This began this past Wednesday. It is now Saturday night and I am absolutely miserable. It hurts so bad. It feels as if the entire whelp will burst. Its really hot and immediately blanches with any pressure applied. Kind of like a bad sunburn would do. It is also very sensitive to any pressure at all. The skin around the center has started pealing off. I finally gave in and called my mom and she thinks it was a brown recluse spider bite. I do too after doing some research.

My question is now what can I do to make it through until Monday so I can go to my hometown and go to the doctor. I am a broke college student that is definitely suffer. It hurts so bad!!!!!! I am apprehensive about going to the ER because I am not sure if it is a bite or just something silly.

Well, I went to the ER, that day, quite sure that I had been bitten by a brown recluse, or possibly a hobo spider. The Doc told me that it was definitly a spider bite, but did not tell me what kind of spider, but , he did tell me that spiders are like dogs, they can sense fear, which I do believe by the way, after reading a certain page on the web, that the severity of a bite from a recluse or hobo not only depends of the gender and age of the spider, but also on the victims psychological state, and I have always been very afraid of spiders, and being that I was living in a garage, well…. I was given an antibitotic, some pain meds, and bandages so that I could maintain the bite area. I did as instructed, a small “hole” formed in the bite area, and I continued to clean it, it began to heal, and about a week later, my left arm ( I was bitten on my left shoulder) went completely dead for about one week, while taking at least two weeks for me to regain feeling and control. My question is, was that caused by the spider bite?

A second visit to the Emergency Room at my local hospital revealed that the wound was NOT MRSA or Staph but was indeed a SPIDER bite of the same type as a Brown Recluse. The applied heat had spread the venom throughout my lower left leg, bite was outside of left calf muscle. Now my bite lesion was much larger and the necrosis had spread much faster. The ER doctor had to inject novocaine and open the bite surgically to allow it to drain.

Now I am off from work for a few days and I cannot hardly walk on my left leg. The pain is unbearable, the headaches and nausea are bad enough. If you are bit by a spider apply ice to the wound, do not try to extract or squeeze out the venom, and seek immediate medical attention. Try to bring the spider with you if at all possible, for identification puposes.

Ten years ago I was bitten by a Black Widow and it was very painful. Now I know that a Brown Recluse bite is much more painful than a Black Widow bite, for me anyway.

The doctor says I am going to have a scar, just how bad depends on how bad the necrosis gets. I am on two different antibiotics and hydracodone for the pain. I have to keep the wound clean and allow it to drain. I have to change the dressing twice a day. The antibiotics the doctor gave me is a long term high power dose.

I felt a bite on the back of my calf. It felt like a mosquito bite, and I didn’t bother to look at it until later. I made a cross on it with my nails to let the poison/itch drain. Later I noticed it wasn’t draining and made another cross on it. The next day it was sore and swollen around it. It resembled a cigarette burn, white center surrounded by a red circle. Then the swelling started. The initial bite was tiny, smaller than a dime. By the weekend the swelling was at least two inches around the bite.

Monday, Aug 25, I went to a doctor with it and another separate infection. She asked which sore came first, and told me I had transferred the staph from this one to that one and that it wasn’t the bite. Now, I’m wondering if she even realized there was a bite. She put me on two different antibiotics and both infections have begun to heal.

I’m pretty sure I washed my hands before going from one sore to the other, and I didn’t mess with the bite much because it was too painful and I was afraid I’d make it worse.
Monday afternoon, the bite started “weeping” a pink watery liquid- not exactly blood. I have been taking pics of it since I started being suspicious of the Brown Recluse as we live in the southeast and have recently been cleaning out closets, moving furniture and painting.

I have several pics and will send a few at different stages, but I don’t really have many of the beginning.
My husband and I have been debating this - he thinks its all staph. I think one is staph, and this one is a BR bite. Supporting his argument was your site for staph infection pics, and supporting mine is http://www.highway60.com/mark/brs/casestudy_volcanoes.asp?Msg=2860.
The need to be right is not nearly as important as the treatment. And either way, ANTIBIOTICS are gonna help!

