OT / Spider Bites -- Brown Recluse Spider NOT for the squemish. !!!

[BARKER]

Hi Folks; A Warning here. Spiders.-- We encounter them all the time but never give them any real thought; UNTIL We are bitten of course.!!! It happened to me and Folks it is no joke for sure. They are BAD little suckers hands down.!!!
What happened was that about 13 weeks ago I had some pain in my foot so i went to get it checked out. It really hurt. The Podiatrist looked at my right foot and said it was kind of swollen, off color and clammy. He gave me Voltaren Cream to take down the swelling. NO EFFECT.!!! A week later I go back. He looked at it and it and it was even more swollen and off color turning purple. He looks at my foot real close and notices I have two puncture holes on the side of the toe beside the big toe on the Right foot. So he gave me antibiotics and we set it up to see him twice a week. The antibiotics had NO EFFECT. again. Now when he looked at it the foot had swelled way out, I lost all flexion in my toes. So he gives me a stronger antibiotic. NO EFFECT. Now the puncture wound has turned into a hole, (Ulceration.), in the side of the toe and the foot is starting to turn purple & black. This went on for a few more weeks and NOTHING he tried worked literally.
Finally I was admitted to Mass. General Hospital, MGH, here. They pumped me full of the strongest antibiotics they had for 2 days. By now my foot is totally swollen up to my ankle and now you could literally ee the bone in my toe due to the severity of the Ulceration. All of the flesh is now gone off 1/2 of the top of the toe and the whole side of the toe is completely opened to where you can now see all the muscles, tendons and the bone in the toe. They now kept a sharp eye on it telling me if it gets worse they would have to Amputate my whole foot.
WEEEELL, All the Antibiotics they pumped me full of had NO EFFECT AGAIN.!!! Now I'm TERRIFIED & in AGONY.!!!
They finally admitted me to the Mount Auburn Hospital here. I had 4 Surgeons telling me they are going to Amputate my foot.!!!
The BIG Day came 3 weeks ago. I was brought into the OR and sedated. I'm freaking out BIG TIME. Well as I'm laying on the OR table strapped down this Doctor comes walking in. He looks at it and says We are going to do one last test but it is a Surgical Test BEFORE We Amputate. That if it works you may get lucky. Well the next thing I know, I wake up and I noticed I still had my foot BUT my toes are HEAVILY bandaged. I'm thinking,"OMG, they cut my toe off.". I'm freaked totally.!!! About 5 minutes or less later this Doctor comes walking in, He must have been waiting for me to wake up, and he says, "Well we got the best results we could", and I'm thinking the worst. He says, When we did the test, Angioplasty, we found 3 large blood clots in the Artery in your leg and that is what was shutting off a the blood flow to your foot and you had no Pulse in your foot either. Thing is that we also did a biopsy of the tissue on the toe and we found VENOM.!!! That e traced the Venom back to a Brown Recluse Spider. You must have been bitten. That the Venom was trying to travel up your leg but because Venom is a Coagulant it caused the blood clots to form and that is what stopped the Venom from going up your leg and into your heart and killing you
Also that when we removed the clots all the blood and antibiotics we have been giving you FLOODED into your foot and that killed off most of the Venom. He said that if any part of those clots had broken off they would have gone straight into my heart and killed me.I would not have survived it at all.
NOW: The swelling is almost gone. My foot has been saved BUUUTTT now my toe still has a LARGE open hole in it to where you can see the bone literally. So now they are trying to save my toe which is in VERY bad shape. About 12 of the skin and muscles have been eaten away by the Venom. They have saved my foot but it is an all out WAR to save the toe. The catch here is that the remaining Venom is trying to exit my foot via coming out of the hole in my toe. This in turn is eating away the skin and tissue remaining on the top of the toe. They are trying to Neutralize the Venom with special medications they are packing the hole with. So far it has remained stable over the last week where no more flesh is missing Thank God.
The pain is UnGodly.!!! I was taking 80mg of OxyCodone and 45mg of Morphine and I was in AGONY.!!! I've felt all kinds of pain but this is a different animal all together. I've NEVER felt anything like this before EVER. They tried several other medications to no avail. Then they gave me Lyrica. It worked.!!! The pain is now bearable but not gone.I can deal with that.
They wanted to Admit me to a local Hospice here yesterday but it had no beds. I see my Primary Care Doctor tomorrow and figure out the next step to take. In the meantime I am basically bed ridden. I'll keep you guys informed ok.
Anyways Folks, PLEASE be careful. If you see a Spider KILL IT.!!! I don't want ANYONE to go through the HELL I just went through. I found out the Hard way that they CAN "KILL" you or maim you. They are no joke ok. Make sure to always check your shoes BEFORE you put them on as well ok.
Anyways Folks, I am NOT able to Post the pictures right now. I will get my friend to do it later and I will Post the pictures then. I don't know if you really want to see them anyways. They are pretty gory ok. Sorry about that. I'll figure it out ok.
Anyways, PLEASE be safe and use ALL of the precautions especially when you go digging out in the woods ok. Trust me, you "WILL" be grateful you did in the long run ok. I'll keep you Posted on this ok. May God Bless ALL of You & Yours. Have a SAFE and fun time out there ok.
PEACE:RONB

 

[Dug]

Holy crap. Any clue how you got bit?

