leeches, not all species can bite, 90% of them only eat from decaying body and open wounds amphibians, reptiles, waterfowl, fish, and mammals (including, but not limited to, humans). A leech attaches when biting, and will remain attached to owning the content of the blood. Because anticoagulants (hirudin) which issued a leech bite wound may bleed more than normal after leech removed .. The effect of anticoagulants will disappear a few hours to clean the wound.Leeches usually carry parasites in their digestive tract that can not survive in humans and does not pose a threat. However, bacteria, viruses, and parasites from the blood source earlier in the leech can survive for months, and may be retransmitted to humans. therefore ethics Hirudotherapy or leech therapy is always using leeches who never used !!!
So it can be concluded the effect of leech bites on humans is
1. Pain is like an ant bite2. Injuries bite berberntuk triangle emblem that resembles a mercedes benz3. Effect of local bleeding that lasts up to 1 × 24 hours or even more depending on how many leeches enzymes that enter the body4. Itching when the bite wound will dry out (can be applied ointment relieving itching)5. There hypotension or decrease in blood pressure (which is why a good leech therapy is used in patients with hypertension / high blood pressure)

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Side Effects of Leech Therapy

Patients should be informed also Leech Therapy What side effects.  
There are many cases of patients into a panic and will lead to a misunderstanding due to lack of information on the side effects of leech therapy. Is the task of a therapist to explain the circumstances at the time before, during and after the leech therapy lasts.

Leech Therapy Side Effects1. Pain / Pain caused by bites of leeches (takes 1-5 minutes when leeches begin to bite, the after effects of the anesthetic dr enzyme leech entered his bloodstream pain will disappear)2. Lack of blood. The application of leeches to the patient by a therapist who is not an expert can make them lose a lot of blood in the patient, which can make them lose consciousness / fainting.3. Bleeding that lasts 1-48 hours after treatment (this is normal due to the effects of an enzyme that thins the blood. Expand consume liquids and do not panic because this is a normal effect of leech therapy)4. Itching at about bite marks (spreadable oil leech function relieve itching)5. Scar. The leech bite will cause bites (scarring) which will disappear depending on the patient's skin condition.6. Allergy. An enzyme that is injected into the body leech may cause allergic effects on the body, although rarely even never this happens. Consuming itch relievers allowed but better by drinking green coconut water and milk.

Leech Therapy Take only the therapists were really experts in their fields. At Our Clinic Patients treated properly and Professional.

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Benefits Leeches For Humans

For the use of leeches:
Leeches may be used in many applications especially for the purpose and cosmetic changes. The traditional use for the leeches by letting leeches to suck blood for the body of the patient for symptoms like headache relief and accompanying pain. Leech oil is known to the local community to improve the durability of sex for men. In India, it is in use to prevent miscarriage hair. The use of leeches as Chinese medicine and herbs for various treatments maintainability. Modern medicine uses the herb terpetik than leeches to cure blood-related diseases.

Leeches have been used for the purpose Perubatan since over 2000 years ago. One example is using leeches to suck out the blood in the body to achieve the purpose of healing. Today there is a real clinical application in kaedah; they are of great value to plastic surgeons when venous constriction slap the skin and muscle is one issue. Leeches may suck blood in the joint where the blocked blood flow and make it original. Leeches today is used in plastic and reconstructive surgery worldwide. There is also an investigation was victorious to relieve the symptoms of osteoarthritis by using leech.

One more progress in the use of leeches in medicine is that they have been approved in the US for use in therapeutic purposes. Leeches are directly being be distributed to various locations in the country and also throughout the world to use. After suction of blood, the leeches were treated in a similar manner as other blood treatment procedure but that they may be used to on the patient alike. This is mainly to prevent the spread of disease brought by the blood.

Another use of leeches also includes treatment of black eyes. Hirudin, an anticoagulant than leeches may be used in the treatment for inflammation of the middle ear. He is also a percubaan awoken to use as a systemic anticoagulant, and may prove useful in invitro blood-sampling. By removing the serum anti-freeze rather than force investigators leeches were isolating new pharmaceutical mengkompaun for final treatment of heart diseases.

Instead of history, leeches are important in the 19th Century medicine for bloodletting, a practice believed to be cured for something than headaches to gout. Leeches can berubat it is more popular in modern medicine thanks to the work of Dr. Roy Sawyer, an American scientist who embodied the world's first leech field.

