Lurking in a window box near you... is deep pain

I HAD an odd and rather unpleasant experience the other day.

I was out on the patio helping my wife empty window boxes, hanging baskets and planters that were full of summer bedding plants past their prime.

I plunged my hands down the inside edge of a large planter to remove a clump of dying lobelia and felt a sharp, pricking pain in the little finger of my right hand.

I thought I must have encountered a small thorn or a splinter that had touched a nerve. I paid no attention to it. But 10 minutes later I was in excruciating pain, and went indoors to wash my hands and examine the finger through a hand lens.

I found a tiny red dot on the lobe that might have been a minute puncture wound. But the dot soon disappeared as the finger started to swell up. The pain intensified and spread down the bone and into adjacent fingers. It was a deep, throbbing pain, rather like having a toothache. I began to feel slightly nauseated and dizzy – though this was not dramatic and may have been caused by psychological rather than physiological factors.

It was obvious I had been injected with some form of venom and my wife started to become concerned. She offered to call an ambulance. I considered what I knew about the A&E unit of our local hospital and waved the offer aside with a brave and manly gesture. I said something like: “we’ll see how it develops”.

I then went to the computer and, rather impressed by my own scientific objectivity, started to research my symptoms, operating the mouse with my left hand.

I came across a lot of internet dead-ends and a lot of irrelevant information (did you know the common Irish house spider has venom that is several times more powerful than a black widow spider, it just doesn’t have the hardware to deliver the venom through human skin?) There was a mystery here. I know there are very few venomous creatures in this country.

There are bees and wasps and ants and clegs – I’ve been bitten by all of these and I knew what was happening to me now was different. It was more like the sting of a weaver fish – but these are saltwater creatures and are not found in patio planters in land-locked counties. It was also November when most of the nasties are not around.

Then I ended up on a website devoted to Lithobius forficatus, the common brown centipede. There are lots of these in my garden and I welcome them. I’ve even written articles encouraging people to cherish them in their conservatories because they kill vine weevils. The website said centipedes have vicious fangs which inject venom into their prey, but they rarely attack humans. It was the “rarely” that got me. I thought they never attacked humans. I thought they were unable to do so.

I went to other websites from warmer countries where they have larger and more truculent centipedes. I learned centipede bites are “very painful but seldom fatal”. This was reassuring – well, fairly reassuring.

After about four hours the swelling subsided and the pain eased but I think my finger, which is still sore several days later, was bitten by a common brown centipede.

However I’m not sure because I couldn’t find the culprit. I’d like to know if any readers have been bitten by centipedes in Ireland and, if so, were the symptoms similar to the ones I’ve described? I’d also like to know if anyone has an alternative explanation for what happened to me.

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