Ethnicity and Tarantula Bites.

Does anybody know if ethnicity plays a role in how painful T bites are? For example, if someone from Thai descent got bit by a Haplopelma species (minax for example), would the symptoms be less sever than that of say someone from British descent?

I wouldn't discount the possibility. There are numerous documented instances of certain races having a higher resistance to certain diseases so why not varying effects of bites?
Ponder this. My little pard dog, dachsund/poodle, never was bothered by fleas. They would occasionally get on her but would never bite her. Why? Lots of ????s in the world.

I never thought about this, I have only been bitten once by a T. Tarantula bites being so rare , I dono if you can build immunity to there venom.
Urt hairs get worse though every time I get haired. I almost sold off many of my New world T;s because of this.

Tarantula hairs might be a greater subject of debate, getting bitten is much less common :biggrin:. I could get bitten by one of my mean OBT's anytime though ill tell u if it ever happens.

Latinos have very high tolerance for pain, unless it is serious.

PanzoN88 said:

Latinos have very high tolerance for pain, unless it is serious.

Click to expand...

um, what? .

PanzoN88 said:

Latinos have very high tolerance for pain, unless it is serious.

Click to expand...

tweakz said:

um, what? .

Click to expand...

What tweakz said.. ?? huh?? @Panzo....

The possibility exist and there might just be differences how people react to T bites. I know for a fat that if a white and a black person gets sick with heart failure, the treatment of the black person is less effective, or maybe better to call it more difficult!
So i guess there is possibility for different reactions. But my guess is that it is much more important how much venom was injected, and wich T who did it!

There's not enough known about tarantula bites in general, let alone the effects of numerous species on various ethnicities. It's not a major health concern, so who's going to put millions into studying it? Most countries with tarantulas have a lot bigger problems, and those without tarantulas would put it at the bottom of the priority list.

Actually some medicines could be dialed in for ethnicity to be more effective, but that's not politically correct these days so it's not done.

I think it has more to do with your upbringing and own personal self. My sister gets sick more often than I do even though we live in the same country.

Compared to many people I work with and friends, what I qualify as sick and injured is a far way off from what other people call sick and injured. I am a gymnastics coach and once broke my big toe setting up the gym and only 3 days later, and forced by my boss, did I go to a hospital and realised it was broken- not that I thought I was to cool/too much of a man to go the the hospital; my body just didnt feel like it needed to go.

There is not enough information to support any theory, yet, but we are all entitled to our opinions. I think it is a person by person situation.

As a child I used to spend my summer holidays in the countryside (in the heart of Transylvania) and I learned not to be give a shit if two wasps stung me at the same time or I stepped on a nail(my parents almost dragged me to the hospital to get it looked at).

Arachnomaniac19 said:

Does anybody know if ethnicity plays a role in how painful T bites are? For example, if someone from Thai descent got bit by a Haplopelma species (minax for example), would the symptoms be less sever than that of say someone from British descent?

Click to expand...

It's been scientifically documented that red heads are more tolerant of physical pain because of a gene mutation of their melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R).

Not sure about Asians (thai). Natural selection and mutation - Make the person pain resistant to the bite to favour the predator (Thais eat Ts) or the prey (T) mutating with more potent lethal venom to avoid getting eaten or hunt more effective and procreate more successfully as a result

Lucky Luciano said:

As a child I used to spend my summer holidays in the countryside (in the heart of Transylvania) and I learned not to be give a shit if two wasps stung me at the same time or I stepped on a nail(my parents almost dragged me to the hospital to get it looked at).

Click to expand...

Seems like we were similar as kids

MadMauC said:

It's been scientifically documented that red heads are more tolerant of physical pain because of a gene mutation of their melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R).

Not sure about Asians (thai). Natural selection and mutation - Make the person pain resistant to the bite to favour the predator (Thais eat Ts) or the prey (T) mutating with more potent lethal venom to avoid getting eaten or hunt more effective and procreate more successfully as a result

Click to expand...

I have a ginger ninja friend, or "red head" as you call them, who has a very low threshold for pain!

MadMauC said:

It's been scientifically documented that red heads are more tolerant of physical pain because of a gene mutation of their melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R).

Click to expand...

My mom and several other family members are redheads. None of them read that study.... All are overly and embarrassingly sensitive to pain.

Each bite and individual reaction is going to have variations on a theme.

