Inland taipan may include headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, dizziness, collapse or convulsions leading to major organ effects: neurotoxicity, coagulopathy, rhabdomyolysis or renal failure/damage and finally death. Inland taipan snake venom contains potent presynaptic neurotoxins (toxins in venom that cause paralysis or muscle weakness). Also present are postsynaptic neurotoxins, which are less potent but more rapid acting than the presynaptic neurotoxins. Presynaptic neurotoxins disrupt neurotransmitter release from the axon terminal. This takes days to resolve and does not respond to antivenom. Postsynaptic neurotoxins competitively block acetylcholine receptors but the effect can be reversed by antivenom. Neurotoxic envenoming causes a progressive descending
Coastal taipan being bitten, but the average is around 2.5 hours. The time between a bite and death depends on various factors such as the nature of the bite and the constitution of the victim. Untreated bites have a mortality rate of 100% as the coastal taipan always delivers a fatal dose of venom (an average bite delivers 10-12x the lethal dose of venom for a human adult male), and medical professionals recommend that victims seek immediate medical attention even for apparently minor bites. Before the introduction of specific antivenom by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in 1956, nearly all bites were fatal.