 

[gigispop7]

if it moved ,wiggles slithers i kill it.

 

[Tpmetal]

Man I hate creepy crawlies. Good luck and i hope it all works out,

 

[BARKER]

Hi guys; I never knew I was bit until the doctor performed that biopsy although I had my suspicions when the 1st doctor noticed the puncture wound at the beginning. Sucker almost dang near KILLED me for sure. NEVER again.!!! I'll kill them all and I ain't kidding either. I can not even begin to describe the pain of it. Even just the wind blowing on it stung real bad. I keep it covered. THIS is a NIGHTMARE of the worst kind. I never paid attention to spiders ever. I "DO" now.!! They are still trying to save my toe. I'm not out of the woods by any means. They said at least 6 - 8 MONTHS for it to heal over and I will have permanent scarring for sure. It could have been a LOT worse so I got "very" lucky. Anyways, PEACE:RONB

 

[bluveinthrobber]

O my! I hate brown recluses. I used to pull trao and skeet growing up. Any time i picked a box of clay targets up off the crate 10+ would scatfer at the speed of light . It was a common thing to see my big butt diving outta a traphouse to get away from them. Yuck.. anywho. Hope you make a good recovery! Those things are pretty viscious.

 

[ivan salis]

its fact more folks die from black widow bites than rattler bites each year --you should have spoken up when you thought "spider bite" --its your body after all and to help the doctors out any info or tips or clues as to what it might be could be a huge help in your treatment --brown recluse are no joke --their vile evil critters to get bit by

 

[Mudflap]

Brown recluse spiders do not live near Massachusetts. Wonder where you might have run across one. Good luck with the foot. Yikes What an ordeal!

 

[dirtlooter]

unfortunately, brown recluses are more common than people realize and are found in a lot of homes. they prefer dark paces to hide in and come out after lights out to hunt. they do not use webs as they hunt for prey. they can be found in sheds, leaves, boats, any place in the dark. In one older house that we lived in years ago, I would go around at night with a flashlight to kill them in the house. they can be anywhere, drawers, under beds, in shoes etc. In the old days, lack of treatment usually resulted in deep ulcered sores that just kept slowly getting larger and deeper. Have been bitten twice, once on hand as a kid and once on the leg about ten years ago. They are called fiddlebacks by locals because they have a dark fiddle on their backs. They can move pretty fast. They also can infest a home or shed if allowed too. They are very common in the south and even up north. For a lot of us, it is keep an eye out for poisonous snakes, spiders, ticks, mosquitoes, hornets, wasps, yellow jackets etc. on a daily basis. you grow up doing it and it is second nature but bites still happen. one of my neighbors got tagged by a copperhead a couple of weeks ago. My daughter got bit by a blackwidow seven years ago and still has problems from it. Nature is not a nice and peaceful as a lot of people want to believe.

 

[bluveinthrobber]

Man i hate creepy crawlys. Yesterday evening i was working (hobbyist wood worker) and i reached down into my scrap pile of wood and a spider the size of a golfball jet an inch past my hand. You shoulda seen my big butt run. I was outta that shed in the blink of any eye. Pretty sure it was wolf spider. Either way. I was gone like the wind. I hate south carolina. Just in the 4 yrs ive been here ive seen copperheads pigmy rattlers black widows and them creepy blue tail skinks.

 

[Stretch Da Truth]

WOW Ron, what a story.
Glad to hear they were able to save your foot. I looked up some of those bites and they looked pretty nasty!
I pretty much stomp all crawlers anytime I see one. My family shrieks when any spider is around and scream for me to come squash it.
Good luck on your recovery!

 

[Muddyhandz]

Ron, that's totally insane!
I can't believe all you've been through and then to go through this with a spider bite!
Really glad you made it out without losing a foot/toe or worse.....death!
Don't think I'll see one of those spiders here in Winterpeg but had to look it up anyways.....



Nasty buggers!
I hope all goes well in the final healing stages.
Take care out there!

