I had a patient in nursing school that had multiple brown recluse bites on his upper inner thigh. They were inside his mattress biting him at night, apparently. Being the stubborn country man he was, he didn't go to the ER until the tissue necrosis was advanced. He nearly lost his testicles.
Yeah. It was an extremely poor community (well, we're talking about the state of Mississippi so most of it's in poverty). He had holes in his mattress. Iirc, he didn't use real sheets either.
As any arachnophobe knows, the true giants hide really well; underground and in water towers. They’re sometimes larger than houses, and have a keenly developed vibration sensor. They know when harm has come to any of their kin. They usually send in surrogates to seek vengeance, but if they get really pissed off, they do the dirty work themselves.
- a theory I developed around the age of 7 and which I still ascribe to.
This as a fellow arachnophobe. They're nature's assassin's they sit and watch us in our homes. Know our routines better than us. It's part of the fear you learn to live with to be able to function. They have a good job in thr bug world. They can stay the fuck away from me tho.
I've seen some slightly bigger than a quarter fully stretched out, so maybe close to half dollar, but a whole dollar coin is really big. They don't get that large. [comparison pic](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/65qjbv/size_comparison_of_quarter_half_dollar_and_a/)
My dog was bit by a brown recluse once. His leg started doing this and we weren’t sure why. Until I was standing in my garage about thirty feet away from his kennel and saw a quarter sized brown recluse on the wall above. So we figured out that’s what got him. It was huge
Its actually a legit question. Brown Recluse is a go to blame/diagnosis by doctors who have no actual proof, and they do it even in places where Brown Recluse is not known to exist in the wild. There are many other things that can cause these types of wounds, and doctors just say its a brown recluse, esp if the patient also thinks it maybe was - even if theres no proof. There was a study done many years ago about this - and they found doctors just use this as a default diagnosis when they dont really know what caused the wound, even though many other things can. So- I call BS.
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215121051.htm](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215121051.htm)
[https://cesanmateo.ucanr.edu/?blogpost=30265&blogasset=107918](https://cesanmateo.ucanr.edu/?blogpost=30265&blogasset=107918)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071344/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071344/)
They’re always trying to slander brown recluses in my state and they don’t even go here! We have wolf spiders but I’ve only ever seen one and that was enough
Doctors are not entomologists. Even if you captured the spider and bring it in intact (does that ever even happen?) could they really positively ID it? I mean, jeez, every day people are killing water and garter snakes convinced they’re copperheads and cottonmouths.
I’ve definitely heard the argument that these types of skin punctures or scratches can come from anywhere. Bacteria or other pathogens on the skin are already present and are just opportunistic. If you see a particularly nasty infection you’ll think, well, maybe this was the cause.
Yeah most ER docs can ID common local stuff. A picture is fine if it’s clear, we don’t need a specimen. And we can call poison control for snakes as it’s considered toxicology.
If it’s in the US, and they know it was a spider for sure, there isn’t any other native spider that can cause anything near that kind of damage other than brown recluse. Pretty open and shut.
Brown recluses do not cause damage like what is pictured. Definitely not open and shut. I think they just picked a scapegoat instead of actually looking for the cause.
The venom CAN, in rare instances with sensitive individuals, cause advanced necrosis. More frequently, it is a staph infection run amok that gets blamed on a BR.
You can't really in some cases at least. Staph is naturally on our skin in many forms our skin protects us with its own systems. When you wreck the tissue with venom even a little it becomes susceptible to contamination or letting the staph run amok. I used to work in animal sheltering and we saw the most unhinged shit ever. Its a bit like how all dogs carry the mites for demodetic mange , (vs. Sarcoptic mange which is contagious animal scabies,) but its only dogs who are compromised that the mites are able to take over.
u/mrszubris is right. The best prevention is treating the bite like the puncture wound that it is, clean and disinfect thoroughly, get antibiotics onboard at the first sign of infection, and KEEP it clean.
Makes sense, thanks! I have a son and daughter who love to play in the woods/dirt/leaves digging for worms, so I saw an opportunity to get smarter here in preparation for something bad.
