Friday I came home after work and changed into a pair of shorts laying on bedroom floor. While sitting at the computer for an hour I noticed a bite area on the inside of my left thigh (like an irritated mosquito bite)...thought this is going to annoy me for a few days. Next day worked on removing large tree in yard with long pants on. The inside of the left leg was bothering me while I worked and thought I had scraped it on the many branches. That night I removed the pants and saw a quarter sized red area with some blue bruising in the middle. Some how I immediately said.."I think I was bit by a recluse"...though my wife played down my concern. The irritation grew larger to baseball on Sunday and went to a hospital "doc-in-box" at a strip mall. They had concerns, though if I did not see the spider they would not commit to a recluse diagnosis. I was given rx of ery-tab (antibiotic) and vicadin for the pain. The next day the redness grew to cantaloupe size and my personal doc was kind enough to have me come in and see an available doc in the office. The staff and doc were quite impressed! They agreed that it appeared as a recluse wound. That doc gave me stronger antibiotic levaquin and oxycontin for pain suggesting I get in soon to see a plastic surgeon. Lucky enough I was seen the next day where the size of the red area had grown to the size of a basketball with a large finger branch area reaching out. (FIRST PIC..showing the line he drew around my red area). His suggestion was to go to the hospital and be placed on IV antibiotics for a few days, stating that the red area (celutitus) was a secondary infection and the entire thing could be recluse bite or staph infection. I grimaced and moaned when I head the word “hospital” and was given the chance to go home and see if it grows any larger. Much to my disappointment that next morning it grew another inch and half wider and was reaching my pelvis. That day was checked into hospital, placed on antibiotics IV drips of Vancomycin and Clindamycin with a morphine drip for pain. Then next day I developed a complete body red rash and my left wrist was swollen. I was taken off the Vancomycin (they call it the last resort antibiotic) and morphine because of the new rash reaction (side note: they had to chose those drugs at first since I am allergic to penicillin). The rash was a medication allergic reaction and gave the whole situation more annoyance with being uncomfortable over my entire body. It especially became a problem now, since it was hard to tell the difference from the red infection of the bite and the new red rash covering much of my body, if the celutitus was disappearing or not with help from antibiotic IV. The pain was manageable UNTIL it was time to walk…any brief trip to bathroom left me in extreme agony for 45 minutes even with the morphine drip and all the extra morphine clicks every 10 minutes. I was seen daily by my plastic surgeon and by the infectious disease doctor during my stay. The doctors would not confirm a diagnosis of a brown recluse spider. Every day they would mark the hardened pink skin area circling around the inner dark region. It was baseball size at its maximum area and grew smaller slowly. I did like the doctors “WAIT AND SEE” approach…since he said there are techniques where they surgically remove the necrosis area early, though it may take longer time healing. I chose to wait and see rather than removal…which turned out to my benefit…the area grew smaller to the size of a fat golf ball. Spent 5 days in the hospital and saw the plastic surgeon 5 days after discharge. The last 5 days the bite area wept and oozed liquid….then the top turned into necrosis black leather. That 5th day after discharge the surgeon removed the necrosis with tweezers and first time saw the inside of the damaged area. THE 2 PICS show the wound shortly after the doctor pulled off the necrosis. At this point the plastic surgeon is convinced that I suffer from a brown recluse spider bite. I now spend my time irrigating the wound with hydrogen peroxide and packing it with saline gauze while waiting for this to start healing.
I lived daily visiting this site, this website was MUCH MORE BENIFICIAL than any medical site with generalized repetitive information and hinting treatments. THANKS, THANKS! and MORE THANKS! ! !
7/29/2006 Sent recent updated photo showing how things have healed. Took many weeks before the hole showed any signs of filling or closing. One day a thick goo type of skin started to appear inside and within a few days there was enough to fill the hole where a skin / thin scab formed and began to pull the hole closed. Slow process with the outer edges higher and hard with scar tissue that I gently rubbed every day to help break down the hardness. The brown splotches formed as the hole was filling in.
We have encountered and killed 8 recluse spiders in our house since my bite. The majority are always found inside our bathtub. The reminder to send an updated photo of my bite was the bath that I took this evening. I checked the tub completely for spiders first...then after 5 minutes soaking I saw a complete intact recluse floating under the water to me with legs twitcing. I leaped out and scooped it up in a cup of water where it remained submerged the entire time as I finished the bath. Twenty minutes later was going to flush the cup of water and spider when I noticed that its legs were still twitching. Just a helpful tip: Brown Recluses will appear to be dead from water and may even take the position of a dead spider...don't be fooled! The perfect example happened a few weeks ago at work..a coworker wondered if the spider in his bathroom was a recluse..so he knocked it into the tub and scaulded it with hot water until it was dead. He scooped it up with tissues and placed it in a ziplock bag and brought it to me at work. It remained in its same dead position, legs all pulled in tight for 3+ hours until it came time to show it to me and the group of 8 other employees. Yes, it was a recluse and everyone wanted to see the violin shape on the back, so we took the dead spider attached to the tissue out of the bag. We ALL passed it around holding it an inch from our fingers and inches from our eyes. Once we dropped the "dead" spider back into the ziplock the spider came back to life running around completely normal. Needless to say that everybody freaked.
