Posted on 06/01/2005 7:17:47 AM PDT by Pyro7480
I share a duplex house with two other people. My room is the basement, while the other two live in rooms on the second floor. We share the living room, dining room, and kitchen on the first floor. Our house is just outside the DC Beltway in northern Virginia, south of Alexandria.
On Sunday, one of my roommates was apparently bitten by a brown recluse spider. She didn't get it looked at immediately, since she thought it was just a really bad pimple. By yesterday, however, it was quite apparent that something was wrong. She went to a doctor, and the diagnosis was confirmed, that she was bitten by a brown recluse. The doctor told her that they get a bunch of these in the summer months in the area.
I was under the impression that the brown recluse was only found in the south central region of the United States. Are they now prevalent enough in Virginia to cause the doctor to say such a thing? It doesn't make sense to me that she was bitten, most likely in her room on the second floor, while I haven't even seen anything that looks like a brown recluse spider in my basement room. You would think that something like that would more likely get into a basement than into a second floor room.
What kind of snake was it?
I saw your reply about the time it healed and then went down to the bone. What was scariest about my sons bite was that 6 months after we thought the worst was over, it came back again, full blown, kinda like when someone thinks they are cured from cancer. I see we DON'T have them in Washington State but the ER docs sure thought we did. I can't see how you got rid of the bite by a home cure similar to popping a boil, you must be lucky.
Wonder if chlorine might do the same to spider venom (or others) if the bite was opened up sufficiently? Chlorine bleach screws-up just about anything it comes in contact with (take my word, I work with swimming pools).
Never been bitten by one, but I've seen a few.
When I was in Australia in 1987, I've seen a spider that is even nastier, the funnelweb spider. They're almost as big as my hand, and if they bite your fingers, their fangs can reach down in the bone.
"I can't see how you got rid of the bite by a home cure"
If you do this relatively soon after the bite, you may be able to remove enough of the toxins so that the bite is not as bad. When you draw out fluids from the center of the injection, fluids from adjacent areas move into the spot where you drew fluids from. Pulling fluids several times as I mentioned, helps to move the toxins back closer to the injection site where you may be able to remove some of them. It doesn't get rid of the bite toxins entirely. The toxins shut down circulation around the bite and they necrotize the flesh. The toxins do not spread fast (like in some snake bites) so they tend to stay very near the point of injection, making it possible to remove some of the toxins, some of the time.
One time, I had three separate bites on my hand. It looked to me like the spider must have walked across my hand because the bites were line up in a row. I used the syringe on all three bites. Only one of them got really ugly but the bite area remained small. The other two bites just made a small raised area that was red with a blackish "crater" in the center. Invariably, even if it appears that I have been able to remove some toxin (or it could be that not much was initially injected) these bites seem to take a long time to heal completely.
One thing that I found about spiders that was rather interesting: Some entomolgists believe that ALL spiders are "poisonous" it is just that they may not have a delivery system for the poison that is capable of injecting any (or enough) toxin to elicit a reaction in a human. But, there certainly must be some form of their natural prey that are susceptible.
I hope your housemate is ok. This thread makes me want to move to Maine where the bug population is considerably lower.
I read that Daddy Long Legs will kill the bad spiders, so I just leave them be.
sounds like you need a bugectomy. and call an exterminator for your house also. :)
eastern fox snake. jist rechecked my research on it, and its actually only threatened in canada. makes it seem a lot less nifty now.
Still very cool!
Guess what I had visit me last night?Yep,a brown recluse.It's weird, since you had just posted this article.Never seen one in the house before.It's now a "dead" brown recluse.
I've seen a nature program about those suckers. Australia is probably the continent with the greatest variety of poisonous creatures.
no, the wolves and bears i've seen were further north.
right now what i'm really hoping for is to start seeing the cougars that have supposedly returned.
Hadn't heard about the cougars!
Supposed location of them?
My son obviously waited to long the first time before getting treatment because it was on his rear end and he thought it might be a boil or somehting like that, what is the scariest is how it came back after 6 months, must have been like when your hand healed, then got infected underneath. It was a full 6 months before it flared up the second time and the second time was almost as bad as the original bite, he just got treatment sooner. Whatever type of spider it was, it sure put the hurt on him. I try to vacuum the corners where cob webs show up in my barn, I guess after I vacuum, I should make sure to kill them in the vacuum bag.
I've seen a nature program about those suckers. Australia is probably the continent with the greatest variety of poisonous creatures.
On the Discovery Channel I think it was, there was a guy who had been tagged by this sharp object on a Duckbill Platypus. It was as toxic as anything and almost killed the guy.
according to miwildlife.org they're in dickinson, menomonee, delta, emmet, presque isle, alcona, and roscommon. i can't find anything on the mi.gov/dnr page.
Woman who dies in Davidson jail mentioned spider bite in letter
A detention officer found Hernandez in her cell Wednesday afternoon, Capt. Tony Roberson of the Davidson County Sheriff's Office said.
"Her heart was beating but she wasn't responding to any stimulus," Roberson said.
"Honey, you'll have to excuse my writing," she wrote. "Anyhow, I was asleep when it happened and my right hand swelled up like a softball and was hurting bad. Anyhow, I'm on all kinds of medicine, a bunch. Waiting on the blood work to come back, but pretty sure it was a brown recluse spider."
http://www.news-record.com/news/now/inmatedies_061005.htm
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