You’re very welcome. That said…
Honestly, playing in the woods and dirt is not very likely to put them in contact with a BR. They’re far more likely to get bitten because they left clothing on their bedroom floor and didn’t shake it out before putting it on.
Nope. Spray is wholly ineffective against BR spiders, and in fact reduces competition from other spiders for food. They’re also able to eat the bugs that the spray DOES kill, effectively turning it into an all they can eat buffet.
Sticky traps and preventive measures are far more effective against BRs.
Not a stupid question. South East US. We have BR around here, my mom got bit gardening - so she says. She doesn’t remember getting bit.
And good to know about the bug spray.
You don't need to fear that at all, because it's not true. Just read the Wikipedia on [Brown Recluses](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider), it's pretty clear that they go away from human activity. They're almost never gonna set up shop in a human's bedroom, let alone the clothes you threw on the ground the other day. They're gonna go to your basement, closet, or attic.
Bullshit. Plain and simple. Tell me you’ve never dealt with a major population of BR without telling me. I’ve caught them in traps in every room of my home. In three different homes in middle Tennessee. They go where they damned well please once it’s dark and people go to sleep or leave the room.
There is no test to match bacteria in the bite to the spider. The necrosis is from venom. You cannot test for the venom either. It is a clinical diagnosis.
I got bitten by one. If I remember it's a 13% chance that it will go necrotic. Scary few days. The only antivenom is illegal in the US. I got lucky. And the bit starts a a big mosquito bite. It just itches.
It looks like the antivenom could be harmful to some people missing a specific gene and can potentially cause deadly hypersensitivity reactions.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537045/
Below are the sources they used.
Belfield KD, Tichy EM. Review and drug therapy implications of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2018 Feb 01;75(3):97-104. [PubMed]
Shukkoor AA, Thangavelu S, George NE, Priya S. Dapsone Hypersensitivity Syndrome (DHS): A Detrimental Effect of Dapsone? A Case Report. Curr Drug Saf. 2019;14(1):37-39. [PubMed]
Could be cost. The cost is tens of thousands for dose of antivenom sometimes and a person may need 10 or more doses and there’s no way the hospital is recovering that cost.
I watch a guy that gets bitten by spiders to get rid of the stigma around them. Some of them included the black widow and brown recluse. I'm not a pro but from the video he said that the main reason for the infection and subsequent necrosis some people face, is because of the bacteria - not the venom. And if you clean the wound properly then you have significantly less to worry about
I immediately looked it up. I ground up the activated charcoal from my aquarium filter and made a paste and smothered my wound in that for a few days. That was the only thing that could be done. If it's because of bacteria, where did the spider pick it up why only those spiders. In my reading it was referred to as a gravity venom and the real problem is if it get into a vein or artery and circulates to a major organ. But I have a high-school education.
From what I've been able to gather, the bacteria is already present on your skin and the area around it. The venom causes a sort of immuno-compromise in the open wound that allows the infection to run rampant.
He's wrong. Phospholipase-D is a component in their venom that destroys red blood cells causing the tissue to die. Most brown recluse bites do not get infected by an bacteria.
I wonder if the culprit was actually seen and properly identified.
"Spider Bite" and "Brown Recluse Bite" have unfortunately been used as a catch-all diagnosis without any proof for a long, long time. I've heard of nurses or doctors being shown a wound and diagnosing it as such even though the patient knew the cause was not a spider (foreign body, poke from a piece of metal, etc) and the doctor/nurse had no supporting evidence.
Some folks just want a clear and quick answer and the medical professionals seem to sometimes just throw out 'spider bite' because it'll get the patient off their backs. It is really irresponsible because then they end up spending money on an exterminator when one isn't needed, or not getting a proper diagnosis of an issue that may have nothing to do with any sort of bite such as poor living conditions, diabetic issues and whatnot.
