Scratched by puppy

[Mamalady7011]

The other day I was scratched by a puppy.  I am older and have very thin skin, and I bleed quite a bit. Before I realized he broke the skin I tried to talk to the man. He said puppy was Japanese, but he didn't speak English. I went inside and looked down and I had blood on my shirt and arm.  I didn't think too much about it, until I started getting these pains in my back and shoulder and neck, it feels like the pain is in my bones. I have never had anything like this before, especially to come on so fast.  The only thing I can guess is perhaps the pup didn't have shots, and I haven't seen him since this happened.  Is this possible, I don't have a Doctor, so I wanted to see what you think? Thank-you.  

[Ghilly]

When puppies are vaccinated, they are vaccinated against dog diseases.  Nothing that a dog or puppy gets shots for is zoonotic, meaning it cannot be passed from dogs to humans, so even if this puppy didn't have its shots, it couldn't give you anything that it would have been vaccinated against.

It could, of course, have bacteria on its paws that it picked up simply by walking on the ground, but this is not something that the owner would be able to guard against since the puppy has no choice but to put its feet on the ground.

The best thing I can suggest to you, since you don't have a doctor, is to go the ER and tell them what happened and have them do bloodwork on you to see what is making you feel so sick.  In truth, I think that perhaps it is coincidental that your feeling sick happened so soon after you were scratched because every disease has an incubation period and it's highly unlikely you got whatever it is you have from the puppy's scratch.  There are a lot of flu-like bugs going around right now so it's more likely that you contracted one of those.

Please post back and let us know what transpires.

Ghilly

[Margot49]

Odd symptoms from a scratch.  You don't know where the dog or owner are?  I have very thin skin also so know what you are describing.  As a matter of fact, had our puppy scratch my arm last year and cleaned and sanitized it right away and kept antibiotic ointment on it.  A few days later, noticed some pus so went to the doctor and it was a MRSA infection and I was put on antibiotics.  If symptoms continue and it looks infrected, you had best at least go to ER and get it checked.