This is the season when spiders look for warm places to hide and sometimes that means in your shed, garage, house, attic, crawlspace, basment, etc. Most household spiders do not have enough venom to cause much harm, but there is another prblem you need to watch out for if you are bitten - infection. If you are bitten by a spider, please have it looked at by a medical professional right away (especially if it's not completely healed after a week). The resulting infection will be much more painful and very inconvenient from multiple trips back and forth to the doctor or hospital and days off from work - not to mention the cost of all those visits. Go early and get it taken care of right away! Around Northern New Jersey you need to be careful of trhe little brown spiders that make flat webs with a little tube that they hide in at one end. These are called Brown Recluse spiders and they can be quite agressive when they are disturbed by cleaning, etc. They like to hide in small dark spaces, so when you are cleaning, your pant-leg or shirt sleeve looks like a safe place to them. Once they are in your clothes, they will quickly bite because they feel threatened (while you are trying to get them out). Anyway, just be careful out there . . . . .
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rand Reed @ Oct 23 2006, 06:48 PM) [snapback]337086[/snapback]</div> thank you very much for the advice. it was nice that you told folks about this.. thank you pete
Ok, folks, time for me to stump speach a little. First of all, I'm an ER physician. Next, we see on the order of 5 to 10 people per day in my ED that present with a chief complaint of "possible spider bite". Out of these probably one per month is actually a spider bite. Out of those probably one every 6 months is a brown recluse. Here's the approach I recommend. If you notice a sore on your body that is red, hot, tender and looks like a spider bite, it is probably not a spider bite unless you saw the actual spider that bit you and/or felt the bite occur. More than likely what you have is something called CA-MRSA (Community Acquired Methacillin Resistant Staph Aureus) infection. This, moreso than a spider bite actually, needs immediate medical attention. They sometimes require I&D (incision and drainage--cut open to let the pus out) and, in all cases, require antibiotics... And NO, don't use that leftover amoxicillin that's been in the cabinet since you had strep throat 3 years ago...it won't work and will actually promote further resistance of the MRSA. You'll need Bactrim or Clindamycin...don't let the doctor put you on Keflex or anything else, tell him you're worried about MRSA. Nice article HERE If you're certain it's a spider bite and you have the spider and it's identifiable then you have some options.... Brown Recluse and Black Widows are the only poisonous spiders that cause morbidity in the US. Black Widows have an antivenom, though it's rarely needed. However medical attention is often needed for pain control and muscle spasms. If it's a black widow you can either wait to see if you have symptoms then see a doctor, or start for the doctor immediately and if you don't have symptoms by the time you get there you probably won't develop any. If you do then you can get treatment right away. If you have a history of cardiac disease or other vascular disease and you are having chest pain or severe abdominal pain then you need to call 911 and go to the hospital immediately...those are indications for possible treatment with anti-venom. If it's a brown recluse you can decide, on your own, what to do. Most of us will look at your bite, give you a random antibiotic, maybe even something fancy like Dapsone...all the while we know it won't do a bit of good. Some major hospitals that have hyperbaric chambers and an aggressive hyperbarics physician will sometimes dive fresh bites as there's some sketchy evidence that it could help. If you hate doctors and/or don't wanna pay the bill to see a doctor then it's perfectly acceptible to watch and wait. Brown recluse bites sometimes get very large and serious and require debridement--cutting away of the damaged tissue. This isn't from infection, it's from the toxin and we don't have an antidote for the toxin. If it's only a moderate size wound then watchful waiting is usually what we prescribe. These always look terrible and, inevitably, someone will put you on antibiotics, "just in case", but they rarely are actually necessary. However, it's reasonable to see a physician fairly early if it becomes clear that the wound will become fairly large and has potential for infection or to need surgical treatment...that way you can be refered and treated appropriately instead of just showing up once the would has gotten severe. Hope that's not overly wordy.
Several years ago we had a small girl in our community that died from a brown recluse. Also, someone got bit in the foot at a Burger King and almost lost her foot.
Also watch out for areas where millions of gallons of raw sewage was dumped. http://starbulletin.com/2006/04/05/news/story02.html
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(huskers @ Oct 23 2006, 09:22 PM) [snapback]337142[/snapback]</div> Death and loss of limb are very very rare. Soft tissue loss is the main problem...it can be very extensive in some cases.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naterprius @ Oct 23 2006, 11:13 PM) [snapback]337186[/snapback]</div> Don't know for sure, it's one of those things that since it's not really something that's life or limb threatening the cost of producing it, then rarely having it used wouldn't justify the manufacturer's efforts. I seem to recall that a anti-venom has been produced in small quantities by scientists. Even Black Widow anti-venom is very hard to get and VERY expensive. The last case I had when I used it I had to sign papers I'd never seen before. The pharmacist had to have it couriered from the other local hospital b/c we didn't have it, the she brought it to me directly, wouldn't let the nurse sign for it, only me!
