Recluse Spider Bite or Lyme Disease?

[Zbone]

Could use some information and/or advise.

Sunday morning May 18th I woke up with pains on the left side of my back and belly. Showed no signs of a lump or bite mark. The pain was/is in two spots, one in front and one in back, although they are straight across as if an arrow had penetrated though on the left side of my body in the diapharm area.

Didn’t feel to well Monday and Tuesday and around Wednesday or Thursday started feeling better but a lump about the size of a small fist appeared on my back in the pain spot. The worst part is it’s on a place I can’t see the thing, even in a mirror. According to my girlfriend it gradually started turning read and on Saturday deep red little like bite marks appeared towards the center of the now red lump.

The weird thing is the front where isn’t any indication of a lump or redness hurts the worst and gets downright painful at times.

Well, I put off seeing the doctor until yesterday and went to the emergency room, (because I really don’t have a family doctor). The physician at the ER said it definitely is some kind of insect bite, but no telling what kind.

I explained to him that two days prior to the first pains, on Friday the 16th I was turkey hunting and was set up for a couple hours along a old slab wood pile which has been there at lease 20 years.  There are three or four large woodpiles there about the size of a small house, and I was amongst them quite a while.

I never felt a thing from a bite that I can remember, but believe I may have been bit by some kind of spider, maybe a brown recluse. At first the Doc didn’t think it could be a recluse because bites are rare in my area, (said you’d have to go out of the way in order to get bit by a recluse) but after explain where I was, he seems to think that is what it is. If I were to hunt for a recluse, that would have been the first place I would look, a half-mile from the closest road, deep in the woods amongst an old pile of slab wood.

He said the northern strain (subspecies, I guess) venom of recluse is less toxic than those in the south or southwest, and said those in Central and South America can be deadly. Anyhow, he said the type we have around here aren’t that potent. (if that’s what it is, could of fooled me…8^)

Anyhow, the lump on my back (which has now decreased in size) although it still hurts, and still the front hurts worse than the back but shows no indications of anything.

According to him, the mark on my back is now infected and he prescribed antibiotics – Cephalexin and Sulfamethoxazole/Trimethoprim. Anybody know what this stuff does?

What worries me, is if it wasn’t a spider, I’m afraid of contracting Lyme disease. I insisted they take blood to test for the disease, but from reading, it may take 8 weeks to show positive, so the blood drawn yesterday won’t help.


So if I did get bit on Friday the 16th, symptom of pain didn’t show for two days, and lump didn’t show for about 5 or 6 and teeth marks for around a week. I’m not sure what to think, but it hurts.


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[eidsvolling]

FWIW, I think it's a spider bite, probably brown recluse, and not Lyme disease.  (My wife had one of the earliest Lyme cases in MN back in the early '80s, and we're constantly tick aware as a result.)  Here's a    Brown Recluse Spider Fact Sheet from OSU  that you might find useful.

You did the right thing going to the doctor, however hesitant he might have been to make a particular spider ID.

[rg176bnc]

If your still undiagnosed in a few weeks do the Lyme test again.  If you dont catch it quick your SOL later on.  I know 2 people w/ it and both are screwed up now because they werent diagnosed soon enough.

Hope it turns out to be nothing.

[PrarrieDog]

What about a Black Widow?

[J-dog]

Black widow be showing a different symptom I think?? I may be of course (imagine that!) but a black widow bite would be painful (you know your bit) followed in a few hours by abdominal spasms. Brown recluse is painless then symptoms develop, such as yours. Maybe a widow bit person will chime in.

I been through the recluse bite, and it is not fun, although I cam out well. I was bit lower leg. Lower leg swelled, I waited days to go to doctor. Then an area turned dark and grey with small piece rotting out (ulcer). It was a mess, took awhile to get through.

I would say you took a recluse bite. Let me know how it turns out for you. Hope for you the best!

J

PS-

I dont like spiders

[Zbone]

Thanx much folks for all the great info.


