stillOnly41

Turning to multiple forums for advice on a maddening problem I've been dealing with since late October. I live in Wisconsin in a ranch house surrounded on three sides by seemingly wild fields, I've seen some strange (and some very large) spiders in and around the house. I was bitten by a spider on the back of my left hand late one night. It itched, but otherwise I thought nothing of it, but over the next two weeks the bite area grew to the size of a bottlecap. It looked like nothing so much as road rash with a clear secretion that covered the surface. I work in a dusty environment so to avoid infection I applied a topical antibiotic and bandaid.

Weeks went by, and I still saw no change, then I noticed little bumps forming on the back of my right hand in the same location as the bite area on my left.

At this point I decided to see my doctor, he was stumped, but prescribed Chlobetasol (sp?), a topical stearoid. This worked quickly on the bite area, and within three days it had stopped seeping. On the fourth day of application I noticed the skin around my right and left eye and the right side of my chin began to get red and puffy the areas itched and almost felt like sunburn. Thinking this was a reaction to the stearoid I stopped using it and called my doctor. He referred my to a dermatologist.

The dermatologist thought I might have contact dermatitis caused by neosporin (what I had been applying to the initial bite area), and prescribed prednisone in a tapering 60/40/20mg dosage lasting three weeks. The redness/itchiness/puffyness was gone within a couple days (though the skin in these areas was dry and flakey, I used a moisterizing lotion/aquaphore, and this too went away), the irritations on my hands slowly began to fade over the course of the next two weeks. On the third week of treatment, however when the prednisone dosage had dropped to 20mg/day the bumps began to inflame again, and I started noticing the little bumps on my arms an the calves/ankles, and nipples, rectal area, all very itchy (worse at night, would wake me up, so little sleep).

Back to the dermatologist, or at least his nurse practitioner. I was concerned that so far all that had been done in the way of diagnosis was observation and no tests for a condition that appeared to be getting worse with every week. The nurse practioner offered a punch biopsy. I jumped at the chance to finally have a test done (at this point I was willing to have the entire quarter-sized bite area removed). Two weeks of itchy nervous hell later the results came in as a skin irritation/nonspecific contact dermatitis.

This week I saw my dermatologist again and he prescribed Protopic. About forty minutes after I applied this to the affected areas of my arms they began itching like crazy (more so than before the creme), this tapered off as the night progressed (I work second shift). I applied the second dose before bed at 1am. I woke up this morning at 4am to the most intense itching I've experienced to date. I gave up on sleep and washed all the areas I'd applied the creme to...itching seems to have subsided.

I've stopped using bounce dryer sheets, the so far only new element I had introduced to my life. I've stopped using deoderant and changed from a dye/perfume free Purex laundry soap to Tide dye/perfume free, and run my clothes through a second rinse cycle. At this point, I'm down to diluted (Target) liquid soap, and Aussie shampoo (which is supposed to rinse completely out).

Wondering if this may also be a bacterial, fungal, or parasitic problem (had (I think) an under cooked salmon steak a few months back, the button popped out, but I ended up spending some quality time in the bathroom later).

Sorry for the long post, but it's a long story.