If I'm in remote country, I usually carry a Sawyer extractor with me. My main hope is to use it for insect bites, and skin punctures due to thorns. In both cases it has the potential to be very helpful for those types of wounds. I would also use it on a needle-stick accident, if working around patients where blood is being drawn. Always the same basic idea ... get blood flowing out of the body, and hopefully carrying any infectious agents out with it.

Sawyers were invented for snakebite, but I think research has shown that they only remove maybe 5-10% of the venom. Something like that. You've got to get the Sawyer directly onto the bite as soon as possible after it happens. It's probably very worthwhile for neurotoxic venoms. Of course, if you wait too long then the venom diffuses through the veins and capillaries.

I would still use the pressure immobilization treatment for a rattlesnake bite. But the concerns here are valid. That toxin eats away flesh in nasty ways. Victims who don't die from a rattlesnake bite often lose large amounts of flesh in the bitten extremity. It's not pretty at all - quite debilitating. The moral is ... DON'T get bitten!! Stay alert.

I looked into carrying anti-venins, but they are expensive and unless you've got a lot of training it's probably a no-go. It might work if you positively know that the threat only comes from one kind of snake e.g. Pacific diamondback rattlesnake. i.e. you've working a specific area where such a snake is common. But otherwise there's an immediate issue that you don't have a positive ID on the snake, you're scared because the dumb thing just bit you, and there's no guarantee that you've got the correct anti-venin for the situation. Polyvalent anti-venons do exist, but again you need to be sure you've got the right species of snake. Might work in parts of the USA.

cheers,
Pete2