Spiders Do Not Like Me

[John Bennett]

I have the worst luck with spiders. Two years ago I got bitten on the face. That left scars.

Thursday night I got bitten on the leg. The bite has been getting progressively worse. I've been getting fevers, chills, bodyaches every night. I feel like I have the flu.

I got bit while sitting on an old couch that sits outdoors on a friend of mine's porch.

If you haven't sprayed your house for spiders recently, look at this picture of the back of my thigh. I took this about 3:00am this morning.

http://lufkinscrc.org/john/spiderbite.jpg

It hurts like the Devil!

I finally gave up and went to the doctor today. He cut it open and purged it and packed it with 2.5 feet of medicated gauze. I'll go back Friday morning to get the gauze removed.

Here's a picture of his work...

http://lufkinscrc.org/john/spiderbitepostop.jpg

It hurt bad when he was digging all that dead tissue out. But I'm already feeling better. Fever is going away. I can walk better now.

Maybe this will improve my Spider-guard. :D

[Lisa]

John,

OMG that looks horrible.

About 4 years ago my mom was bitten by a spider on her face. It swelled up so badly that I didn't even recognised her when I saw her. It looked very similar to the back of your leg. Anyways... it took a lot of medication and a long time to heal and to this day she has a nasty scar on her left cheek.

Spiders are evil... squish all that you can :up:

[tkdcanada]

Oh my God!! Spiders that leave scars! :eek: There isn't any creepy crawly here where I live that could or would do that kind of damage. I guess living in a colder climate has it's advantages! :D Hope it heals fast. :)

[Webmaster]

John:

I know exactly how you feel. I am sensitive in the same way with spider bites and although I have not had quite as bad of a bite in a while, I do get minor ones like that from time to time. However, when I was in the Philippines, I got bitten in my left armpit. I woke up one morning after the bite with the equivelent of a grapefruit in my armpit, lots of pain, fever and the whole works. Went to sickbay, and they did basically the same thing they did to you. Sliced it open, pumped out about pint of puss, and then out came this other mass. Anyway, that other mass was the spider. :eek: Aparently it had borrowed its way into my arm, laid eggs, and died when my immune system reacted to the foreign body. Now I have a nice little scar under my armpit to remember that event by.

[tkdcanada]

OMG! Now I'm totally freaked out! I thought it was a myth that insects and spiders did that. However, I do have a long standing fear of stuff like that happening and as a result I have developed the habit if covering my ears when I sleep for fear of something crawling in my ears, lol - not that they won't eventually get uncovered as I move around :rolleyes:
I think I may be having a few nightmares tonight!

[Webmaster]

OMG! Now I'm totally freaked out!

LOL! Sorry, didn't mean to gross you out! :D

[Lisa]

*SHIVERS*

Robert,

that is completely disgusting and scarry...

and people wonder why I hit the little buggers 10 - 20 times just to make sure they are dead! :whack: :whack:

[tkdcanada]

LOL! Sorry, didn't mean to gross you out! :D

Nah, I don't get grossed out easily. It's just the thought if something invading my body! Very scary! :eek:

[Don Davies]

*SHIVERS*

Robert,

that is completely disgusting and scarry...

and people wonder why I hit the little buggers 10 - 20 times just to make sure they are dead! :whack: :whack:

You hit them 10-20 times :eek: , I would love to see you kill a spider. I am sure by the 3 or 4 time you hit them there must be next to nothing left of the spider. You must go crazy with rage to hit a spider 10-20 times...and I thought you gave me bad beatings.

[stella fuentes]

i've never had that kind of experience before. but it reads/sounds very painful! do you know what kind of spider it was, robert? john? i am from the philippines and so might find the little bugger familiar. but i hope you get well from that painful incident soon!!!

always in the spirit of harmony,
stella fuentes

[Webmaster]

No idea what kind of spider that was Stella. There was not a lot that was recognizable when it emerged from my arm, and I was too grossed out myself to ask!

[Cliff Hargrave]

Here is an article on treating spider bites with stun guns

http://www.spiderbitetreatment.com/

[Dennis Monk]

Spiders are evil creatures. I hate them. You really need to keep that bite looked at. Did the doc say if it was a Brown Recluse bite? If so, be very careful.

[John Bennett]

Dang Robert! I guess I should consider myself lucky that I didn't get INVADED by a spider like you did! :)

My leg is doing better. The place where the spider tagged me on the finger when I swiped him away still hurts bad.

Here's a picture of my finger taken today...

http://lufkinscrc.org/john/spiderhand.jpg

My research indicates that no treatment exists for such bites other than "riding it out". That sucks.

Klif, I sent Dr. Abrams an email requesting permission to view his file regarding electrical treatment after envenomization.

