Posted on 05/21/2010 12:52:56 PM PDT by Willie Green
PAULDING COUNTY, Ga. -- A Paulding County woman is recovering from major surgery after being bitten by a brown recluse spider at her home.
“I would have never known in a million years that a spider could ever do this much damage,” said Victoria Franklin.
Franklin was at WellStar Windy Hill Hospital Friday morning, recovering from an April mastectomy.
“I didn’t flip out over that. I was glad to be alive,” she said of her surgery.
She found out she lost her left breast when the hospital staff told her after she woke up from an 11-day coma.
“She said, ‘You’re in ICU and you’ve lost your breast from a spider bite.’ I said, ‘What?!,’” said Franklin.
Doctors told her she’d been bitten by a brown recluse spider. Franklin said she first noticed lumps on her breast on Easter Sunday but didn’t think much of it. As the days progressed, she began to feel much worse. By Friday, she couldn’t take the pain anymore.
“My breast had turned black and it got so big, I couldn’t even fit it in my bra,” said Franklin. “I woke up in excruciating pain and the smell was so strong I couldn’t do anything but call my friend and say, ‘Please come get me,’” said Franklin.
She got to the emergency room but the gangrene had already set it and the breast and muscle had to be removed.
Doctors identified the brown recluse spider as the culprit.
Franklin will undergo breast reconstructive surgery. She will also have to learn to walk again.
She urged others to head to the doctor at the first sign of a bite instead of waiting like she did.
Those are no joke. A bite from one of those put me in the hospital for a week. That was the sickest I ever was in my life.
brown recluse.... they make your flesh sort of melt
The brown recluse spider is one bad dude. I know two people who have had bites, one almost lost his foot, the other was sick for weeks with a nasty bite / sore on his abdomen.
The Brown Recluse, and the Chilean Recluse Spiders are probably the nastiest insects that have ever crawled the face of the Earth. The vileness is magnified by the fact that these are tiny, ubiquitous creatures and spread nearly all over the southern United States.
I’m from Australia, and we do have nasty creatures here, but barely any of them terrify me as much as the Brown Recluse spider. A simple Google image search of their bites will let you know what I mean. Make sure to not be ingesting food while viewing them.
When I lived in Hiram, Ga in Paulding I had an infestation of black widow spiders. I bug bombed the house and took a vacation at the same time, no more spiders.
I had one nail me right on the elbow...fortunately there’s pretty thick skin and not a lot of muscle tissue there to be damaged. Nevertheless, I looked like Popeye for a couple weeks with a hugely swollen forearm.
Those are bad little guys. Hubby was bit on his arm and was in pain for the longest. It left a hole in his muscle and a scar.
I had a hobo spider bite my forehead. It swelled like a baseball and turned all sorts of colors.
The doctors had nothing to do about it. Luckily, it subsided after about a month.
I’m suprized she even called a friend.
I really am. I’m sorry for her and all that. But when did she think she ought to get medical attention?
After she died? Too late.
Is the severity based on people not taking it serious/not getting treatment right away, or is it a case of these spiders are just that bad?
They are just that bad.
I wonder if she knew that she’d been bitten by a spider, and IF she did know, was she aware that it was a brown recluse spider and that the bite could be life threatening?
11-day coma...dang
Yeah I’ve heard hobo spider bites are nearly as bad as the recluse ones.
A good friend was bitten on the hand by a brown recluse spider. She very nearly lost her hand but thankfully the talented hand surgeons worked miracles. She lost, and will never regain, a lot of function in the hand.
This happened on the Upper Eastern Shore of Maryland. She was housecleaning her kitchen cabinets.
Now that is a serious bite. I had what I suspected to be a brown recluse bite that looked pretty nasty, but turned out to be a staph infection. Still was not fun and oozed stuff for a month or so, after having it lanced.
spiders are just that bad?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
They are that bad.
I know a guy that nearly lost his hand after getting bit by one of those things.
•There is no antivenom available in the United States to counteract the poisonous venom of the brown recluse spider.
Controversial therapies include steroids and the drug dapsone (Avlosulfon). These are often reserved for people with severe systemic disease (such as certain types of anemia, blood clotting problems, and kidney failure). The therapies have little proven benefit.
