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Damn Brown Recluse Bite Strikes Again

worlok said:
Did the doctors tell you that or did you get that over the Internet? I doubt that any spider venom could stay in your system for life, unless it killed you soon after biting you. The body should eventually flush it out.

It can't. The venom becomes part of your blood. It's like having herpes or shingles. You never get rid of it.
 
Sickmont said:
It can't. The venom becomes part of your blood. It's like having herpes or shingles. You never get rid of it.

No offense, but can you point to an established medical source as proof of that? I haven't been able to find anything but perhaps my search term was deficient.
 
I've passed this on to some people who may know the answer. When I hear something from them I will pass it on here.
 
Thanks. I'm not trying to be a jerk about it, but if I had a dime for every thing that has been passed on to me as "fact" (all by well meaning and convinced individuals) that later turned out to be nothing more than some urban legend, I'd be richer than Bill Gates. :lol:
 
worlok said:
No offense, but can you point to an established medical source as proof of that? I haven't been able to find anything but perhaps my search term was deficient.

Yes. My friend Gudrun who got nailed by one a few years ago in the face and by her mother who's the doctor who treated her. Oh, and by the way, Gudrun's mother is a trauma surgeon at Texas A & M university hospital. It was her and a couple of her colleagues who told me about the venom.
 
worlok said:
I haven't been able to find anything but perhaps my search term was deficient.

NO! It's YOU who are deficient!!!!! naaaahhh, I'm just yanking your chain on that one :lol: . I take it on fact based on a few factors:

1. Multiple sources have cited that certain toxins/substances remain in the body.
2. Multiple sources have cited the specific toxin that I was exposed to remains in body.
3. Of those sources are the people that were actually exposed to those toxins.
4. Having been exposed to that toxin AND having the toxin's effects show up multiple times since exposure.

These are the things that have convinced me that the toxin does infact remain in the body.
 
Sickmont said:
Yes. My friend Gudrun who got nailed by one a few years ago in the face and by her mother who's the doctor who treated her. Oh, and by the way, Gudrun's mother is a trauma surgeon at Texas A & M university hospital. It was her and a couple of her colleagues who told me about the venom.

Ok, thanks for that. I did sense a bit of hostility and/or attitude - "Oh, and by the way, Gudrun's mother is a trauma surgeon"... - (hopefully mistaken, but where I live that "Oh, btw" phrase is laced with major 'tude - make a comeback like that in NJ to someone you don't know well and be prepared to receive a knuckle sandwich mighty quick. Just a word to the wise.) in the response, as if I was supposed to know about your personal past with it. :rolleyes: I still couldn't find ANYTHING about this permanent venom anywhere online at all. I suggest that you ask this trauma surgeon to update the Wikipedia page on the Brown Recluse to alert people to this terrible fact about the venom. ;)

Oh, to the other guy who answered later on - I did read about the venom making it's way to the kidneys where it could cause kidney failure or even death related to that.

I know that some people have died and there was a 6 yr old girl who died several years back. I have also seen photos of the necrosis wounds and they are pretty nasty. I'm glad I don't live in the Midwest. I guess tornadoes and floods are not all there is to fret about. My wife is a slob and a clutterer and if I lived out there we'd be infested with them. We already have some sort of widow family type of spider living in our cluttered garage. Fat and widowish but not black. Greyish or brownish. The books say they aren't in NJ but I say they are.
 
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/courses/en507/papers_2005/sloat.pdf
The venom contains about eight known enzymes and proteins. Among these are sphingomyelinase D (SMD), hyaluronidase, and lipase. The primary component of the toxin is SMD. SMD is toxic to endothelial and red blood cells and becomes incorporated into cell membranes in the skin, triggering an inflammatory response while intensifying the response to pain (Mold and Thompson 2004). Hyaluronidase increases the permeability of skin cells allowing the venom to spread, while lipase is responsible for the depressed scarring (Zeglin 2005). Other components are still being studied and may lead to better therapy in the future.

However, as many diabetics know thanks to our HbA1C tests, red blood cells have a life expectancy of up to 120 days.
And skin is in a constant state of regeneration, continuously replacing the millions of dead cells we shed each day.

Still can't find anything on permanent venom toxicity.

Best bet, if it pusses up again, go to the doctor & have them identify it.
For now: cold compresses & anti-inflamitory drugs (oral and/or topical)
 
Here's what one of my more educated friends found and posted.

(Quote)its a catch 22...there have been several studies looking into Recurrent necrotising arachnidism but its still in clinical trials. even in grafted skin it occurs in 2% of those bitten, maybe lower i'd have to look in my text book. even with cultures taken, it shows no pus cells or organisms nothing to suggest a reaction to antivenom...junctional punch biopsy's show necrotic tissue with acute inflammatory cell infiltrate around many small vessels, but no features suggesting vasculitis.

