4 ms·

The problem, as I experienced with two black widow bites a few weeks ago is I did not realize I had been bitten until the symptoms were in full effect. By the t

by tunap 10y ago

The problem, as I experienced with two black widow bites a few weeks ago is I did not realize I had been bitten until the symptoms were in full effect. By the time I realized it was not a flu virus it was already too late. I didn't even realize it was a spider bite until the weeping crater appeared at the presumed mosquito bite sites.

nickthemagicman 10y ago
I'd be interested to hear more about your bite experience. Did you eventually make it to a hospital? Did you take the anti-venin? What did the symptoms feel like?
- tunap 10y ago
  Edit: Inadvertently cut 1st three sentences(frikkin Android browser) and neglected to post my citation at the end. On a normal Wednesday afternoon I noted two egg-yolk sized lumps on my calves that itched like mosquito bites, yet were squishier but I didn't put much thought into that facet initially. With all the wet weather here in Phoenix the last few weeks the skeeters are back with a vengeance, I figured it/they hit pay-dirt while I was sleeping. That night I woke up repeatedly with extreme chills and cold sweats, but did not make any connection to the lumps. Went to work the next day extremely exhausted. We got the job done, ran a 2nd call and I went home and passed out around 4pm. At 9pm I started awake w/ massive headache, extreme nausea & all my joints/spine were pins & needles of pain. I 'emergency walked'[0] to the toilet for extreme anterior & posterior purges and passed out after the spasms desisted. Called in sick the next day(Friday) & dozed on couch through unceasing headache, GI purges and joint pains... intense pain, but still flu-like symptoms 40 hours later. Sometime after dark that night I woke up to all my muscles in my body experiencing the intense pain of the worst muscle cramps I could previously imagine, yet without the contracting of muscle tissues. The only exception was my calves & feet, they may have been numb but I only know with certainty I did not hurt below the knees. Cannot say how many hours this went on before I lost consciousness but it felt like an eternity. I do not believe I was paralyzed while awake, but I was hyper-focused on mellowing my thoughts/heartrate, and most importantly not amplifying the agony by moving anything. I honestly never even thought to call for assistance, I still didn't know what was happening, only that it was already in play and while my chest felt like I was having an infarction, so did every other part of my body... except below the knees. Next morning my muscles felt like I ran several marathons(except my legs, lol), the nausea was replaced with what felt like knives passing through my intestines and my diaphragm and peritoneum felt like they were going to tear apart(didn't purge that for several days, my GI tract shut down & I could only hold down liquids). Joints and old injury sites continued to ache throughout Sunday, but the spinal burn, needling pains & headache had subsided in time for my 16 hour, uninterrupted sleep Saturday night. Sunday was spent feeling completely shattered and aching but without acute pain at long last. Layed on couch all day. Went to work Monday and all the pain my calves did not experience finally arrived. Ankles swelled and bolts of pain shot through both calves with each step(much more so in the right leg) until 3pm when I told the boss I couldn't go on. If you've ever walked long distance on concrete with bad shoes, that's the stabbing pain my calves were experiencing. That day, Monday, I noticed my right calf lump had a small, open sore and was oozing. The left calf lump was smaller, had a red spot that never completely opened up, didn't ooze as much and not until nearly a week later...presumably the 2nd bite