 

[dsdigger]

Barker, glad they finally got the clots out and hope now they can get your toe stabilized to heal as best it can. The bad thing about these buggers is they like hiding in old clothes, etc. I shake out shoes, clothes that have been hanging a while, etc. Take care and hope now that you can heal up and no more problems. I pretty much smash spiders I see, bees are sprayed, where we live has pest control come in every 3 months and spray so no bugs. This year is gonna be bad for ticks, spiders and the rest with the mild winter we had in the Mid-Atlantic.

 

[Blak bart]

Wow ron you've been through a lot this year !! Man I hope you feel better. Happens quite a bit down here in the south. My friend was hit and it was no joke. After a week there was an enormous boil that formed. We went snorkeling and the entire boil opened up and left a hole an inch deep the size of a half dollar. Exposure to the sea water actually helped and it rapidly started to heal after that day. It did leave some bad scarring though. I myself have been hit by a pygmy rattler and a scorpion fish, both almost killed me !! We have a whole bunch of bad critters down here in the keys black widows, brown recluse, black scorpions, giant centipedes, couple different rattlers, coral snakes and I haven't even got in the water yet. Dont forget screw worms, mosquitos, and fire ants, bull ants, fever ants, and velvet ants. 15-20 years ago a fire broke out behind a wall socket in a rental house I was in. The fire department got control pretty quick with little damage other than smoke. Ther investigation probuced a fried 10-12 inch giant centipede that had shorted the socket and started the fire. Creepy to think he was living in my kitchen. Aaaaahhhh !!

 

[Argentium]

Wow ! What a nightmare story - thanks for the heads up ! Speedy recovery to you !

 

[BARKER]

Hi Folks; Mudflap, just one pointer ok. The Brown recluse Spiders are all over Mass.. They live "anywhere" Man inhabits. I never knew about them until they did the biopsy on the tissue in my toe. The Hospital Identified it, not me ok. The sucker almost killed me literally. Yup, they saved my foot but now they are trying to save my toe. A new infection has started in the bone deep hole in my toe. If it gets into the bone then they will have no choices but to Amputate. It is literally an all out WAR to save my toe now. I see my Primary Care Doctor today. I will let you guys know how I'm doing with it ok. Right now I have to stay off my foot 24/7 so I'm basically bed ridden. My luck that spider is lurking in my mattress for all I know.
I wrote this to warn you guys to be VERY careful out there. These suckers are no joke for sure. It has taken "6" Doctors & Surgeons working together to get this mess under control. So PLEASE don't fool with them. KILL THEM ALL.!!! BEFORE they kill "YOU." ok.
Being Treasure Hunters We here are particularly exposed to their danger when we go digging o please be carrefu ok. You do NOT want to see my wound pictures forsure. They ARE gross in themselves ok. Happy Hunting. PEACE:ROONB

 

[Trapper340]

I am sure sorry to hear about the suffering your going through. My grandmother was bitten about 10 years ago on her shoulder and the pain I saw her go through I wouldn't wish that on anybody. Hope you start feeling better soon. You'll be my prayers.

 

[RGINN]

Wow, Ron, one thing on top of another. I didn't realize fiddlebacks lived in your area. Here's some advice for people who camp. If you're one of those who doesn't camp year round, when you get your gear out, unfold it and shake everything out. Stored sleeping bags are great winter habitat for fiddlebacks. We got back from camping in SW OK, and a good habit to have down there is to shake your boots out before putting them on in the morning. Nothin worse than putting your foot in a boot with a scorpion in it. Another good idea, if you return from camping in a different part of the country,right away put all your gear (sleeping bags, blankets, clothes,etc.) you can in the washing machine and dry on high heat, if possible. That will kill a lot of things. Except for ticks. I don't think anything will kill them, you have to do that yourself.

 

[b3y0nd3r]

a word to the wise, when there is redness, swelling, pain, and/or discoloration anywhere and especially if it is spreading, assume its a bite. get it checked as a venomous bite

"That will kill a lot of things. Except for ticks. I don't think anything will kill them, you have to do that yourself."

For ticks, clothes in the dryer FIRST. That will kill them for sure.

 

[Davers]

Brown recluse spiders do not live near Massachusetts. Wonder where you might have run across one. Good luck with the foot. Yikes What an ordeal!

Yea I don't know BARKERS' living situation Guess one could have hitchhiked in a box , Plant , etc ,at some point in the past & stayed Warm , Early March sounds like the time he was bit , an active time in Nature .

Things are Moving North , Fire Ants for 1 . Armadillos , I never really seen them except on the way to FL (Run Over) then I started seeing them in the Far North Metro Atlanta area (run over) , then we had a pretty Cold Winter 3 Winters ago & I stopped seeing as many. Drove south in March & started seeing them 'run over ' just
South of a Atlanta , then I saw quite a few.

I suppose Bugs are doing the same, but I tend to think the BR Spiders that far North are Transplants that found a Cozy home & started a Family.
GL Mr , Barker.