I went back to the same Dr Wednesday, Aug 27. Looking back, I told her it was a bite and she didn’t say one way or the other. She was going to schedule me for surgery to have it lanced and drained to make sure they got the pus sac out of it.

Note: I have a high tolerance for pain, and the worst pain of this was the swelling of my calve, and even now the initial first steps in the morning after my leg has been inactive. Once I get moving, it feels relatively normal with occasional sharp pains, but nothing constant. Now it looks horrible, its oozing with an occasional worm-looking chunk of dead blood coming out. When I peel the bandage off and that comes out of the center, its not painful at all, surprisingly. I ran out of peroxide and used alcohol on it one day, cleaning the swollen area around it BEFORE cleaning the bite site. I steeled myself for the burning pain of alcohol that never came. It felt like cold water, and I am grateful for that. This is one of the biggest reasons I think it may have been a BR. Surely an open wound would have set my blood on fire when I added alcohol. Unless the nerves are deadened.
I have refused the surgery for now, as my insurance has not gone into effect yet and I can’t imagine the cost. And from all I’ve read, it looks like it doesn’t heal any faster with the lancing than without it.

Today my son was complaining about his leg hurting and when he showed it to me, it looks quite familiar. I will be taking him to the doctor tomorrow. My husband asks what are the odds of both of you being bitten by a Brown Recluse vs the odds that you infected him with the staph? I decided against mentioning that we live in the same house…
and maybe his doctor will know more than mine did.

He is 7 years old, and I ask that you please keep him in your prayers. From all I’ve read, it harder on kids and the elderly to fight it off.
Pics to follow….

After 7 days of things getting worse, I went to the doctor. He gave me oral and topical antibiotics. This was given not for the venom but to prevent secondary infections. Apparently there is no “fix” for the venom other than luck or cutting out the poisoned area.

Surprisingly the flu-like symptoms didn’t start with me until these last 3 days. Legs, back of head and neck are hurting. Major headache and very high temperatures that come and go. Chills. After 3 Advil the temp continued to elevate. Finally was able to get it down to 101 by getting in a bath of cool water and cold rags. Since the tissue is still dying and I’m having these symptoms I have to go back to the Doc tomorrow. 10 days into this ordeal and it seems to get worse each day.

If you think you have been bitten by one of these spiders, go to the doctor. Don’t wait like I did. These spiders are common here where I live and I even know people who have been bitten. I have seen what the bite can do and still I didn’t go to the doctor. I made the mistake of thinking it was something other than the BRS because I never felt the bite and didn’t have the flu-like symptoms in the beginning.

People react differently to the bites…Lesson learned. As I’m writing this I feel fine, wouldn’t know anything was going on except for a little itching on my arm. So far today I have felt this good for maybe a total of 6 hours. The remaining hours were spent with the flu symptoms and high fever. It’s been like this for 3 days now. Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep tonight without the “flu” returning.

After reading some of the other comments I just wanted to add mine since I realized there can be varying reactions to this. Again, go to the doctor if you think you have been bitten!! Take care everyone!

They brought us the chaplain to tell us that we were going to need to make arrangements because our boy probably wasn’t going to make it. “WHAT”? My husband and I fell to our knees in prayer begging God not to take our sweet boy from us. God is good. I still think about that day especially when I hear another story of someone getting bit. Not all bites are fatal. In fact, they seem to act differently in different people. My sons’ reaction was for his body to send white blood cells to destroy the invading venom. Problem was that it didn’t stop there. It turned on his own body and starting destroying his organs. His kidneys had already shut down and they said his lungs and heart would be next. My son was lucky. We thought he would be on dialysis the rest of his life and they said his growth would be stunted. Today my boy is 30 yrs old and 6′3 and not on dialysis. I look back and can’t believe in one day my child went from healthy to near death from one little feakin’ spider. Let’s see if we can’t get an anti-venom for this spider.