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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Mar 10, 2008 - 12:32am PT
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That's absurd that they "can't survive in CA". lol. If Brown recluses can survive through New England winters then they sure as hell could live in parts of CA.
But there are tons of different spider/bug bites. Also people can react very differently to bites from the same spider so.....
In the end it really doesn't matter. You've just got to ride it out now.
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Lost Arrow
Trad climber
The North Ridge of the San Fernando
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Mar 10, 2008 - 12:34am PT
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If you go to the ER they will admit you with a leg like that.
Good Luck.
Juan
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville
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Mar 20, 2008 - 11:25pm PT
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what's the latest word?
are you OK?
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rockermike
Mountain climber
Berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 21, 2008 - 12:25am PT
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Still here; in bed with foot raised that is.
Third trip to doctor and he decided we should have wound drained, obvious large puss pocket at that point. so he sent me to surgery. Surgeon decided better to cut whole thing open - he claimed it would ultimately heal better that way???
Anyway, cut a hole in my leg 3" * 2" by 1/4 inch deep. No pain until local anesthetic wore off. ha talk about a grown man crying.
Now a week and a half later wound is getting smaller but still open. Have to have dressing changed daily. Otherwise things are on the mend.
Surgeon said he didn't see signs of dieing flesh so he doubted it was recluse. Maybe another spider or some spontaneous infection.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Mar 21, 2008 - 12:44am PT
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Rocker, abscesses are isolated pockets of infection that are very hard for your body to fight. By draining it, your body can get leukocytes in there and any antibiotics you're taking can actually have an effect on the bacteria as it start to grow again. Antibiotics don't actually kill bacteria, they screw up their growth processes, so if it isn't growing they can't do anything to it.
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davidji
Social climber
CA
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Mar 21, 2008 - 02:38am PT
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Ouch! Glad to hear no dieing flesh tho. Heal fast!
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wildone
climber
Where you want to be
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Mar 21, 2008 - 11:33am PT
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I was bitten by a brown recluse when I was 18. It started as massive pain in my kidneys-it felt like someone was twisting knives in my kidneys- so I signed out of high school and drove to the local (Mariposa) hospital. At this point, I didn't have any pain from my left shin where the bite was located,(my doctor later said they inject a little pain killer before the actual bite and that the bite could have happened up to 24 hours before the pain manifested itself) and I was wearing long pants, as I had a high school football game that night and the coach liked us to wear slacks and a tie on game day.
They gave me some gnarly anti biotics, and I didn't dress for the game, so I was sitting on the sidelines when someone walking by bumped my shin. OH MY GOD, did that hurt. Hiked up my pants, and my entire shin, about 10 inches by 6 or 7 inches was swollen tight and red/blue/purple. I went straight to the doctor, and he was glad they had started me on the antibiotics. I came in to his practice three times a day so they could monitor it. At this point, my entire leg below my knee was in some form of discoloration. He said that if my toes turned black, they would have to "core the wound" ie, cut necrotic tissue out, and that I could possibly lose toes. So I laid up with my foot elevated for the next week or so, took the drugs, turned out ok. The skin on my shin is shiny, though.
Scary.
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wildone
climber
Where you want to be
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Mar 21, 2008 - 11:42am PT
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As for the "Brown recluse in CA" thing, the week before, I had taken possession of a 1960 Galaxie, delivered from the south, that had been sitting in a barn for 29 years, 36,000 orig miles.
I'll bet that little bugger was up under the dash.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Ho, shizznit....that's a funny link, Ed.
"Rampant recluse phobia is based on people's willingness to believe the worst about a situation and the sensationalistic news media who scream about the POSSIBILITY of one spider being found in California. Actual titles from newspapers regarding recluse stories are "Necrotic Wound Blamed on Elusive Spider" , "Spider-bite Terror in Calif.", "Likely Bite by Spider Changes Life". Notice how carefully the titles are chosen. They don't say that they have found the spiders or that a population of the spider has been verified. They report the belief that the spiders are here or have caused damage. Many times the speculative stories are based on the premise that a brown recluse COULD be found in California. While this is certainly true (since people move from the Midwest each day), it is also true that because I am a male, I could have an illicit and immoral relationship with a Playboy bunny. This is definitely a possibility."
Author's note:
"These are not the opinions of the University of California Riverside however, they are the opinions of a highly volatile arachnologist who is bloody tired of everybody claiming that every little mark on their body is the result of a brown recluse bite and who believe with a religious zeal that brown recluses are part of the California spider fauna despite the incredibly overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The tone of this article is purposely crafted to mimic the hyperanxious state of the paranoid public because many of them have trouble listening to boring cold scientific presentations (of which this may still be guilty despite my intentions) when their beliefs are solidly based on erroneous general consensus."
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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I got bitten by brown recluse back in 1999 in NH. My bite was on my back and I caught it early, no surgery and just a small scar is left.