Mycoplasma ulcerans infection is sometimes associated with BR bites but that is on very rare occasions.....nothing in the medical journals is found to support relapses but the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, the number of reoccuring cases has dropped....

here's a quote i found interesting.."some cases of "necrotic arachnidism" prove rather resistant to successful grafting. However, once grafted, lesions affected by "necrotic arachnidism" tend to recur early, not 12 months later. It is most unlikely that venom would remain active but quiescent over such a period, and so the cause for the subsequent graft failure is unclear. An immune mechanism might be invoked, and infection is also worth considering, even in the absence of positive cultures. I have seen a number of cases of suspected necrotic arachnidism over the last 20 years in which local relapse has occurred after a prolonged period of apparent healing. The cause for such relapses has never been clearly documented"(Quote)

The part underlined does support IGG.

I've asked him for the source, I'll post it when I get it.

This was provided by my buddy Wayne. Thanks dude.
 
Thanks. It could be some sort of immune response though, the body itself doing it. Then again without enough research.... IN other words with enough research they might find something about it. It's just the venom can't stick around. It's not a virus. This is probably an immune response as they suggested. Very interesting either way.
 
Here's the skunk in the works ya'll...brown recluse do not inhabit California where IGG was initially bitten. Check the website dedicated to the brown recluse and others I posted earlier.

Cheers, TB.
 
texas blues said:
Here's the skunk in the works ya'll...brown recluse do not inhabit California where IGG was initially bitten. Check the website dedicated to the brown recluse and others I posted earlier.

Cheers, TB.

Dude, brown recluses are everywhere. I found the bastard that bit me and killed it. I can assure it was a recluse.
 
There are not many species of spiders in California that have a lethal bite, among them we can name the black widow and the brown recluse spider.

The black widow has a very toxic poison that acts in the nervous system. Fortunately, the quantity of poison this spider injects is small; Besides, is a very elusive species, and in general, does not like living near human beings. The bite of the black widow can be treated and is rarely mortal.

The lonely brown recluse spider or "violin spider" (recluse loxosceles) does not live in California, but in the South of the State; at the base of the mountains in the Sonora and Mojave deserts, lives a close relative of them, the Loxosceles deserta. Is a very elusive specie that avoids the contact with human beings, although sometimes, we can find it in our homes, specially in dry and isolated places, such us attics, closets, garages and places used to store objects during long periods. Other specie is the Loxosceles laeta, with its roots in Southamerica, was found for the first time in Los Angeles in 1969, but its arrival is unknown. The brown recluse spider’s bite causes many types of reactions.

The bites of the black widowed like the bites of the brown recluse spider are in general painless, what makes us to ignore them. In a few hours, the bite starts to hurt and the skin inflates. The victim can also show nauseas and slight general pain. Just in a few cases the brown recluse spider’s bites can get infected and cause temperature, or destroy the red corpuscles and, eventually, a surgery in the affected area must be needed. In serious cases of black widowed’s bites, some people can suffer from breathing problems and perspire. However, both bites have slight consequences and the symptoms decrease on their own in a few days.

As quoted from brownrecluse.org HAH! In your face Spiderman!

Cheers, TB.
 
What part of Cali were you in IGG when you got tagged? How do you know the spider you killed was the one that bit you? Were you able to ID it?
 
patrick said:
What part of Cali were you in IGG when you got tagged? How do you know the spider you killed was the one that bit you? Were you able to ID it?

Los Angeles, it was in a room in my house and I found the bastard a week later in my room, ID it, and took my revenge.
 
imaguitargod said:
Los Angeles, it was in a room in my house and I found the bastard a week later in my room, ID it, and took my revenge.

Revenge is sweet! Killem' all! I'm still gonna' go with the alien probe hypothesis thingy. You were probed. Yeah... definitely probed.

Cheers, TB.
 
Spiders can be anywhere. OSU Prof told me that after I mailed him a female Water Spider to ID. She invaded my daughter's suitcase at camp and made her way into our house. These things are rarely found outside the deep woods.

So... IGGY's BR could've found it's way to LA quite easily.
 
I'm fairly certain they're already in LA. I'll see what I can find.

IGG, you find a spider a week later and you think it's the same one that bit you? That might be a reach.
 
Ok, I'm happy to say it's still quite possible that IGG got tagged by a Brown Recluse. They are found all over Cali. Some of the ones used in a study I'm reading were caught in downtown L.A.
 
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