Submitted by asafen t3_yptpnu in askscience
glacierre2 t1_ivo51lz wrote
Reply to comment by Jackhow123 in How does extracting venom from animals help us create antidotes? by asafen
If it is the first time, the body will take some time to make specific anti-antibodies, the antivenom has plenty of time to bind to the poison.
On a future second time (specially if the first was recent) you could get a race between the kinetics of your anti-antibodies binding the antivenom and the antibodies binding the poison. I would expect it would still work, but with decreased effect.
Finally, and this is the way that it always works, the poison + antibodies (yours or external) end up making a bigger clump that is consumed by cells of the immune system (macrophages), so ultimately you always get an immune response (but that does not necessarily mean an allergic reaction)
ukezi t1_ivo5jl1 wrote
I would assume that on second exposure there would always be a significant amount of your own antibodies to fight the venom.
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