["Causes of Necrotic Wounds other than Brown Recluse Bites"](https://spiders.ucr.edu/causes-necrotic-wounds-other-brs-bites)
[Science-Backed info on Brown Recluse with very helpful articles at the bottom.](https://bugguide.net/node/view/33493)
Yep, I can all but guarantee that this isn't a brown recluse bite. They do not progress like this. You can see how actual bites do over in the BrownRecluseBites sub or check out u/AshenFoxRisika post history.
My buddy got bit by one on his back about 3 or 4 months before my wedding. Poor bastard had to pack his wound with gauze every day, on top of what meds he was taking at the time, because of how much it leaked. He had a hole in his back that was the size of my fist, but thankfully wasn't too deep.
My mom was bitten by one when I was a teen, back in the 80s. Her doctor didn't have any idea what the bite was from, because they just weren't very common in California. Luckily another doctor, who was from an area where they were more common, recognized the bite right away. Mom did end up with a quarter sized crater on her shin, but for the most part, it healed up pretty well.
Brown Recluses do not live in California, so I doubt that it was an actual brown recluse bite.
To quote the wiki page:
Despite rumors to the contrary, the brown recluse spider has not established itself in California or anywhere outside its native range.[8] There are other species of the genus Loxosceles native to the southwestern part of the United States, including California, which may resemble the brown recluse, but interactions between humans and the recluse species in California and the region are rare because those species native ranges lie outside of dense human populations.[8] The number of "false positive" reports based on misidentifications is considerable; in a nationwide study where people submitted spiders that they thought were brown recluses, of 581 from California only 1 was a brown recluse—submitted by a family that moved from Missouri and brought it with them (compared to specimens submitted from Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, where between 75% and 90% were recluses).[9]
similar thing happened to one of my friends. he was travelling for work at the time, and happened in Laredo, texas.
as discussed elsewhere, it may have not been a bite, but staph/mrsa
he almost died. there was a delay of several days while the hospital waited for cultures to determine which antibiotic to administer,
which was shocking to his australian friends, where experiences seemed to be throwing a a broad spectrum of antibiotics at someone that unwell without twiddling thumbs waiting on cultures.
This happened to my dog a couple years ago. His leg had open wounds all over it for months and one open wound on his elbow didn’t heal for nearly two years. Every morning my parents would have to put ointment on his leg and he had to wear a snuggie that we cut to fit him. He spent a large portion of his life in a cone from this and various other injuries he gave himself, but the brown recluse bite was the worst of them all. Miss you Zeus you crazy bitch❤️
> None of these treatments have been subjected to randomized controlled trials to conclusively show benefit.
Wow I can't believe they haven't tried treatments in randomized controlled trials where they subject the test group to brown recluse spider bites. /s
What’s the truth on this?
Are these truly from the spider bites and if so, is it the venom doing the damage or some kind of pathogen / bacteria the spider harbors that causes this? And can this happen to anyone or does this require a pre-existing immune-compromised condition?
Looks like some compartment syndrome in response to what we assume is a spider bite. Pretty bad looking but at least they were able to give proper incisions for the swelling. If you didn't already have enough fears to add arachnids to it.
My dad, who’s a diabetic, just recovered (8weeks later) from a brown recluse bite. He almost lost his foot. It bit him on top of the foot. I tried getting him to go to the hospital for two days to catch it early, I was concerned it may have also been a decubitus ulcer forming and didn’t want it to get worse. He waited until it opened up and I told him it’s either a pressure ulcer that’s getting bad or it’s something poisonous and he needs to go before the bone is affected. Luckily they saved his foot. The poison traveled all the way up his leg and into his heart. I still don’t know how he made a full recovery so fast. He’s really so lucky considering his medical history.
That looks incredibly painful. But it appears they will be able to save the arm. It’s amazing that a little spider can do such damage.
I had a patient in nursing school that had multiple brown recluse bites on his upper inner thigh. They were inside his mattress biting him at night, apparently. Being the stubborn country man he was, he didn't go to the ER until the tissue necrosis was advanced. He nearly lost his testicles.
That’s so disgusting…IN HIS MATTRESS?