I'll let you guys know if I find out anything interesting.

[Ewok85]

Errgh! I hope you get better soon!

I can relate to the hitting spiders 10-20 times. We get redbacks (black widows?) which are deadly little things, they get a good squashing and coating with fly spray, white tip spiders (1" long, black, distinctive white spot) which have a weird vemon which has a gangrenous effect, plenty of squashing there. The bigger ones though tend to be safer, garden spiders and huntsmans.... its the little ones that worry me! :eek:

[Skye]

My mother had a bite from one of those white tip (or tailed) spiders awhile ago. Similar sort of thing to John's finger, except it went black around the bite. Not nice.

[Mandeigh Wells]

you have spiders that bite.........$h*t....move to Scotland asap.....what a dangerous world we live in.

Mandeigh :eek:

[Lisa]

I would love to see you kill a spider..

next time I will get AG to video me hitting you with a stick... then you will get the idea ;) :laugh:

[Andrew Green]

*SHIVERS*

Robert,

that is completely disgusting and scarry...

and people wonder why I hit the little buggers 10 - 20 times just to make sure they are dead! :whack: :whack:


*heads off to find some giant rubber spiders*

[Cliff Hargrave]

My research indicates that no treatment exists for such bites other than "riding it out". That sucks.

Klif, I sent Dr. Abrams an email requesting permission to view his file regarding electrical treatment after envenomization.

I'll let you guys know if I find out anything interesting.

I heard that antibiotics to prevent secondary infections and maybe cortizone type steroids to help reduce inflamation is the best you can hope for. That is why I was really interested in the "shock" treatment when I read about it.

Did you feel the bite when it happened? I heard tht most people do not feel the actual bite.

[McGrendel]

Ouch, maybe they like you a little too much! I hope your finger gets better.

[John Bennett]

> Did you feel the bite when it happened? I heard tht most people do not feel the actual bite.

About two years ago I was bitten on the right side of my chin and left side of my jaw. I never felt a bite. When the boils began to develop, I thought I had infected pimples. I was shocked when the doctor told me they were spider bites. It took three weeks for them to erupt, fully necrotize, and then start healing. I have two scars on my face a bit larger than a dime.

This one on my leg I did feel. While sitting on that couch outdoors I felt something just like an ant bite on the bottom of my thigh. It was dark, so I never actually saw what it was.

When I swiped it away with my left hand I felt something bigger and squishyer then an ant. Ants have a hard feel. You know, you roll them between your fingers to kill them when they get on you. This did not. I was wearing long pants so it kinda suprised me. Ants don't bite through jeans.

I wrote Dr. Abrams about the electrical shock therapy. He sent me the details. My friend who is a doctor said they've tried that for years and it doesn't work.

Unfortunately, the only therapy is to take antibiotics as the tissue dies and keep cutting it out. Friday they re-packed my leg with medicated gauze. My finger is draining well now. I go back to the doctor Monday for more cutting and draining. That hurts.

I can't do that myself because I can't really see and manipulate the location. I cut open my finger with a razor blade last night and got a lot of stuff out. It's feeling MUCH better today as you can see from my typing.

[Cliff Hargrave]

So it bit through your pants? Wow, I didn't know they could do that.

So I guess the severity depends on the person's reaction to it and/or the amount of venom injected. I have two friends that were each bitten on the hand. One had a sore about the size of a dime. It had a little hole that rotted out, puss draining, and such, and healed up in a few weeks. The other had his hand swell up about twice it's size, the sore was about the size of a half dollar, took several months to heal, and was very painful. He had several days of fever and sickness too.

I hope no one in my household ever gets bit. My garage and porch are full of spiders and I find them in the house from sometimes. I keep cleaning up webs with my shopvac and spraying tons of poison but they keep coming back. Must be the curse of living in an old house.

[McGrendel]

From what I have heard the little suckers build up immunities to poison pretty quick and considering how many eggs they lay it would take forever to get rid of them. Just a suggestion but if the poison doesn't work you may want to invest in a lizard or some other natural spider predator as a pet. I'm not sure what the best one would be for your climate but a hungry lizard, bird, or even a bored cat may take care of the problem for you. (I'm not a cat person so personally I would go the lizard route if possible.) I have done virtually no research on this solution for spiders but I knew several people that used geckos to clear up their palmetto bugs in Florida. (Big ugly roaches for anyone else that has not seen them before.) Just a possible alternative way to handle the situation while picking up a cool pet to train and impress the ladies with.

[nosh276]

I


It hurt bad when he was digging all that dead tissue out.



It sounds like it was a brown recluse. Probably male if you made it that long without actually being hospitalized. If it were female you would have been much worse off. They are one of the deadliest spiders in the world.