Brown Recluse Spider Bites - Now is the time to spray your house! (graphic pictures)

This is a semi-vanity post - but others should learn about this nasty little spider and the damage it can do.

This is my 3rd day into my second Brown Recluse Spider bite that I have had in the past 3 years. The first one took over 6 months to heal and left a 3/4" diameter crater in the back of my neck at my hairline. I was bitten again 3 days ago, at least that is when I notice a pin head size bump on my right forearm and thought it was just a mosquito bite. Today is day three and I decided to keep a record of this new bite this time if it decides to get worse or hang around for 6 months like the other one. It was pin head size 3 days ago. I found a website after my first bite that keeps records and case pictures of brown recluse spider bites (warning if you think snake bites are nasty or anthrax sores are gross - well Brown Spider Bites are just as bad - they get uglier as time goes by!). I did not record my first bite as I figured it would just heal. But it got worse and worse as the weeks went by.

Anyway people in the midwest should learn about these nasty little spiders, even more if you have kids... you should bug bomb your house often and keep clutter away from and inside your homes. Right now the little nasty things are moving back indoors due to all the rainy weather we have had in the midwest.

Today is 5/9/03 and I am into my 3 day of being bitten by BRS (Brown Recluse Spider). My picture below looks like it is not much of anything and I am hoping that it stays as little as it now. But I am prepared to record it this time if it does get worse. Hopefully my picture of my 3 day old bite will help others recognize when they have also been bitten by a BRS, everyone is affected differently depending on the size of the spider and how your body handle the poison. Since this is my second bite it may not get any worse.

I have started a bite history on a website that has records of over 400 BRS bites (tons of photos there that would make your jaw drop if you have never seen what a BRS can do to you once it bites you) My case number is #995 (maybe they have 995 recorded cases now) the website url is http://www.highway60.com/mark/brs/default.htm

My little bite is how all of it starts for some people, that little bite can turn into this...
Graphic Picture of Hand after a BRS bite and the link to this persons BRS bite story

I don't think I need to say more here - just visit the BRS Bite site and use the search link at the top... Put in the information you want (if you just want to see the stories with pictures check off just the "Yes" next to the Picture option and hit the search button at the bottom.

Do yourself a favor and your kids a favor... spray or bomb your house at least once each season (spring, summer, fall, winter). You can buy house bombs at any local discount store in packs of 3 for about $6.00.

I posted this so that people mainly in the midwest can learn about these nasty little spiders, I didn't do it to draw attention to my own bite... I just know now how nasty they can get and how you can lessen your chances of being bit. I got bit before I had a chance to bomb my house... it has been rainy here and I should have known they would start coming in through the cracks between the window screens and window frame. All in all I should be fine, but some people do not fair as well.

Thanks, brigette.

I have a related story about another type of poisonous spider .. the brown widow spider. (Yes, I said brown. Think of a black widow spider with a tan body and a yellow hourglass.)

I was bitten by a brown widow spider four years ago, while staying in a very nice hotel in Chicago. (I'll spare you the name, but it's located at Seventeen East Monroe Street.)

The spider must have been on a pillow that I put between my legs, because when I got out of bed at 7 AM, my left leg buckled under me. I didn't think much of it -- "I must have stepped wrong or something" -- and went off to work (I was teaching a seminar in the area.)

By 9:30 AM, I was starting to sweat and get really uncomfortable, and by 10:30 AM, I could not stand on the leg at all.

I was taken to the emergency room at Northwestern Hospital with a temperature of 104.9 degrees, and with my left calf swollen to three times the size of the right. My breathing was so shallow and labored, and I was panting and shaking so much, that the ER folks thought that I was having a heart attack.

I managed to make it through after two days in the hospital there and two days in hospital back in Seattle -- my doctor said "Normally I would complain about your weight, but your size saved you. If you'd been a smaller person, you would have died." (I was 5'9" and 310 pounds at the time.)

I mention this because, even today, my left calf is twice the size of the right calf, and I get doctors who (as another poster on the thread stated) simply think it's cellulitis.