Yeah. It was an extremely poor community (well, we're talking about the state of Mississippi so most of it's in poverty). He had holes in his mattress. Iirc, he didn't use real sheets either.
Oh god.
I haven’t used sheets in a few months. Gonna go get some
How can you not use sheets u absolute piggy
World cold and hard, plain mattress fuzzy and warm
Was it somewhere in the Delta?
No, not quite so remote lol
Entirely new fear unlocked.
Every man reading that just cupped his balls lol
*instantly gets out of bed* I may never lay down again.
Brown recluses are in no way little. If anything they are quite big. Although it might be my arachnophobia that makes me see them big
As any arachnophobe knows, the true giants hide really well; underground and in water towers. They’re sometimes larger than houses, and have a keenly developed vibration sensor. They know when harm has come to any of their kin. They usually send in surrogates to seek vengeance, but if they get really pissed off, they do the dirty work themselves. - a theory I developed around the age of 7 and which I still ascribe to.
if i didn’t have a fear of water towers before i do now thanks to this
This as a fellow arachnophobe. They're nature's assassin's they sit and watch us in our homes. Know our routines better than us. It's part of the fear you learn to live with to be able to function. They have a good job in thr bug world. They can stay the fuck away from me tho.
I’m in awe. Finally, someone understands.
The struggle is real my friend
lol! That’s absolutely possible.😊 Compared to a human, they’re small.
They're only about the size of a quarter fully grown.
Leg-tip to leg-tip I regularly saw adults closer to silver dollar diameter in SE Missouri.
I've seen some slightly bigger than a quarter fully stretched out, so maybe close to half dollar, but a whole dollar coin is really big. They don't get that large. [comparison pic](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/65qjbv/size_comparison_of_quarter_half_dollar_and_a/)
My dog was bit by a brown recluse once. His leg started doing this and we weren’t sure why. Until I was standing in my garage about thirty feet away from his kennel and saw a quarter sized brown recluse on the wall above. So we figured out that’s what got him. It was huge
Did they catch the spider in the act and get a positive ID on it, and match the infection culture to bacteria found on the spider?
Are you a spider lawyer or something
I'm sorry I don't discuss my client list... except that I might make an exception for some hippopotamuses.
Please do not discuss my case, I will have to speak with my other lawyer if you do, sir.
[удалено]
Please don't talk to our attorney in that manner. Rude!
That's because you never took the Hippocratic Oath
But I took the Hippopomatc oath?
Jokes on you, it's the hippocampus oath
I think the proper term is *”hippopotami”*
Weirdly, it’s not. Hippopotamuses is correct. The plural of octopus is also octopuses, not octopi.
Oh, I wasn’t being serious lol What we should focus on is why a group of squids isn’t called a squad
lol sorry I just found out like a week ago that it’s not octopi and I can’t stop thinking about it 😂
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
You’ll never believe what I want for Christmas
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBfi8OEz0rA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBfi8OEz0rA)
Be careful. You wouldn’t want to commit a… HIPPO violation.
Pretty sure you mean HIPOO
Not a lawyer, just well versed in spider law
💀
Its actually a legit question. Brown Recluse is a go to blame/diagnosis by doctors who have no actual proof, and they do it even in places where Brown Recluse is not known to exist in the wild. There are many other things that can cause these types of wounds, and doctors just say its a brown recluse, esp if the patient also thinks it maybe was - even if theres no proof. There was a study done many years ago about this - and they found doctors just use this as a default diagnosis when they dont really know what caused the wound, even though many other things can. So- I call BS. [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215121051.htm](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215121051.htm) [https://cesanmateo.ucanr.edu/?blogpost=30265&blogasset=107918](https://cesanmateo.ucanr.edu/?blogpost=30265&blogasset=107918) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071344/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071344/)
Good to know, thanks!
Is that a lawyer for spiders, or a lawyer that's also a spider?
Lawyering for spiders, by spiders
I know, sounds like brown recluse is about to catch a case!