Thousands of the patient owes its original mounting body portion succeeding to the introduction of technology in plastic and reconstructive surgery; at least some of the operations may have failed if leeches have not been introduced initially into the chamber surgery.

For to use leeches in surgical procedures is actually very honest. Key to its former glory is rather than whether dammed in the leech bite, which pancit a wound that bled completely for hours. Leech saliva contains ingredients melalikan wound area, dilate the arteries to improve blood flow, at the same time prevents the blood rather than freezing. Usually the surgeon may get the blood to flow into reattached arteries but not veins. With a circular compromised by excessive veins, blood pemergian the reattached finger becomes congested; Courant reattached dizziness blue and die and are at serious risk for kewujudan missing. At this time the beginning of the leeches to play their key role in letting go for blood clotting.

Leech Farming is one industry that can be a lot more popular over crowded perceived that the use of leeches has been established. One reason is also because the number of leeches got less in the woods, after heavy use of insecticide and pesticides. More investigation is currently going in the invention to use leeches that can help us to heal blood problems in respect of such heart diseases and also high cholesterol in our bodies. The role of the leech will change rather than a suction blood creatures feared by people crowded to one great helper in our health.

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Leeches Information

The idea of leeches sucking your blood may be as disconcerting as having maggots eat dead flesh from a wound. The leech, however, is a fascinating creature, and although most famous for sucking the blood of its hosts.

To put leeches in context, they are a type of segmented worm – like earthworms, although leeches tend to be more like a flattened pear shape, with the mouth at the thin end. All segmented worms are in the phylum Annelida¹, and they are divided into three classes: the polychaetes (marine worms such as bristleworms), the oligochaetes (earthworms and other freshwater worms) and the hirudineans (leeches).
While broadly similar to earthworms, a true leech² differs by having a consistent number of segments³, each of which is always divided into two or more rings (annuli), and by having a sucker at both ends of its body that it can use to move, rather than the bristles of other annelids. Many of the aquatic leeches can also swim in a similar manner to eels.
Leeches, like earthworms, are hermaphrodites⁴, but the reproductive systems vary between the different families of leeches. Leeches have internal fertilisation systems: most mating is achieved by the implantation of a ‘spermatophore’ (sperm package) into their partner. This implantation can by done either via a protrusible penis or by the hypodermic implantation of the spermatophore into the body of the partner. The sperm are then transported to the eggs where fertilisation occurs, and cocoons are formed. While many leeches leave the cocoons to develop by themselves, in the leech family Glossiphoniidae, most species have the cocoons attached directly to the parent. This allows the parent to protect and care for the young as they develop. This includes providing food (prey) for the young leeches after they hatch.
All leeches are carnivorous invertebrates⁵, though they are not all parasitic bloodsuckers. There are at least 700 species worldwide, filling a number of predatory niches in aquatic (or at least moist) environments. They require dampness because their thin skin and lack of internal organs means that they find it almost impossible to control water loss, either by dehydration or osmosis. Many species of leech wait for the prey to come to them and subsist on other invertebrates such as earthworms, insects, pond snails and freshwater clams. These leeches are either ones that swallow their prey whole, or ones that spear the prey with an extendable tube which is then used to suck their victim’s juices out.
The other species of leeches comprise the bloodsucking varieties, some still using the hollow spear-like proboscis, but most having two or three sets of jaws with which to attach themselves to their larger hosts as an external parasite. The jaws resemble curved saw-blades with tiny extremely sharp teeth making either a V- or Y-shaped bite (depending on the number of jaws).
Leech use through the ages
Leeches have been used for centuries – possibly since the Stone Age – though modern medicine has outgrown the early rationales for their use. One explanation for blood-letting was that disease was caused by evil spirits, and that these could be removed with the bad blood. There is evidence leeches were used by the Egyptians as long ago as 1500BC. There are further references to medicinal blood-letting in Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian, Greek and Chinese literature. European medical thought was influenced by Galen, physician to Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the 2nd Century AD. Galen advocated blood-letting as part of his medical theory of the four temperaments (sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic) that diseases resulted from the imbalance of what Hippocrates identified as the four humours of the body (blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile).
Most uses are medical and based on the leech’s ability to consume blood, but one bizarre use, of questionable effectiveness, was the Tempest Prognosticator – using the response of leeches to changes in atmospheric conditions in order to predict storms.
Leech For The Weekend Sir?
The medical use of leeches for blood-letting was prevalent in Europe and America in the 18th to mid-19th Century, particularly in France (millions were used each year in Paris alone) and was often associated with Barber Surgeons. The species used for blood-letting was (and is) usually the freshwater leech Hirudo medicinalis.
Modern Leech Use
Blood-letting fell out of favour after the 1830s when experiments revealed that it wasn’t an effective treatment for most diseases. The leech removed blood and left a wound that continued to bleed for some time – this did not cure the patient. However, the 1884 discovery that blood did not clot in leeches’ stomachs eventually led to the identification of the effective anti-coagulant enzyme hirudin in the 1950s. This leech by-product has become widely used. Leeches themselves are also still used today because of their ability to significantly aid recovery of blood circulation following surgery.
Some surgery – for instance, the reattachment of a severed finger – can require the blood flow to be re-established. This is done by reconnecting the major arteries and veins. Veins, however, can be difficult to find and connect. If not enough are reconnected, the blood may initially enter the reattached part but not be able to exit. This stops fresh, oxygenated blood entering and the reattachment procedure will fail. Leeches can assist here. If applied to the damaged tissue they can both actively suck out excess blood and also secrete in their saliva: hirudin, which prevents coagulation; a vaso-dilator causing a widening of blood vessels in the dermis encouraging blood flow to the area; a form of histamine, encouraging the capillaries to become leaky; and an anaesthetic so that the host doesn’t feel their jaws slicing through the skin to expose the blood vessels beneath. Together these prevent the tissue from dying off, allowing the body to re-establish good blood flow in the damaged area in a few days.
Leech Attack!
Leeches are also familiar to people who have travelled through wet tropical jungles and swamps and have emerged with uninvited leeches dangling from their flesh. How did the leeches find their prey? Leeches do have eyes (between two and ten) as well as photo-receptive cells scattered over their bodies, but these are pretty basic and unlikely to differentiate more than changes in intensity of light and maybe some movement. Leeches tend to be nocturnal and shun bright light. More unusual sense organs can allow some leeches to locate prey by detecting vibrations (such as movement through water), by smell (following a chemical gradient toward the prey) or even by passive sonar. Bloodsucking leeches tend to be alerted by sensing movement and then home in on the carbon dioxide exhaled by the prey.
One incident that may make you think twice before drinking unfiltered water was the decimating effect leeches apparently had on the soldiers of one of Napoleon‘s armies in the Syrian desert in 1799. Allegedly, the soldiers drank water containing leeches. These attached themselves to the insides of the soldier’s noses, mouths and throats, engorged themselves on blood, and caused some soldiers to die of suffocation; others by loss of blood. Although the story is anecdotal the risk is genuine, and if you can’t remove them by gargling with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide it may be nec

