Oh-oh. "Areas
of Expansion!" They're growing!
Damn global warming . . .
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.
I survived a black widow bite.
Nasty experience. Very bad...
According to what I read at Ohio States website (I just googled Brown Recluse Spider), some people show no reaction at all, some show a drastic reaction. It depends on how much venom is involved and how sensitive the person is.
Personally, I was bit by a black widow when I was in the Air Force. Didn't even realize it until the next day, and all I had was some redness and swelling at the bite.
But remember to seal your food in trash bags, put out any pilot lights, and use fewer than 30 cans.
Sometimes there is a "dry bite" where no venom was injected. Then you also have people who react very badly and people who react very well to the bites.
I had a bad bite about 6 years ago and was able to fight it off after a week. The affected area was around an 8" diameter and about 10 degrees hotter than the rest of my body at the worst. Luckily my immune system kicked in high gear around day five and two days later it had shrunk to the point that the doctor knew I would be OK. I have only a small scar (about the size of a chicken pox scar) left on my arm. On the other hand, a man I know was bitten on the leg and lost a golf ball size hunk of flesh from it. (Ironic since he had been a missionary in Africa for 30+ years and had avoided all sorts of deadly creatures there. Moves to Springfield MO and gets bitten by a brown recluse within a week.)
There is no anti-venom nor treatment.
Here's some info for you.
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2061.html
Oh-oh. "Areas
of Expansion!" They're growing!
Damn global warming . . .
Ugh - no pizza for me today!
This whole thread makes me want to bug bomb my house repeatedly, then get some of those electronic insect repellers that plug in the wall. And I haven't even seen any recluse spiders - but here in Texas, you know they're there, watching you...
HMMMMM This is new....
http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Forest/2021/recluse/intro.html
The etiology is the powerful, vasoconstricting properties of the venom, as the mechanism of necrotic arachnidism, which causes the smail arteries to spasm with resultant loss of blood supply to the bite area. This sets up a cycle of ulceration and tissue loss through ischemia and gangrene. Systemic medication alone is unable to penetrate the lesion because of the barrier zone produced by the spastic occlusion of the arteries.
However...a nitroglycerin patch can penetrate through the skin, into the interstitial fluid and into the capillaries, rapidly dilating the vessels. This is evidenced by the quick onset of a nitroglycerin headache as circulation into the occluded area is re-established from the edges inward. The pathologic process ceases and healing begins. When a nitro patch is administered early, as in the first 48 hours, no lesion ever develops! Delay treatment three to four weeks and a 5 cm ulcer will develop, requiring three months of treatment with the nitroglycerin patches. Even with delayed treatment, however, the degenerative process is reversed. The body heals itself. There is no need for surgery with its debilitating effects, potential complications and severe scarring.
There is a product used by exterminators called CB-80 that you can sometimes find in wildlife management/farming supply catalogs and websites. It's a fine particulate fog that gets in all the nooks and crannies that these little buggers hide. Wear a mask or respirator, fog the whole place, and leave for the day.
Perhaps we stumbled upon the one and only good thing about the Northeast........they don't live there.
One thing of note - brown recluses are apparently attracted to the smell of a previously bitten area, and may come to the infected site and bite it again. I know of one woman that was bitten by a brown recluse while putting her shoe on, and one week later was bitten again in the same wounded area. The rotting flesh apparently attracted another brown recluse to the same wound. I'm not making this stuff up. Don't mess around with a brown recluse infestation. Kill the suckers.
Just in the South? Not so. A few years back my
daughter was bitten by a Brown Recluse and she
runs a horse boarding farm just above the Illinois/
Wisconsin border!
It was a very bad infection that required massive
doses of antibiotics and left her ankle permanently
scarred and looking bad for well over a year. She
was lucky she finally went to the doctor. They had
to run tests on some of the drainage/tissue to
determine just what it was. But the lab report
came back Brown Recluse. It took months to get it
under control and the whole event was very painful.
How to avoid such a bite? Wear long pants and
keep them tight around your ankles with your
socks pulled up over the pants. DON'T go out
there with sandals and bare legs! And if you're
working with tall grass or hay bundles, wear gloves
and long sleeves that protect your upper arms as
well. That said, you can still get bit by just
leaning against an old tree stump, fence, or even
scraping your leg while crossing a rotting log.
It's just one of those things for which you have
to rely somewhat on your guardian angel!
Virginia Cooperative Extension on Brown Recluse
http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/entomology/factsheets/brownrec.html
They are all around S. Texas.
A friend of mine was bitten here in St. Louis years ago. It was very, very bad.
Yours sounds like my husbands. He got a headache so bad he almost cried. He was bitten in his recliner. Two times on the face, once on the neck, and twice in the back of his head on the hair line. Some anit-biotics worked on him. Little chicken pox scars are all that remain.
Do call the exterminator. These spiders love to live in stored linens and clothes not dark damp basements.
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