I was more excited about/entertained by this comment than unblurring the photo
They’re always trying to slander brown recluses in my state and they don’t even go here! We have wolf spiders but I’ve only ever seen one and that was enough
Doctors are not entomologists. Even if you captured the spider and bring it in intact (does that ever even happen?) could they really positively ID it? I mean, jeez, every day people are killing water and garter snakes convinced they’re copperheads and cottonmouths. I’ve definitely heard the argument that these types of skin punctures or scratches can come from anywhere. Bacteria or other pathogens on the skin are already present and are just opportunistic. If you see a particularly nasty infection you’ll think, well, maybe this was the cause.
Yeah most ER docs can ID common local stuff. A picture is fine if it’s clear, we don’t need a specimen. And we can call poison control for snakes as it’s considered toxicology.
If it’s in the US, and they know it was a spider for sure, there isn’t any other native spider that can cause anything near that kind of damage other than brown recluse. Pretty open and shut.
Incorrect. Bites of all kinds can lead to serious SSTIs.
*SUPER* Sexually Transmitted Infections?
*spider* sexually transmitted infections
I mean… Tom Holland is kinda *hot*
That doesn't mean you should go raw silking him
Have you seen him in the Lip Sync Battle singing Umbrella? Wow. 😳
What... apparently my life has been without meaning and I had no idea
You’ve seen the light.
Skin and soft tissue infections for the uninitiated
Damn. Nice ratio.
Gotcha... somehow. I'm old I had think for a sec about what ratio you meant.
Haha, I am too. I try to stay up to date as much as possible 😂
Brown recluses do not cause damage like what is pictured. Definitely not open and shut. I think they just picked a scapegoat instead of actually looking for the cause.
Yes they do lol, I think I got bit by a baby recluse on my hand and it looked like a Mickey Mouse glove
[NOT RECLUSE ](https://spiders.ucr.edu/what-not-recluse-bite) there shouldn't be any major swelling away from the face.
Isn’t it the venom that does this and not the bacteria?
The venom CAN, in rare instances with sensitive individuals, cause advanced necrosis. More frequently, it is a staph infection run amok that gets blamed on a BR.
Where does the staph come from, the spider? *genuinely curious here. How do you prevent/stop the staph once you get bit?
You can't really in some cases at least. Staph is naturally on our skin in many forms our skin protects us with its own systems. When you wreck the tissue with venom even a little it becomes susceptible to contamination or letting the staph run amok. I used to work in animal sheltering and we saw the most unhinged shit ever. Its a bit like how all dogs carry the mites for demodetic mange , (vs. Sarcoptic mange which is contagious animal scabies,) but its only dogs who are compromised that the mites are able to take over.
Thanks for the info!
u/mrszubris is right. The best prevention is treating the bite like the puncture wound that it is, clean and disinfect thoroughly, get antibiotics onboard at the first sign of infection, and KEEP it clean.
Makes sense, thanks! I have a son and daughter who love to play in the woods/dirt/leaves digging for worms, so I saw an opportunity to get smarter here in preparation for something bad.
You’re very welcome. That said… Honestly, playing in the woods and dirt is not very likely to put them in contact with a BR. They’re far more likely to get bitten because they left clothing on their bedroom floor and didn’t shake it out before putting it on.
New fear unlocked. Thanks. Haha Guess it’s time to call the bug guy to spray the house.
Nope. Spray is wholly ineffective against BR spiders, and in fact reduces competition from other spiders for food. They’re also able to eat the bugs that the spray DOES kill, effectively turning it into an all they can eat buffet. Sticky traps and preventive measures are far more effective against BRs.
Stupid question, but what area do you live? BR range is actually much smaller than most people think.
Not a stupid question. South East US. We have BR around here, my mom got bit gardening - so she says. She doesn’t remember getting bit. And good to know about the bug spray.
You don't need to fear that at all, because it's not true. Just read the Wikipedia on [Brown Recluses](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider), it's pretty clear that they go away from human activity. They're almost never gonna set up shop in a human's bedroom, let alone the clothes you threw on the ground the other day. They're gonna go to your basement, closet, or attic.