with no/less venom delivered. Took rest of week off as my ankles & scrotum swelled/retained fluid whenever I wasn't laying down. Three weeks later & I am 99%, I do still experience a couple genuine, but mild, muscle cramps a day. Never went to doctor, but did speak to several friends/family who are in medical on Tuesday and determined if it were a desert recluse I would have already been in the ICU or dead...I kept up the Zika-Swine-Avian-Ebola flu story to that point as I was still unsure what happened and wanted to spare family & friends undue stress. [0] Emergency-walk http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Emergency%20walk http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Emergency%20w... [1]21 days later: right-leg bite site http://imgur.com/2JjBCIm http://imgur.com/2JjBCIm
  - nickthemagicman 10y ago
    Wow. Thanks much for posting that. I'm fascinated by venoms effects. Sounds like a nightmare but not many people can say they've had that experience. I think you're kind of badass for just powering through like that. It sounds exactly like another experience I read from a doctor who purposefully allowed himself to get bitten by a black widow to see what it was like. He said it was the worst pain he had ever experienced and would never do it again. Because of the chills and abdominal issues it sounds like a black widow and not a brown recluse. I'm really glad you're feeling better. I hope the recovery is going well. Did you ever have any luck finding the spider?
    - tunap 10y ago
      I have been back to the two work sites I worked at the day the lumps appeared. Dusty & cobwebs, but did not see any spiders. Dismantled mattresses & box springs to find only dust bunnies. Couch cushions' sole inhabitants were coins & food crumbs. I had been spending inordinate hours diagnosing a "gremlin" in my jet ski over the previous 8 weeks; it is sitting on a trailer I often lean my shins against the frame just above the affected sites. I have knocked many webs off it over the last rainy weeks in Phoenix. That is all I know so far, and admittedly, it could still not even be BW bites. Other than that, my stamina is back, minor crmps are gone and I trimmed off 10lbs(4.5kg) of excess weight, which is nice. Coincidentally, I had a blood infection 17 years ago to the day recent symptoms started, Aug 11, 1999. It was misdiagnosed(sans blood tests) as mono-nucleosis and I suffered similar intensity of pain and kidney/liver damage for weeks before identifying the genuine problem. I was young & most lingering issues have abated but system is still compromised and a hit by a strong enough hemotoxin(recluse or a rattle snake) will likely be permanently debilitating, if not terminal. So, no, not courageous, just at peace w/ mortality & very grateful for every new day. Edit: A correction to original post, as well, the site on my left leg did also open up, didn't see it under all the leg hair[0]. http://i.imgur.com/l0KZWhT.jpg http://i.imgur.com/l0KZWhT.jpg Edit 2: original right leg pic moved, link broken. new url: http://i.imgur.com/dX6N39V.jpg http://i.imgur.com/dX6N39V.jpg
bluejekyll 10y ago
> already too late Ignorance here; too late for what? Treatment? Meaning the wound was already bad enough that you just had to let it heal on its own? Just curious about what that meant.
- nickthemagicman 10y ago
  Black Widows are primarily neurotoxic. They don't cause a lot of hemolytic tissue damage at first and so the bite itself might not be noticable and the bite wound might just look like mosquito bites. And the onset of the venom takes hours. So you might not know you've been bitten until hours later when you go from flulike symptoms to freaking full on insane pain all over. And then all of your organs fail. So a major complication of venomous bites is that your window to get to a medical facility can be notably decreased.