The pain I have is dull ache all the time with periodic spasms.

No tissue has started to rot yet.

[J-dog]

Spasms and dull ache may symptomatic of a widow bite? neither is good and I cant speak for the widow bite but I think the widow is easier to recover from than the recluse.

Like I said - I hate spiders!

J

[Zbone]

Yeah, I'm beginning to think you guys are right with the widow bite.

To follow up, I'm gonna schedule an appointment with a Doc tomorrow.


Researching symptoms on the web, with chills and sickness I had last week along with the abdominal pain and lack of tissue damage from a recluse, I'm beginning to believe it is a widow bite. That was the first thing the ER Doc said after looking at the bite mark and explaining to him the abdominal pain.

We have tons of them around. I used to have a few in the corner of my garage. They never bit anyone and I left them be, thought they were neat to have around. Not no more…8^)

Thanx again folks for all the help.

[Leo L.]

Don't totally put away the idea of a recluse bite.  I grew up in Ohio, am away now because of military, but they are not as rare as one might think.  My aunt was bitten by one, and I've heard several reports of folks getting sick and even dying from the bites in Ohio.

[Roy Stroh]

Cephalexin is a basic antibiotic, and what seems to be prescribed a good deal... both me and my dogs have been on it at one time or another lol.  The sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim is another type of antibiotic that they use basically for  bacterial infections.

[heydeerman]

Gary,

A guy who use to work for me was bit by a recluse while sleeping on his couch. His wife killed the spider and when he came to work sick and asked to go home (he was really sick) I asked him to call his wife to come get him. Thats when he showed me his leg and asked me if I thought it was a spider bite. He then told me his wife killed a spider while he was sleeping. I told him to call his wife , get the spider out of the trash if she could, (she did), and come get him and take him to the ER. They did all that and it was a recluse bite and spider. They pumped him full of steroids and antibiotics for several weeks. He was a mess but it was a bad bite and they told him if he had not got to the ER when he did it would have been alot worse. This was right here in Central Ohio which isn't supposed to have recluse spiders. We arent supposed to have rattlesnakes either but a friend of mine had a nest under his front porch in Marion.

[LazerRay]

I had a patient that was in the hospital for almost a year cause of a brown recluse spider bite he almost lost his leg and it took them that long to save it.  But he had type 2 diabetes and i think he ignore the bite for some time. I was in Admin and am not a doc BTW.

[Hard Head]

Everyone should KNOW this. Check it out ASAP
 http://www.brown-recluse.com/  Do it today.
-Hard Head-

[trapperDave]

DO IT NOW

[BowHuntingFool]

WOW, I hope you feel better soon!


Why in the heck did I decide to read this thread just before I go to bed????      

[AkDan]

saw my first brown recluse in a john at ft wainwright MO while doing an excerise with the army.  So much for the middle of no where theory.  Dunno how many rear ends passed it before me, but I sure wasnt plopping mine down with him around.

[MadDog]

We kill them in our home all the time, the bad thing is ours are as big as a wolf spider so we usually look them over to see what we a killing, my 7 year old can identify one better than most adults. We have been very lucky that none of us have been bitten. Hope you get well soon.

[Jmatt1957]

Gary,  My daughter was bitten by a brown recluse last fall while watering flowers at work in Bolivar.

[Flinttim]

Browns are not at all unusual in this part of the world. I found them all the time when I worked on boats on the Ohio River. I would not call them aggresive but when they get pushed they will bite. ie: one in your old coat left out in the garage, that type of thing. We had one that must have been hiding in a piece of alum tubing at work. Guy got bit and had to go thru the whole Steroid treatment. I would go as far to say that Recluses are very common nowadays much more than a Widow.

[J-dog]

Yeah t his thread has interested me, My recluse bite came out well though I had an ulcer a little smaller than the size of my thumbnail. Then it began healing, with the help of alot of antibiotics, through IV and orally.

They are bad things.

J