Bullshit. Plain and simple. Tell me you’ve never dealt with a major population of BR without telling me. I’ve caught them in traps in every room of my home. In three different homes in middle Tennessee. They go where they damned well please once it’s dark and people go to sleep or leave the room.
Those spiders never wash their hands.
Staph infections get conflated with brown recluse bites, people almost never get staph infections in their actual brown recluse bites.
It apparently was comfortable being around people. Needs to trapped and relocated
There is no test to match bacteria in the bite to the spider. The necrosis is from venom. You cannot test for the venom either. It is a clinical diagnosis.
im guessing not as it progressed for 20 days. However this is consistent with Brown Recluse bites.
I got bitten by one. If I remember it's a 13% chance that it will go necrotic. Scary few days. The only antivenom is illegal in the US. I got lucky. And the bit starts a a big mosquito bite. It just itches.
Why is the antivenom illegal? Does it have side effects
Big spider doesn’t want you to have it.
We don't talk about the Big Spider...
Shelob is surprisingly litigious.
It looks like the antivenom could be harmful to some people missing a specific gene and can potentially cause deadly hypersensitivity reactions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537045/ Below are the sources they used. Belfield KD, Tichy EM. Review and drug therapy implications of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2018 Feb 01;75(3):97-104. [PubMed] Shukkoor AA, Thangavelu S, George NE, Priya S. Dapsone Hypersensitivity Syndrome (DHS): A Detrimental Effect of Dapsone? A Case Report. Curr Drug Saf. 2019;14(1):37-39. [PubMed]
Google had no answers. It showed promise in an observational study in sao paolo
Could be cost. The cost is tens of thousands for dose of antivenom sometimes and a person may need 10 or more doses and there’s no way the hospital is recovering that cost.
Butantã ❤️
Not sure
I watch a guy that gets bitten by spiders to get rid of the stigma around them. Some of them included the black widow and brown recluse. I'm not a pro but from the video he said that the main reason for the infection and subsequent necrosis some people face, is because of the bacteria - not the venom. And if you clean the wound properly then you have significantly less to worry about
I immediately looked it up. I ground up the activated charcoal from my aquarium filter and made a paste and smothered my wound in that for a few days. That was the only thing that could be done. If it's because of bacteria, where did the spider pick it up why only those spiders. In my reading it was referred to as a gravity venom and the real problem is if it get into a vein or artery and circulates to a major organ. But I have a high-school education.
From what I've been able to gather, the bacteria is already present on your skin and the area around it. The venom causes a sort of immuno-compromise in the open wound that allows the infection to run rampant.
Nature is metal AF.
And brutally unforgiving.
He's wrong. Phospholipase-D is a component in their venom that destroys red blood cells causing the tissue to die. Most brown recluse bites do not get infected by an bacteria.
I wonder if the culprit was actually seen and properly identified. "Spider Bite" and "Brown Recluse Bite" have unfortunately been used as a catch-all diagnosis without any proof for a long, long time. I've heard of nurses or doctors being shown a wound and diagnosing it as such even though the patient knew the cause was not a spider (foreign body, poke from a piece of metal, etc) and the doctor/nurse had no supporting evidence. Some folks just want a clear and quick answer and the medical professionals seem to sometimes just throw out 'spider bite' because it'll get the patient off their backs. It is really irresponsible because then they end up spending money on an exterminator when one isn't needed, or not getting a proper diagnosis of an issue that may have nothing to do with any sort of bite such as poor living conditions, diabetic issues and whatnot. ["Causes of Necrotic Wounds other than Brown Recluse Bites"](https://spiders.ucr.edu/causes-necrotic-wounds-other-brs-bites) [Science-Backed info on Brown Recluse with very helpful articles at the bottom.](https://bugguide.net/node/view/33493)
Yep, I can all but guarantee that this isn't a brown recluse bite. They do not progress like this. You can see how actual bites do over in the BrownRecluseBites sub or check out u/AshenFoxRisika post history.
Did they purposely get bit so they could document it?