Drove back to Philly and when to the ER, they had no idea what it was until my wife told them it was a spider bite. Heavy antibiotics for a week and I recovered.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Third trip to doctor and he decided we should have wound drained, obvious large puss pocket at that point. so he sent me to surgery. Surgeon decided better to cut whole thing open - he claimed it would ultimately heal better that way???
Absolutely true. When you have infection in the body, the body attempts to push it out, but it doesn't know which way, so it goes all ways. Sometimes it will consolidate it into abscesses, and those often will burrow out to the surface to drain, but opening it manually provides a direct route, and allows healing elements to come in from the uninfected areas.
By opening the whole thing, the surgeon is assuring that the infection has a route out. This is a very correct approach, and in some people, is limb-saving.
At this stage, it is FAR more important to do than any antibiotic.
"A chance to cut, is a chance to cure"
By the way, saw people with "spider bits" every week of my career as a family doc, but I doubt that I actually saw one in my career.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Sep 30, 2015 - 09:01pm PT
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Ouch! Ugly!
I got a brown recluse bite in 1992 in Kansas on the way to the valley. The thing got me on the ear.
It blew up to the size of a golf ball and I got it drained in the valley at the clinic and got atibiotics, then went to the needles a few days later. When it blew up again, l got it drained in Bakersfield. It was worse. When I told the doctors I was heading to LA next, they referred me to a guy at the Huntington center, where I got surgery a couple days later. They basically filleted my ear to clean the dead tissue out.
At that point the climbing trip was over, so my wife said maybe we should go to Portland, where she had a job offer, which we did on condition that the University find a doctor to look at the ear post surgery. and that's how we moved here.
I hope yours heals as well as mine did, though you don't have to feel under any obligation to move here. Good luck!
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Aya K
Trad climber
Boulder, CO!
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Sep 30, 2015 - 09:09pm PT
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Purulent. The word you're looking for is purulent.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Sep 30, 2015 - 09:27pm PT
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I've never been scared of a recluse. The 45 brown widows outdside my door I just killed wearing flip flops, however, cause some minor concerns.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Sep 30, 2015 - 09:29pm PT
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One of the first steps one should take in dealing with these critters should be to identify them properly before blasting them with pesticide and/or getting hysterical.
I've bookmarked Ed's article...
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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i got some type of bite about 12 yrs ago. 4 inches below my nuts, luckily. it looked like a pimple at first, then got really sore and red. eventually a doc cleaned out the necrotic tissue and ii had a hole the size of a golf ball in my leg.
those bites are really bad. i was sick for a week. fortunately i think they are really rare too.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Brown recluse like to house in dry areas (i.e., in houses). They are primarily night hunters and do not use to web to capture their prey.
When I lived in St. Louis, I would put wide masking tape upside down at closet doors and in front of furniture. In the morning, it was like a holiday when I'd go around and see how many of the little bastards were stuck on the tape.
HA!
I was bitten on the leg, on the inside of my knee. It either crawled up the bed skirt and got in the bed. I may have rolled over on it (they tend to bite when they feel threatened...are being smushed). Or it may have crawled in my jeans that I had on the floor next to the bed (never did that again). When I put the jeans on the next day, it may have bit me as it was getting smushed. I never found a body in my bed so I assume the jean theory was the correct one.
At first I thought I had a blueberry stuck on my leg, then I saw it was my skin that was black/blue. I pulled it, it stretched, and then it all ripped off. Sort of gruesome. The bite eventually because as deep a hole as one could get there. (I felt like I could have inserted a pencil into it a half inch or so. The bite also made me feel like I had the flu. It was my understanding at the time (this was maybe 8 yrs ago) that the removing flesh approach wasn't the best, but rather just taking antibiotics was. Did that. It healed. Now I have a scar and a story and got a lot of joy of sticking those little boogers on tape. :)
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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When I was in fifth grade I got a brown recluse bite.
I thought I might have a splinter in my butt cheek and noticed a small spot of blood on my white OP shorts :-)
I showed my grandmother and she exclaimed "it's a spider bite! ".
By the next morning I had a half a grapefruit on my ass cheek.
The doctor said "OK son there's only one way to see- drop your shorts"
So I did.
"HOLY SH#T!" he said.
How's that for bedside manner with a fifth-grader? LOL!!!
He told me to lie down and get something to bite on.
My mom gave me her super-thick mom wallet filled with coupons and stuff
and I clamped down on it like a pitbull.
He perform some kind of procedure....
As I was exiting the room I looked in the trash bin ....
There were two king-size tongue depressors, a bunch of wipes, and gobs of black viscous fluid.
He had popped it like a zit!
For weeks, or months maybe, the skin sloughed away like an open pit mine, leaving contour lines, like a topo map, of skin.
So, for my whole life I have washed my clothes inside out and leave them inside out it in the dresser, or wherever.
That way I have to turn them right side out and shake them out before I put them on-
A good habit when you live in the desert.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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That's why I'm movin' back to Alaska when we retire - at least you can see
a griz and a moose, before they kick yer azz.
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