essary to puncture an engorged leech with a sharp object.

Don’t panic. Trying to remove a leech by burning i

t with a lit cigarette, applying salt, shampoo or insect repellent or just pulling at it, may cause the leech to regurgitate its meal and leave an infected wound much worse than the one the leech alone would have left.
Usually leeches will drop off easily by themselves when they have consumed a meal⁶. If you can’t wait, leeches can be removed using a fingernail to push the anterior sucker (where its mouth is) aside (the one at the thin end of the leech), and then doing the same with the posterior sucker (at the fat end of the leech), being careful not to let it reattach itself. If you are in good health and keep the wound clean⁷ you will be unlikely to suffer any ill effects from the leech. It is possible to be made unwell by the symbiotic bacteria in the leech’s gut: possible complications being wound infections, diarrhoea or septicaemia. This can be avoided by using pre-emptive antibiotics for deliberate medicinal use of leeches.

source: www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A4429631

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Leech Fact Sheet

Leeches are annelids or segmented worms, and although closely related to the earthworms, are anatomically and behaviourally more specialised.

Identification

Leeches are segmented worms in the Subclass Hirudinea that are usually ectoparasitic. They belong to  the Class Clitellata (along with earthworms, Subclass Oligochaeta) because of the presence of a clitellum, which is a swelling towards the head of the animal, where the gonads are located. However, unlike the oligochaetes, leeches do not show the clitellum all year. Instead, it only becomes visible during the breeding season.

Leeches are bilaterally symmetrical, with thick muscular bodies. Usually they are dorso-ventrally (front to back) flattened and segmented, though the segments are not often seen. Some leeches are long and worm-like, others pear-shaped and broad. Most can vary considerably in shape both between the elongated and contracted state and between the starved and full condition.