And, to relate this to BRS … the previous poster who said that there were brown recluse spiders in Washington State was completely correct. We have brown recluse spiders on the west side of the Cascades, and 'traditional' black widow spiders and hobo spiders on the east side of the Cascades. I haven't seen brown recluse spiders east of the Cascades, but I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to find them.

http://spiders.ucr.edu/avoidbites.html

Things you can do to reduce the chances of being bitten by a brown recluse spider
This applies only to those people who live within the areas of the map elsewhere on this site.
If you do not live within these areas on the map, you do not have recluse spiders (unless you can prove it by sending me a specimen).

Within this zone, brown recluse spiders are quite common. But brown recluse spider bites are not common. So, if you do nothing , you will probably not be bitten. Humans of the midwestern U.S. are living with millions of brown recluses everyday and bites are a rare occurrence. I have heard from several people who collect dozens of recluses in their homes every year and nobody in that household (including their little babies) has ever shown evidence of a bite. This does not mean that you should ignore them. They are potentially dangerous, however, you are probably more at risk from injury every time you get behind the wheel of a car. However, many people have asked how to reduce the chance of being bitten further, and here is how:

Be aware that it is almost impossible to eliminate recluse spiders from a building once they get established. The best you can hope for is a signficant reduction in the numbers of spiders and take steps to reduce the chances of being bitten.

Use sticky traps to trap spiders. Every one you catch is one less recluse that can bite you.

Remove bedskirts from beds. Move the bed away from the wall. Remove everything from under the bed so that the only way the spiders can get up on the bed is to crawl up one of the four legs.

Many bites have occurred when people put on clothes that had been lying around for several weeks or months, and pressed the spider against their skin. I'm sure your kids will hate me for this one but don't throw clothes on the floor and then wear them the next day. If you do, shake them out or squish them into a ball before putting on the t-shirt or whatever. Bang out shoes first to see if a spider crawled in during the night.

When you store things in the garage, basement or attic, put them in plastic bags that you can close with a plastic zipper lock or twist-tie. This is especially important for things that you stick your hands and feet into like: roller skates, baseball gloves, gardening gloves, boots, raingear. Tape up the edges of cardboard boxes so there are no way a spider can squeeze inside.

Be careful when you move things out of storage areas, in particular, cardboard boxes. Recluses like to hang out in the space under folded cardboard flaps. Be careful when you carry the boxes as you might place your fingers on a recluse when you pick up the box or press a recluse against your body when you carry it. Remove any spiders inside boxes using a vacuum cleaner and dispose of the bag. Reseal all open edges of cardboard boxes with tape before restoring them.

Clean up clutter and junk that is lying around. Recluses love clutter and prefer to live under and between items, such as plywood, tarps and cardboard on the ground

Do not stack wood against the house. Recluses like woodpiles and if they take up residence inside wood stacked next to a house, there is more chance that they will wander into the home. Move the woodpile as far from the house as possible, stack it off the ground and cover it with a tarp. These steps make the firewood less attractive to insects and the spiders that feed upon them. Also, when you pick up wood, wear gloves. Of course, check the gloves first for spiders, or stomp on the gloves first to squash a spider (as disgusting as it might seem to put on a glove with a squished spider in the finger, squished spiders don't bite.)

Other things you should know about brown recluses:
Most households with brown recluses never experience a bite
90% of all brown recluse bites heal without severe scarring.
Many brown recluse bites cause just a little red mark that heals without event.
Despite all the hoopla surrounding the brown recluse, there is still not one PROVEN death due to brown recluse bite. (No, wait, don't write me about someone who died and 'the doctor said' it from brown recluse! This information originates from two separate publications in medical journals written by two recluse venom experts who are medical doctors, who have been studying the medical implications of recluse bites for decades in Missouri and Tennessee where brown recluses occur frequently, and who know much more about the effects of recluse venom than your local doctor. If you want to argue this point with somebody, go argue with them, not me. And unless you have a confirmed spider identification associated with your "alleged" bite (i.e., removed from the skin of the victim after the bite), you don't have a PROVEN envenomation.)

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