by tunap 10y ago

nickthemagicman 10y ago

I'd be interested to hear more about your bite experience. Did you eventually make it to a hospital? Did you take the anti-venin? What did the symptoms feel like?

tunap 10y ago
Edit: Inadvertently cut 1st three sentences(frikkin Android browser) and neglected to post my citation at the end. On a normal Wednesday afternoon I noted two egg-yolk sized lumps on my calves that itched like mosquito bites, yet were squishier but I didn't put much thought into that facet initially. With all the wet weather here in Phoenix the last few weeks the skeeters are back with a vengeance, I figured it/they hit pay-dirt while I was sleeping. That night I woke up repeatedly with extreme chills and cold sweats, but did not make any connection to the lumps. Went to work the next day extremely exhausted. We got the job done, ran a 2nd call and I went home and passed out around 4pm. At 9pm I started awake w/ massive headache, extreme nausea & all my joints/spine were pins & needles of pain. I 'emergency walked'[0] to the toilet for extreme anterior & posterior purges and passed out after the spasms desisted. Called in sick the next day(Friday) & dozed on couch through unceasing headache, GI purges and joint pains... intense pain, but still flu-like symptoms 40 hours later. Sometime after dark that night I woke up to all my muscles in my body experiencing the intense pain of the worst muscle cramps I could previously imagine, yet without the contracting of muscle tissues. The only exception was my calves & feet, they may have been numb but I only know with certainty I did not hurt below the knees. Cannot say how many hours this went on before I lost consciousness but it felt like an eternity. I do not believe I was paralyzed while awake, but I was hyper-focused on mellowing my thoughts/heartrate, and most importantly not amplifying the agony by moving anything. I honestly never even thought to call for assistance, I still didn't know what was happening, only that it was already in play and while my chest felt like I was having an infarction, so did every other part of my body... except below the knees. Next morning my muscles felt like I ran several marathons(except my legs, lol), the nausea was replaced with what felt like knives passing through my intestines and my diaphragm and peritoneum felt like they were going to tear apart(didn't purge that for several days, my GI tract shut down & I could only hold down liquids). Joints and old injury sites continued to ache throughout Sunday, but the spinal burn, needling pains & headache had subsided in time for my 16 hour, uninterrupted sleep Saturday night. Sunday was spent feeling completely shattered and aching but without acute pain at long last. Layed on couch all day. Went to work Monday and all the pain my calves did not experience finally arrived. Ankles swelled and bolts of pain shot through both calves with each step(much more so in the right leg) until 3pm when I told the boss I couldn't go on. If you've ever walked long distance on concrete with bad shoes, that's the stabbing pain my calves were experiencing. That day, Monday, I noticed my right calf lump had a small, open sore and was oozing. The left calf lump was smaller, had a red spot that never completely opened up, didn't ooze as much and not until nearly a week later...presumably the 2nd bite with no/less venom delivered. Took rest of week off as my ankles & scrotum swelled/retained fluid whenever I wasn't laying down. Three weeks later & I am 99%, I do still experience a couple genuine, but mild, muscle cramps a day. Never went to doctor, but did speak to several friends/family who are in medical on Tuesday and determined if it were a desert recluse I would have already been in the ICU or dead...I kept up the Zika-Swine-Avian-Ebola flu story to that point as I was still unsure what happened and wanted to spare family & friends undue stress. [0] Emergency-walk http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Emergency%20walk http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Emergency%20w... [1]21 days later: right-leg bite site http://imgur.com/2JjBCIm http://imgur.com/2JjBCIm
- nickthemagicman 10y ago
  Wow. Thanks much for posting that. I'm fascinated by venoms effects. Sounds like a nightmare but not many people can say they've had that experience. I think you're kind of badass for just powering through like that. It sounds exactly like another experience I read from a doctor who purposefully allowed himself to get bitten by a black widow to see what it was like. He said it was the worst pain he had ever experienced and would never do it again. Because of the chills and abdominal issues it sounds like a black widow and not a brown recluse. I'm really glad you're feeling better. I hope the recovery is going well. Did you ever have any luck finding the spider?
  - tunap 10y ago
    I have been back to the two work sites I worked at the day the lumps appeared. Dusty & cobwebs, but did not see any spiders. Dismantled mattresses & box springs to find only dust bunnies. Couch cushions' sole inhabitants were coins & food crumbs. I had been spending inordinate hours diagnosing a "gremlin" in my jet ski over the previous 8 weeks; it is sitting on a trailer I often lean my shins against the frame just above the affected sites. I have knocked many webs off it over the last rainy weeks in Phoenix. That is all I know so far, and admittedly, it could still not even be BW bites. Other than that, my stamina is back, minor crmps are gone and I trimmed off 10lbs(4.5kg) of excess weight, which is nice. Coincidentally, I had a blood infection 17 years ago to the day recent symptoms started, Aug 11, 1999. It was misdiagnosed(sans blood tests) as mono-nucleosis and I suffered similar intensity of pain and kidney/liver damage for weeks before identifying the genuine problem. I was young & most lingering issues have abated but system is still compromised and a hit by a strong enough hemotoxin(recluse or a rattle snake) will likely be permanently debilitating, if not terminal. So, no, not courageous, just at peace w/ mortality & very grateful for every new day. Edit: A correction to original post, as well, the site on my left leg did also open up, didn't see it under all the leg hair[0]. http://i.imgur.com/l0KZWhT.jpg http://i.imgur.com/l0KZWhT.jpg Edit 2: original right leg pic moved, link broken. new url: http://i.imgur.com/dX6N39V.jpg http://i.imgur.com/dX6N39V.jpg

bluejekyll 10y ago

> already too late Ignorance here; too late for what? Treatment? Meaning the wound was already bad enough that you just had to let it heal on its own? Just curious about what that meant.

nickthemagicman 10y ago
Black Widows are primarily neurotoxic. They don't cause a lot of hemolytic tissue damage at first and so the bite itself might not be noticable and the bite wound might just look like mosquito bites. And the onset of the venom takes hours. So you might not know you've been bitten until hours later when you go from flulike symptoms to freaking full on insane pain all over. And then all of your organs fail. So a major complication of venomous bites is that your window to get to a medical facility can be notably decreased.