# Brown Recluse spider bite



## TheTreeSpyder (Aug 8, 2003)

D-D-D-Daaaaayum!


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## Stumper (Aug 8, 2003)

They don't always cause such extreme tissue necrosis. Antibiotics can help. BUT--- a mild case can go dormant/heal up then start again a year later! Nasty , Nasty poison! ( My Mom got bitten a few years ago. It never got that ugly but it restarted twice after the initial nastiness.Last time was over 2 years after the bite.


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## Eagle1 (Aug 9, 2003)

Wow.... I hope you are doing better. That spider is native to the South?


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## monkeypuzzle (Aug 10, 2003)

I took a bite from one during the first month I joined ArboSite,,, back in June 2001.. there is NO sensation when bitten, takes a few hours until you realize something is wrong.


Bite was on left ring finger(top) behind fingernail..with a red line running up my arm to my underarm,, that looked wild.

The bite was mild and small amount of necrotic arachnidism ????? something like that...looked nothing like the pics you see here.

There is about a dozen species of Loxosceles in US and about half will put a hurt on you.(necrotic arachnidism) They live coast to coast so they are everywhere man!!! 

L. reclusus most common and their predominace IS in the south!!

Browns have a cuzz in South America that kills a few folks every year,,,,,death is rare in the states.


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## MasterBlaster (Aug 10, 2003)

Does anyone know what happened to that guy?


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## John Bearley (Aug 10, 2003)

*THIS MAY BE A HOAX*

For more info:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/brownrecluse.asp

"Even if these photographs are genuine, they create an exaggerated sense of the danger posed by brown recluse spiders."


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## MasterBlaster (Aug 10, 2003)

I've had unknown bites that took months to heal - I bet it was one of those freaking things.

I stupidly pulled a tick of my thigh once - won't ever do that again! It musta took 5, 6 mo for that thing to heal.


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## geofore (Aug 12, 2003)

*hoax?*

I have seen rattle snake bites that looked like that. My buddy Jim kept a small one, (12") caught in Jefferson County, in an aquarium with some sticks and stones and he reached in to get it out to show his neice and it got him on the thumb. That is what his thumb looked like. Tiny little rattler, he didn't think it was old enough to have venom.


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## Dan F (Aug 12, 2003)

The youngest ones can have the worst bites, since they don't know yet how to regulate how much venom to release, they release it all.


Dan


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## monkeypuzzle (Aug 12, 2003)

The worst bite I've had to deal with was from a 5 foot Eastern Diamondback. Since I'm allergic to the anti-venom I just had to ride it out, pain killers helped. A snake hunting buddy was bitten on a finger by a 2-3 month old Pigmy rattlesnake and had a hard time. The pigmy was about 7 inches long. Most rattlesnakes bear their young live and YES they are HOT.

Taken a few bites by a Cottonmouth.The first time, I was drunk and trying to act like a 'snake handler' in a fast food parking lot.Reached in the snake box and pulled 4-5 out.Stupid...f***. No problems there just lots of swelling. My dad was bitten by a Eastern Coral snake in 1980 and came close to taking a dirt nap. As you may can tell snakes are in my blood.

When the finger swells to the max the Doc will make a incision down the lenth of the finger to relieve pressure. Looks like the fella had that incision. 

Fact.... the founding father of snake handling died about 70 miles from me way back in 1955. It is said he survived close to 400 bites,who knows. George Went Hensley is his name. Good read.


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## che (Aug 12, 2003)

Thanks John B....very good info on the link. I've been a bit paranoid about the brown recluse in the last few years, the more I read about them, the more I was certain that ALL BR bites turned out like that guy's finger. Unfortunately, sounds like a black widow's bit is just as painful as I've heard. 

I've got some spider and snake (corn & black) pictures on this page: a few spiders and snakes I've found in central Kentucky

I do the 'snake handling' around here....luckily none of them are poisonous....so far.  

Che


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## njarbor (Aug 17, 2003)

when i was 18 ( i am 20 now) i worked as an exterminator . i would see b.r. spiders on almost a daily basis . now i think back on what an idiot i was because i knew the consequenses and still shrugged it off saying . that will never happen to me .. tahnkfully it didnt


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## duff (Aug 17, 2003)

California tree workers, worry not. This spider, while widespread, is not found in California, though we do have an over-generous helping of ants. Black widows are easily spotted and identified, with the red hourglass underbelly, and they are both shy and clumsy, so little worry there either.


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## treeman82 (Jan 28, 2004)

Speaking of spider bites... Several years ago a kid and his father went fishing in their row boat on the Croton resevoir. The father goes to launch the boat, and while doing so tells his young son to go find worms. They go out on the boat and the kid is telling his father that the worms are biting him... father thought it was nothing. It turned out that the kid had stumbled onto a nest of baby copperheads. Unfortunately the kid died from all of the bites.


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## Curtis James (Jan 28, 2004)

I grew up squashing those in our basement. When cornered their front legs go up very confrentationally! They will run away for the most part but when they bite it is nasty I know alot of people that have been bitten and had to have skin grafted because of the severe rotting tissue.


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## cbolze (Jan 28, 2004)

*My wife got bit by a b.r spider*

When we lived in charleston S.C. Luckly a trip to the doctor the next day cured it. You don't know when you get bit, by one, later it fells like a mosquito bite then swells big. Get to an emergency room quick!! early treatment is the only chance you have. Typical bites are on the rear end and feet as the spider crawls in clothes & shoes and you put them on and bam, your bit. I know a guy that lost about 1/2 his thigh from one, nasty!


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## wiley_p (Jan 29, 2004)

I,m a little confused, because Brown Recluse are in California, for that matter they have been found in Fairbanks,AK I thought the website for this said it was from the entomology lab in CA. whether or not that is damage from a spider bite isn't for me to say, although my little brother was bitten in the woodshed inb Sonora, CA in 76' so although the doc's could have been mistaken in their diagnosis with my brother, I am positive they are in CA, as well as most western states. Also up here we have a little nasty called the hobo spider. left untended the bite can prove fatal.


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## Yellowdog (Jan 29, 2004)

Take these spiders serious whether it was a hoax or not. Those pictures look real. We have ALOT of those spiders here. I kill them in my barn all the time. Recently, before winter, we found a box that had two BR in them and one was very large for that spider. 

Last summer, while sitting at this computer checking my email, I felt something on my leg. I immediately brushed it off and flipped the light on. It was a large BR and that got me real upset. I realized I had goofed. Been tearing down an old house and brought home an old box and had it sitting next to me. Guess what must have crawled out?

Anyway, i have found those critters everywhere in my home. I set sticky traps now. We have scorpions too, but that's another story. They just make your tongue go numb and your mouth taste like metal for a couple of days..


Anyone heard of the HOBO spider in the Pacific Northwest and now down to New Mexico?


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## cbolze (Feb 2, 2004)

http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/media/ashore/issues/spring03/WhatsBetween.htm 

The printed magazine had graphic photos, I don't see them on line. Courtney Bolze.


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## jimmyq (Feb 3, 2004)

link for recluse spiders ID and distribution. 

http://www.hobospider.org/


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