Help/urgent-spider Bite Bad Reaction!
I know this is ironic but I'm asking for help from long timers or the unfortunate short timers with this experience. We are in the process of moving houses and disrupting all sorts of things. During the night I was bitten (Sat night) by a spider--5 times (unusual for a spider) so I wasn't sure it was a spider. The bites are now 3-5" in diameter, hot, inflamed and itch/hurt like hell. Yesterday (Sunday) several hours after the inflammation became intolerable I discovered what looked like a giant Brown Recluse. As my experience with spiders previously was in the US, I just thought "OMG, it's just a huge BR" as the body was 3/4" wide and 1.5" long with a leg span of 4-5". This thing was FAST and ran from where I disrupted it into another box.
Now, I'm not normally squeamish and actually don't mind the tarantulas here, but given the pain I was in, I screamed and hopped onto my bed. That brought dh and our 3 boys running in. Dh had decided he'd check out the box and sure enough Snr. Spider was just waiting to make a break for it. Out he came and Snr. Speedy Gonzales Spider tried to make it through the door as our 17 year old with huge feet and arachniphobia JUMPED on Snr SGS. It took 3 or 4 stampings to stop the movement but he was dead. I then scooped him up and we took a better look. From the distressed corpse I THINK it is either a GIANT BR or HOBO (Aggressive House Spider.)
I couldn't sleep last night even with RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation) on my leg and 150 mgs of Benedryl (which would normally knock anyone out, especially as I had already taken 4 doses of 25-50 mg throughout the day), 800 mgs of ibuprofen (2x that day) plus topical tea tree oil, hydrocortisone. The red areas are now bigger and more diffuse but the centers (dime to nickle sized) are raised and hot. It appears as though the inflammation is causing bruising because I now have what looks like a target on each bite.
PLEASE, anyone with experience in DR Spider bites...do share your wisdom. I'm now going to try Essential Oil of basil as I have found several refs to it being used for these.
TIA!!!
DrChrisHE
I know this is ironic but I'm asking for help from long timers or the unfortunate short timers with this experience. We are in the process of moving houses and disrupting all sorts of things. During the night I was bitten (Sat night) by a spider--5 times (unusual for a spider) so I wasn't sure it was a spider. The bites are now 3-5" in diameter, hot, inflamed and itch/hurt like hell. Yesterday (Sunday) several hours after the inflammation became intolerable I discovered what looked like a giant Brown Recluse. As my experience with spiders previously was in the US, I just thought "OMG, it's just a huge BR" as the body was 3/4" wide and 1.5" long with a leg span of 4-5". This thing was FAST and ran from where I disrupted it into another box.
Now, I'm not normally squeamish and actually don't mind the tarantulas here, but given the pain I was in, I screamed and hopped onto my bed. That brought dh and our 3 boys running in. Dh had decided he'd check out the box and sure enough Snr. Spider was just waiting to make a break for it. Out he came and Snr. Speedy Gonzales Spider tried to make it through the door as our 17 year old with huge feet and arachniphobia JUMPED on Snr SGS. It took 3 or 4 stampings to stop the movement but he was dead. I then scooped him up and we took a better look. From the distressed corpse I THINK it is either a GIANT BR or HOBO (Aggressive House Spider.)
I couldn't sleep last night even with RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation) on my leg and 150 mgs of Benedryl (which would normally knock anyone out, especially as I had already taken 4 doses of 25-50 mg throughout the day), 800 mgs of ibuprofen (2x that day) plus topical tea tree oil, hydrocortisone. The red areas are now bigger and more diffuse but the centers (dime to nickle sized) are raised and hot. It appears as though the inflammation is causing bruising because I now have what looks like a target on each bite.
PLEASE, anyone with experience in DR Spider bites...do share your wisdom. I'm now going to try Essential Oil of basil as I have found several refs to it being used for these.
TIA!!!
DrChrisHE
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