Getting Bitten by a Leech and How Do you Get a Leech High?
Bloodsucking Leeches bite in order to feed. They do not feed on anything else, other than fresh blood, sucked from a living mammal or a human. “Leech High” is the state in which an individual enters, usually after leech therapy or after having been bitten by a bloodsucking leech, such as: Hirudo Medicinalis (West European Medicinal Leech), Hirudo Verbana (Eastern European Medicinal Leech), Hirudinaria Orientalis (Asian Medical Leech) or Hirudea Manilienses (Buffalo Leech), Hirudenia Decora (North American Medicinal Leech)
Leeches get access to your bloodstream in one of several ways:
1. Leech Therapy / Hirudotherapy If you find yourself in a situation where leech therapy is required to treat a disease or medical condition, or you would proceed to attach a Hirudo Medicinalis or Hirudo Verbana Leech on a special acupuncture / acupressure point on your body, targeting that particular medical condition. Alternatively, leeches are applied to swollen or infected limbs or body parts.
2. Bloodsucking Pet Leeches are attached on your body by placing them on a vein or a suitable body part for the purpose of feeding them.
3. You can get bitten by a wild leech around the areas of their natural habitats, such as leech lakes or ponds full of leeches.
Once you get bitten by the bloodsucking insect, the leech proceeds to do very important work, in order to secure her next meal. First, she starts to cut the skin into the shape resembling the triangular Mercedes Sign. Her multiple rows of teeth, altogether amount to 360 in total and are situated in a such as fashion, so as to make the most un-noticed and painless cut to suck through. The leech also makes a wound that heals easily, so it could latch repeatedly onto its prey again in the future, and feed multiple times from the blood of the same subject.
After a bloodsucker is done cutting through the 7 layers of skin, it begins to excrete a powerful group of enzymes, to help dissolve any obstructive particles in the way and to thin the blood of its host, to the point where its extremely easy to suck in. Amongst the 360 compounds excreted into the bloodstream is the its most important complex called Hirudin, which is the trademarked enzyme of the leech. Hirudin has the power to dissolve calcified particles and cholesterol formations. In fact, so powerful is the hirudo - enzyme complex that it is able to dissolve just about anything in its path, while keeping the the blood vessels and capillaries in tact.
The leech spends about 5-7 minutes just spitting out blood-thinning and dissolving compounds, by injecting them using the expanding and contracting motions of its body. Once everything inside the blood vessels and capillaries is liquified to a very fine grade and the leech has liked what it has done, it begins its action of sucking. Sucking of the blood from its host takes the leech on average 10-15 minutes to complete, so both the injecting and the sucking actions take a total of 30-40 minutes in total.
Once the hirudin and its compounds have entered the bloodstream, they travel far and wide, and continue to liquify everything in its path, this is the reason why most leech bite victims will bleed upwards of 10-12 hours after a bloodsucker leech has fed on them completely and has dropped off drunk with blood.