I had a dachshund patient that had been bitten on the abdomen by a Brown Recluse that morning. It was dead by three p.m. that afternoon.
The Brown Recluse is a nasty, nasty little bastard. This woman is lucky to be alive.
The timeline for damage caused by a brown recluse is measured in miuntes, not hours.
I am, at this very moment, suffering from a brown recluse spider bite. It is on my shin, just above the right foot. It is painful, but I didn’t notice it right away. I put Hydrocortizone on it for a week, thinking it would go away. I went to the doctor yesterday and now am on a course of potent antibiotics.
so the very northern states aren’t immune from them then!?
how did it get up your shin?
Time consuming, but it keeps them away pretty good.
No place to hide.
Should be the motto and strategy of our attack on terror.
My aunt wound up in the hospital from a recluse bite. She showed me a photo of the ‘wound’ the following year - horrifying. Wishing you a speedy recovery.
I just can’t avoid it any longer, may I please be included in your ping list.
That photograph deceives the observer about the true size of these monsters. The are truly tiny: less than the size of a 1-cent coin, all legs extended, on average, when potent.
My D. O., who practices alternative medicine, has a shot he gives directly into the bite site. It stops the destruction and the pain in an hour or three.
Then there is a special taser device that is reported to reverse the bite’s progress very quickly. It shoots its charge directly through the bite to the other side of the affected body part.
When I was bitten by a Brown Recluse about 20 years ago, I asked some folks lay hands on me and pray. As they prayed, I could actually see the damaged area shrink dramatically right away, and completely disappear within hours. I witnessed a miracle with my own eyes. It was awesome. Praise God.
OMG.... I use to have those in my house in Michigan. I didn’t know what they were until I moved to out of state and found a dead one in a box as I was unpacking. They were always in my basement and sometimes they’d crawl upstairs. I seriously don’t know how they got into the house but they were nasty as hell.
Owie!
Those are some nasty bites.
During a legal document review project, I saw a 10-day progression of pictures from a brown recluse bite. The guy got bit on the joint where the thumb meets the hand ... by day 8, there was denuded bone. It was among the most revolting pictures I’ve seen.
SnakeDoc
Resistance is futile.
Eventually Mangled Genitals Ping List gets everyone.
Whew!
After reading this thread and the scary replies....
Best of luck with recuperating.
Got bit a few years back in Long Island while visiting relatives. Slept in an unused guest room.
At first I thought it was a mosquito bite, but it very quickly changes. My doc told me I was hours away from losing my leg. Instead I got a huge chunk taken out of my hip due to tissue necrosis. Its kind of an exponential progression.
Fortuantely for me I got back a lot of the removed tissue, but I still have a nasty scar and some neurologic pain now and again.
Spider ping.
No. I'm in Ill. I got bit on the forearm while removing ceder shingles. They like places like that, thus the name. Didn't know it until later. Luckily I seem to have a great immune system, it was still pretty ugly and I have a small scar.
Tore down a fence next to a wood pile. Must have been in there somewhere. Of course I was wearing shorts :>)
Breasts aren’t genitals.
The worst part was I had a relapse and had to go back in. The doctor told me if that round didn't work I would lose my leg. Uggghhh.
I don’t see how you could wait to get medical attention until your breast swelled up and turned black. I just don’t. I mean, ordinarily I’d be thrilled if my breast swelled up, but pain and ugly colors, no.
I thought they had a fiddle shaped mark on their back. I remember seeing on on the Natchez Trace north of Jackson, MS.
I was at Ft. Bragg getting ready to go to Europe when I got nailed with mine. When I said my left arm looked like Popeye, that was not an exaggeration. My forearm was swollen up to at least twice its normal size...probably closer to 3x. Fortunately, I sought medical attention at the TMC when I first noticed the symptoms. The PA got a bed pan and I couldn’t believe how much puss and who knows what he drained from it. The swelling was so bad the docs were worried it was going to cut off circulation to my hand, and I had to stop wearing my watch because the strap wasn’t long enough to go around my wrist.. You could squeeze my forearm and it would leave a deep impression of your fingers for several minutes afterward like a lump of clay.
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