Danger Unseen

They say that most accidents happen at home. It is also safe to say that most dangerous things are around the home as well. Although most of us are aware of keeping poisons and sharp tools out of the reach of our young children we are not aware that there are other dangers lurking around our backyard or even in our house. One of these dangers comes in the form of a spider called the brown recluse spider. Its bite can be as mild as a mosquito bite but the results are terrible.

What is scary about this spider is not so much that it bites you but that you do not always know where it is so that you can avoid it. According to the Ohio State University Fact Sheet, the recluse spider hunts at night and hides in secluded dark areas during the daytime. If it is living in a building such as an apartment or house then there are lots of places for it to hide. It can hide in clothes in your drawers or closets, shoes or gloves-any dark dry place will do. Outdoors it can lurk under rocks or other dark hidden areas.

If the recluse is disturbed while taking its nap, it could lash out at the nearest victim and usually that means you get bitten. Not all bites are serious to warrant treatment but if you have identified it as a recluse spider please go to the emergency. Some people don't show symptoms immediately and may only experience a little sting in the area and then they are fine.

Others may get a slight reaction at first which intensifies as time passes. This was the case with my daughter. A couple of hours after being bitten by the brown recluse spider, she developed a dark colored spot on her leg behind her knee. By the time she noticed the sore she had started feeling sick and her leg was in a lot of pain.

These are the basic symptoms of a brown recluse spider bite: "A small white blister usually initially rises at the bite site surrounded by a swollen area. The affected area enlarges and becomes red, and the tissue is hard to the touch for some time. The lesion from a brown recluse spider bite is a dry, blue-gray or blue-white, irregular sinking patch with ragged edges and surrounding redness--termed the "red, white, and blue sign." The lesion usually is 1½ inches by 2¾ inches or smaller."Taken from Ohio State University Fact Sheet

What we did not know was that ice should have been administered immediately and she should have gone to the Emergency Department at the hospital right away. Instead she did not go until the next morning. Unfortunately the staff at the hospital did not take it as serious as we would have liked. It was at least an hour and half before she got treatment. I do not blame them because some days are busier than others. The other thing is that very little is known about treatment of such a bite.

Treatments for my daughter were antibiotics administered intravenously every 12 hours for four days. That meant that she had to go to the hospital twice a day. After that she was given the medicine orally-which she is still on.

The area where she was bitten was red and swollen. The redness spread to most of her upper thigh. It was also tender to the touch. The actual bite was dark colored where the skin had started to die. The venom from the spider kills the skin around the area which eventually becomes a hole.

After the second week the wound was bleeding a lot and needed to be changed often. The hole was about an inch deep and almost as wide. Changing the bandage was becoming a challenge as it was very painful for her. So back to the hospital she went where she was given tools to aid her such as tweezers, gauze and numbing gel to ease the pain. The whole procedure was traumatic because the hole had to be packed and it hurt her to remove the packing as well as to have it put back in.

The third week after the bite she went to the hospital for wound therapy. There the nurses showed her how to remove the packing so that it was less painful. They also gave her a gel to put on the gauze so that it would be easier to remove.

According to what I have read (on the internet) about the treatments she has a long haul ahead of her. Healing usually takes 8 to 10 weeks and she has to stay out of the sun for up to a year after it is healed to prevent cancer forming.

Wikipedia online encylcolpedia

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