The body tapers towards the head and has a small oral sucker surrounding the mouth and a larger caudal (tail) sucker at the rear end, except the marine fish parasites, Pisciolidae, which have a larger oral sucker. The anus is on the dorsal surface (top) just in front of the rear sucker.

Euhirudinea (‘true’ leeches) have 32 internal segments when mature and Acanthobdellida (a small group of fish leeches) have 29, but counting is difficult because four to six segments are included in an front sucker and seven in a rear sucker, while the remaining segments are secondarily annulated (ringed) to give two to five apparent segments per internal septum (internal membrane).

Unlike other annelids, leeches do not have parapodia (‘feet’) or chaetae (bristles) (except for Acanthobdellida).

Leeches usually have three jaws and make a Y-shaped incision. The Australian land leech has only two jaws and makes a V-shaped incision.
Size range

7 mm long to 300 mm when extended
Distribution

There are around 500 species of leeches world wide. These are divided into two major infraclasses

a. Euhirudinea: the ‘true’ leeches – marine, freshwater and terrestrial – which have suckers at both ends and lack chaetae (bristles)
b. Acanthobdellida: a small northern hemisphere infraclass ectoparasitic on salmoniid fish, which lack an anterior sucker and retain chaetae.

The Euhirudinea is further divided into two orders:

a. Rhynchobdellida: jawless marine and freshwater leeches with a protrusible proboscis and true vascular system
b. Arynchobdellida: jawed and jawless freshwater and terrestrial leeches with a non-protrusible muscular pharynx and a haemo-coelomic system.

Leeches can be found almost anywhere in Australia where there are suitable damp areas and watercourses although they are absent from the permanently arid areas. There are even marine leeches, but these feed on the blood of fishes (including the Electric Ray with its fearsome electric shocking abilities) and other marine life – not humans.

Habitat

Most leeches are freshwater animals, but many terrestrial and marine species occur.

Land leeches are common on the ground or in low foliage in wet rain forests. In drier forests they may be found on the ground in seepage moistened places. Most do not enter water and cannot swim, but can survive periods of immersion.

In dry weather, some species burrow in the soil where they can survive for many months even in a total lack of environmental water. In these conditions the body is contracted dry and rigid, the suckers not distinguishable, and the skin completely dry. Within ten minutes of sprinkling with a few drops of water, these leeches emerge, fully active.

Freshwater leeches prefer to live in still or slowly flowing waters, but specimens have been collected from fast flowing streams.

Some species are considered amphibious as they have been observed in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats.
Behaviour and adaptations
Feeding and Diet

Most leeches are sanguivorous, that is they feed as blood sucking parasites on preferred hosts. If the preferred food is not available most leeches will feed on other classes of host. Some feed on the blood of humans and other mammals, while others parasitise fish, frogs, turtles or birds. Some leeches will even take a meal from other sanguivorous leeches which may die after the attack.

Sanguivorous leeches can ingest several times their own weight in blood at one meal. After feeding the leech retires to a dark spot to digest its meal. Digestion is slow and this enables the leech to survive during very long fasting periods (up to several months).

Leeches are grouped according to the different ways they feed:

1. One group (the jawed leeches or Gnatbobdellida) have jaws armed with teeth with which they bite the host. The blood is prevented from clotting by production of a non-enzymatic secretion called hirudin. The land leech commonly encountered by bushwalkers is included in this group.
2. A second group (the jawless leeches or Rhyncobdellida) insert a needle-like protrusion called a proboscis into the body of the host and secrete an enzyme, hemetin which dissolves clots once they have formed. Leeches which live on body fluids of worms and small freshwater snails possess such an apparatus.
3. A third group, (the worm leeches or Pharyngobdellida) have no jaws or teeth and swallow the prey whole. Its food consists of small invertebrates.

Foraging

A hungry leech is very responsive to light and mechanical stimuli. It tends to change position frequently, and explore by head movement and body waving. It also assumes an alert posture, extending to full length and remaining motionless. This is thought to maximise the function of the sensory structures in the skin.

