Symptoms of the bite include excruciating pain, edema, and weakness associated with a rapid drop in blood pressure. While pulling the lizard directly off risks severe lacerations from the lizard's sharp teeth, it may mitigate envenomation. If bitten, the victim may attempt to fully submerge the lizard in water, pry the jaws open with a knife or stick, or physically yank the lizard free. The Gila monster can bite quickly, and may not release the victim without intervention. No reports of fatalities have been confirmed after 1930, and the rare fatalities recorded before that time occurred in adults who were intoxicated by alcohol or had mismanaged the treatment of the bite. The venom of a Gila monster is considered to be as toxic as that of a Western diamondback rattlesnake. Because the Gila monster's prey consists mainly of eggs, small animals, and otherwise "helpless" prey, the Gila monster's venom is thought to have evolved for defensive rather than for hunting use. The Gila monster's bright colors might be suitable to teach predators not to bother this "painful" creature. They change their teeth all their life long. Broken and regular replacement teeth have to wait every time to go into position in a determinate "wavelike" sequence. The teeth are tightly anchored to the jaw (pleurodont). The Gila monster lacks the strong musculature in glands above the eyes instead in Heloderma, the venom is propelled from the gland via tubing to the base of the lower teeth and then by capillary forces into two grooves of the tooth and then chewed into the victim. The Gila monster produces venom in modified salivary glands at the end of its lower jaws, unlike snakes, whose venom is produced in glands behind the eyes.
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