Thanks e. I once saw something on Discovery Channel about a family who raises and milks Black Widows in order to make antivenom. They had hundreds (thousands?) of them in rows of cups. I remember it was one of the young daughter's chores to feed the spiders. I think she was about 9 years old. I recall they didn't worry about bites because the spiders stayed in their cups and were well fed; the basement had all the right lighting and temperature, so the spiders never left (or wanted to leave) their cups. Plus, they always had antivenom in the house. ;-) Nate
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Oct 24 2006, 11:16 AM) [snapback]337368[/snapback]</div> You're welcome, decided to add a couple photos and links to my post since there seems to be some interest.
I am mainly a lurker on this forum (great info btw!), but I have first hand experience with this issue. I was bitten by a brown recluse on my temple approximately 3" above my right eye in 1992. It occured in my sleep - I am a big reader and had a lot of books under my bed, apparently it was a good nesting spot. Anyway, I when I woke up my eye was nearly swollen shut. I immediately went to the ER and an Oncologist was assigned to treat me. I began hyberbaric treatments that day - 2 "dives" per day for a week plus some steriods and precautionary antibiotics. Obviously, I was quite concerned about being disfigured, losing my eye, etc. The dr. thought that we began treatment early enough that I would only have minimal scarring. Well, we did better than that - I have abosolutely no scarring and no ill effects. I had major swelling for a week, but there was no tissue necrosis. There was another patient at the same time that was bitten on the foot by a brown recluse - but waited a week to go to the ER and start treatment. He ended up with some scarring but no major tissue loss. Getting early attention certainly worked for me. (The dr. did take before and after photos (much to my chagrin, but I agreed since it might help with education) - but I don't know if they ened up being published or not.)
Not to discourage anyone from housecleaning or gardening, but I've got a spider story too. My cousin was bitten one day out in his yard, and ended up losing his kidney. He's been on dialysis ever since. His Dad gave him his kidney, some years later, and then developed some kind of blood disease. So, one bankrupt family (isn't the US healthcare system wonderful?) and two formerly happy, healthy people reduced to wasting away. All from a spider bite.
Hyo...oh my gosh, I'm sorry to hear about your cousin and the ensuing medical treatments. Whenever I'm about to change into my gardening clothes, I always check inside my shoes (which are kept in the garage) for spiders. Another (sad) story... During spring break, I was in Mexico with some friends. We had been drinking and one person fell asleep on the beach; when we woke up we discovered that he was dead from (what we found out later) was a scorpion bite which he didn't feel because he was too drunk. More than a quarter of a century has passed, and I can still recall the incident as if it were yesterday. Just because we're at the top of the predatory chain doesn't mean we're immune to the forces of nature, apparently.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Oct 24 2006, 03:14 PM) [snapback]337563[/snapback]</div> Sorry to be nit-picky about that unfortunate story..... But, while scorpions might be capable of "biting" it would certainly never be enough to cause any human noticable harm. Now, they can "Sting" with the stinger on their tail. That is their means of envenomation. Also, the huge majority of scorpion envenomations are not fatal, but I'm not very familiar with the species of scorpions in Mexico.
Thanks Evan - That was a nice writeup. My 3 bites were definitely brown recluse and I should have gone in a lot sooner than I did. Bottom line is - Don't wait for the skin to turn black before heading to the ER!
I once had what looked like a bite on my leg. I decided it was time for a trip to the doctor when long red streaks started working their way up my veins. :blink: As for going on antibiotics when not really indicated, I had a major fight with colitis this year from being on an antibiotic that I probably didn't need. It killed all the good flora in my gut, while the c. diff guys road it out as spores. Once the antibiotic was over, wham, the c. diff came back in spades. I was one sick puppy. I did three courses of flagyl, a trip to the ER, two sets of CT scans, a colonoscopy, many probiotics, and a final course of vancomycin. When you get to vancomycin you know things aren't going well. That did the trick, and I'm back in good shape now, but what a lot of fuss, bother, and expense over something that I didn't need in the first place. Tom
I guess I'm pretty lucky since the doctors are treating this very aggressively - they cut out a lot of tissue that was dead from neckrosis - a hole about the size of a 50 cent coin, and it seems to be healing now. While I was in hospital they had me on IV with rociferin and either morphine or demerol and now they have me taking bactrim because it turned into a drug resistant staph infection. Before that, augmentin, levaqin, and clindamycin had no effect on it at all and it just got more infected, then finally turned black. Now they have it packed with what looks like a shoelace and they have to change that out every 48 hours. I'm feeling much better but I would really like to see some light at the end of this tunnel.