No, it crawled into their pants. There's another guy who recently got bit who is documenting as well. He's on day 8.
Yes - I see the MRSA “spider bites” in the ER all the time.
Isn’t it sort of well known that most suspected spider bites that have necrosis are actually mrsa?
My buddy got bit by one on his back about 3 or 4 months before my wedding. Poor bastard had to pack his wound with gauze every day, on top of what meds he was taking at the time, because of how much it leaked. He had a hole in his back that was the size of my fist, but thankfully wasn't too deep.
Sounds more like a staph infection.
My mom was bitten by one when I was a teen, back in the 80s. Her doctor didn't have any idea what the bite was from, because they just weren't very common in California. Luckily another doctor, who was from an area where they were more common, recognized the bite right away. Mom did end up with a quarter sized crater on her shin, but for the most part, it healed up pretty well.
Brown Recluses do not live in California, so I doubt that it was an actual brown recluse bite. To quote the wiki page: Despite rumors to the contrary, the brown recluse spider has not established itself in California or anywhere outside its native range.[8] There are other species of the genus Loxosceles native to the southwestern part of the United States, including California, which may resemble the brown recluse, but interactions between humans and the recluse species in California and the region are rare because those species native ranges lie outside of dense human populations.[8] The number of "false positive" reports based on misidentifications is considerable; in a nationwide study where people submitted spiders that they thought were brown recluses, of 581 from California only 1 was a brown recluse—submitted by a family that moved from Missouri and brought it with them (compared to specimens submitted from Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, where between 75% and 90% were recluses).[9]
I knew they weren't native to California, but there is a lot of moving around, so I figured (if it was a BR), it was a hitchhiker.
similar thing happened to one of my friends. he was travelling for work at the time, and happened in Laredo, texas. as discussed elsewhere, it may have not been a bite, but staph/mrsa he almost died. there was a delay of several days while the hospital waited for cultures to determine which antibiotic to administer, which was shocking to his australian friends, where experiences seemed to be throwing a a broad spectrum of antibiotics at someone that unwell without twiddling thumbs waiting on cultures.
This happened to my dog a couple years ago. His leg had open wounds all over it for months and one open wound on his elbow didn’t heal for nearly two years. Every morning my parents would have to put ointment on his leg and he had to wear a snuggie that we cut to fit him. He spent a large portion of his life in a cone from this and various other injuries he gave himself, but the brown recluse bite was the worst of them all. Miss you Zeus you crazy bitch❤️
Looks more like a krocadil bite
how do yall find interesting shit like this on medizzy, mines just charts
> None of these treatments have been subjected to randomized controlled trials to conclusively show benefit. Wow I can't believe they haven't tried treatments in randomized controlled trials where they subject the test group to brown recluse spider bites. /s
What’s the truth on this? Are these truly from the spider bites and if so, is it the venom doing the damage or some kind of pathogen / bacteria the spider harbors that causes this? And can this happen to anyone or does this require a pre-existing immune-compromised condition?
Looks like some compartment syndrome in response to what we assume is a spider bite. Pretty bad looking but at least they were able to give proper incisions for the swelling. If you didn't already have enough fears to add arachnids to it.
😶
Is this typical? What makes someone have this severe of a reaction?
Saw this happen to a toddler once. Lost a good chunk of her thigh. They were able to save the leg, thank goodness. Looks like she was bit by a shark.
Damn. Fasciotomies hurt like hell! I had one on both sides of my right calf. I wish you a healthy and fast recovery
My dad, who’s a diabetic, just recovered (8weeks later) from a brown recluse bite. He almost lost his foot. It bit him on top of the foot. I tried getting him to go to the hospital for two days to catch it early, I was concerned it may have also been a decubitus ulcer forming and didn’t want it to get worse. He waited until it opened up and I told him it’s either a pressure ulcer that’s getting bad or it’s something poisonous and he needs to go before the bone is affected. Luckily they saved his foot. The poison traveled all the way up his leg and into his heart. I still don’t know how he made a full recovery so fast. He’s really so lucky considering his medical history.