Formerphobe said:

My mom and several other family members are redheads. None of them read that study.... All are overly and embarrassingly sensitive to pain.

Each bite and individual reaction is going to have variations on a theme.

Click to expand...

http://sciencenordic.com/redheads-feel-different-kind-pain

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692342/

There you go - some enlightenment for you.
I'm just sharing what I read on the internet and learn from books, you have the advantage of living first hand with Redheads, perhaps you should prove the all researchers wrong and enlighten us.

MadMauC said:

http://sciencenordic.com/redheads-feel-different-kind-pain

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692342/

There you go - some enlightenment for you.
I'm just sharing what I read on the internet and learn from books, you have the advantage of living first hand with Redheads, perhaps you should prove the all researchers wrong and enlighten us.

Click to expand...

What I meant by "not having read the study" was that many studies are just so much bovine feces since not all redheads fit the proverbial mold that the studies are trying to create. For each scientific study that 'proves' something, there will be individuals or another study that disproves it.

The "scientific" myth that redheads require more anesthesia almost cost my mom her life on more than one occasion. She only requires a fraction of anesthetic, either injectable or inhalant, needed by a 'normal' person to achieve a surgical plane and/or desired results. One of her adverse anesthetic events, she had pre-warned the anesthesiologist of her sensitivity and he laughed at her, telling her that he had the degree and he knew what he was doing. She had to be resuscitated and it took her three days in hospital to recover from the overdose. (It was supposed to be a brief outpatient procedure...) He personally apologized to her for nearly causing her demise. He was going by one of those scientific redhead studies...

With her hip replacement a few years ago, the anesthesiologists listened to us and only gave anesthesia to effect. They were amazed at how little she needed and she recovered rapidly. The meds doctors then screwed her up post-op with 'normal' doses of opiates for pain control. It was weeks before the opiates and their effects were completely out of her system.

are more sensitive to cold

Click to expand...

The redheads in my family are typically more sensitive to heat than to cold. Now that my mom is 90, she gets cold easier, but that is age/circulatory related and has nothing to do with her hair color or the genetics involved.

suffer more from toothaches and are more frightened of dentists

Click to expand...

More bovine feces. My mom has never been frightened of the dentist, has had multiple root canals and other dental work and never needed any local anesthetic. She always tells the dentist that she will let him know when it hurts... Nor do I recall any of my ginger cousins having issues with the dentist. But, let any of them get a paper cut and the whole world knows about it!

studies indicate that redheads are more prone to illness

Click to expand...

Nope. Not in my family. Healthy as horses.

are at greater risk of developing sclerosis and endometriosis

Click to expand...

I can see there being a genetic predisposition for these conditions, but again, not all redheads come from the same genetic line nor fit one mold.

Scientific studies should be taken with a grain of salt...

---------- Post added 10-29-2014 at 11:33 AM ----------

All are overly and embarrassingly sensitive to pain.

Click to expand...

I should have qualified, certain types of pain.

I think the point is that redheads may 'tend' to be more this and that, but obviously there will be exceptions, as there is to everything else, and if those exceptions are genetic, will run in families. That some families may not follow the average, doesn't invalidate what goes on with many of the rest of them.

Not sure who is dishing out the bovine feces here:-

You wrote:- "My mom and several other family members are redheads... All are overly and embarrassingly sensitive to pain"

And then you also wrote:"My mom has never been frightened of the dentist, has had multiple root canals and other dental work and never needed any local anesthetic. She always tells the dentist that she will let him know when it hurts"

You said it all - from overly sensitive to pain to not needing aesthetics for a dental because she feels no pain.

Thank You for sharing your true life experience with us, we are most enlightened.

Dial back the the attitude, Mau.

No attitude here - this is a fact - in black & white.

MadMauC said:

Not sure who is dishing out the bovine feces here:-

You wrote:- "My mom and several other family members are redheads... All are overly and embarrassingly sensitive to pain"

And then you also wrote:"My mom has never been frightened of the dentist, has had multiple root canals and other dental work and never needed any local anesthetic. She always tells the dentist that she will let him know when it hurts"

You said it all - from overly sensitive to pain to not needing aesthetics for a dental because she feels no pain.

Thank You for sharing your true life experience with us, we are most enlightened.

Click to expand...

I also qualified that by saying in certain situatons. She tolerates dental discomfort, but is intolerant of something as simple as a paper cut.
Dentist aversion tends to be more of a learned behavior anyway, regardless of genetics.