White Tail Spider Bite - Open to All Other Health Topics Message Board

Kali · 10-12-2004, 09:05 PM

I couldn't find a section for this, so I'm posting here. Has anyone else had a similar problem with exotic spider bites?

When I was in Australia I was bit by a White Tail spider, which causes Necrotising arachnidism (a reacuring skin and joint infection) in the crease of my left elbow.

Anyway, starting Saturday I began getting some weird twitching in my left thumb. I didn't think anything of it, and figured I must have slept on it weird. Well, by Monday (yesterday) I had broken out in hives/blisters/rash on my left arm where I was bitten, and slowly the nerves in my arm started getting worse and worse.

Now my entire left arm, including my shoulder, elbow, wrist, and thumb are in anafalctic shock because the nerves are so inflamed and the infection is spreading. I'm now on two different steroids (depomedrol and prednisone), plus antibiotics and neurontin (to relax the nerves).

IT SUCKS. And it is SOOOOOOOO painful! My joints are so sore, and the muscles ache like nothing I've ever felt. You can actually see my thumb jumping and twitching, and when it happens my whole arm cramps up and goes numb.

I got trigger point injections yesterday and today to calm things down, but as soon as it wears off the pain comes back.

Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE spiders?

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Happygolucky13 · 10-13-2004, 02:20 PM

Sorry to hear about all of the pain and problems you are having and I hope that you make a full recovery real soon. I think you may have answered a few of the questions I've been having about some health issues. About two and a half weeks ago I woke up with about 10 small bites on my arms and legs. I had noticed a spider on my bedroom window sill inside the house and I didn't kill it. I thought that it would just find a way out. Shortly after getting the bites I started to feel really sick, like I was coming down with a cold or something. I got really exhausted and my muscles felt weak and sore and I had headaches everyday. Then my eyelids started to twitch really bad and then the twitching started to go all over the place. Arms, legs, torso, face. I went to the doctors and he said it was probably just stress. I never made the connection until now. It just happens that the doc noticed that I had some congestion and gave me an antibiotic yesterday and now the twitching, fatigue and muscle weakness is getting better. I don't know for sure but it could have been spider bites that caused all of it but the spider was not exotic. Just a small run of the mill spider. I also now hate spiders.

Kali · 10-13-2004, 05:19 PM

Since it is impossible to diagnose a spider bite unless a whitnessed bite takes place, with a positive identification of the spider, it could be just about anything.

In hindsight I would have identified the spider and researched possible reactions to their bites. Do you remember what it looked like? Perhaps you could still find out what kind of reaction it may cause by identifying it online.

It could also just be the way you react to that type of venom. I know that I swell up in welts from mosquitos, which is part of the reason I got the necrotising effects from my bite. Only about 20% of people bitten by white tails end up with my symptoms, and my sensitivity was most likely to blame.

I'm hoping the reacurring effects don't come back. It has been 5 and half years since I was bitten, and just under 5 years since my last reoccurance.

Good look in you identification process.

Erin