In response to disturbances by an approaching host, the leech will begin ‘inchworm crawling’, continuing in a trial and error way until the anterior sucker touches the host and attaches. Aquatic leeches are more likely to display this ‘pursuit’ behaviour, while common land leeches often accidentally attach to a host.
Other behaviours and adaptations
Respiration

Respiration takes place through the body wall, and a slow undulating movement observed in some leeches is said to assist gaseous exchange. Aquatic leeches tend to move to the surface when they find themselves in water of low oxygen content. As a fall in atmospheric pressure results in a small decrease in dissolved oxygen concentrations, rising leeches in a jar of water provided nineteenth century weather forecasters with a simple way of predicting bad weather.
Sensory organs

Sensory organs on the head and body surface enable a leech to detect changes in light intensity, temperature, and vibration. Chemical receptors on the head provide a sense of smell and there may be one or more pairs of eyes. The number of eyes and their arrangement can be of some use in Identification, however to properly identify a leech, dissection is required.
Colour changes

The Rhyncobdellids are capable of dramatic colour changes but this is apparently not an attempt at camouflage, and the significance of this behaviour is unknown.
Locomotion

Leeches move by either an undulating swimming motion (eel-like) or by an ‘inch-worm’ like crawling motion using the anterior and posterior suckers. The posterior sucker is attached to a substrate and the leech stretches out and attaches to the substrate with the anterior sucker, the posterior sucker is then detached and pulled up to the anterior sucker.
Mating and reproduction

As hermaphrodites, leeches have both male and female sex organs. Like the earthworms they also have a clitellum, a region of thickened skin which is only obvious during the reproductive period. Mating involves the intertwining of bodies where each deposits sperm in the others’ clitellar area. Rhyncobdellids have no penis but produce sharp packages of sperm which are forced through the body wall.

The sperm then make their way to the ovaries where fertilisation takes place. The clitellum secretes a tough gelatinous cocoon which contains nutrients, and it is in this that the eggs are deposited.

The leech shrugs itself free of the cocoon, sealing it as it passes over the head.

The cocoon is either buried or attached to a rock, log or leaf and dries to a foamy crust. After several weeks or months, the young emerge as miniature adults. Studies show that the cocoons are capable of surviving the digestive system of a duck.

Leeches die after one or two bouts of reproduction.
Predators, Parasites and Diseases

Fish, birds and other invertebrates are the main predators on leeches.
Living with us
Economic/social impacts
Medicinal use of leeches

For over 2000 years, leeches were needlessly applied for many ailments as an adjunct to blood letting. Their use in Europe peaked between 1830 and 1850, but subsequent shortages led to a decline in their use. Today there is a real clinical application in that they are of great value to plastic surgeons when venous congestion of skin and muscle flaps is a problem.

Leeches are treated in the same way as blood products and are reused only on the same patient.

Medical use of leeches also includes treatment of black eyes, and hirudin is used in the treatment of inflammation of the middle ear. Hirudin is also being developed for experimental use as a systemic anticoagulant, and may prove useful in invitro blood sampling.
Leeches in Sydney suburbs

The Sydney suburban sprawl is resulting in houses extending into areas such as wet valleys that leeches normally prefer. It is therefore less distance for these leeches to travel in wet weather before they end up in backyards and can get a meal from domestic animals or humans living there. Similarly the domestic animals and humans themselves unwittingly bring many leeches home with them from bush walks, holidays, and other travels. If these leeches are adult they will invariably find a suitable damp spot in the garden to lay their eggs and suddenly you have a colony of leeches in your backyard.
Management
Leech repellents

The most common enquiry regarding leeches concerns repellents. It is unknown whether a specific preparation is commercially available but there is a plethora of tried and tested, but unproven leech-protection ideas. These include a lather of bath soap smeared on exposed parts and left to dry, applications of eucalyptus oil, tropical strength insect repellent, lemon juice and impenetrable barriers of socks and pantyhose.
Danger to humans and first aid

The presence of hirudin in the wound following a leech bite may cause oozing to continue for several hours. Although inconvenient, blood loss is not significant.

Gut bacteria can cause wound infection. In the post-operative use of leeches this is closely monitored and dealt with by use of the appropriate antibiotic.

There may also be a delayed irritation and itching after a bite. There appears to be no support for the theory that mouthparts left behind after forced removal of the leech causes this reaction.
Can leeches transmit disease?

There is no evidence to suggest that they do. The presence of trypanosomes, (malarial parasites), in the gut of jawless leeches has been noted, but jawed leeches do not appear to be hosts.

Allergy to leech bite has been reported. Medical opinion should be sought, depending on the severity of the reaction.

source: australianmuseum.net.au/Leeches

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