1 post tagged “spider bite”

This was going to be one of my rambly philosophical posts until I realized I actually had no idea what I wanted to talk about.

So instead, I'm going to give you a report of some of the crazy health-related stuff that's been happening to me over the past few days, and all because of one crazy little arthropod.

Late last week - I think it was Friday or Saturday - I noticed a spider bite on my right calf.  Pretty itchy, a little reddened, typical spider bite.  Didn't think much of it.  Come Sunday morning, I noticed the reddened area had gotten bigger and my leg was a little swollen.  After a consultation with my dad (an anatomy professor), the verdict was "keep an eye on it".

Throughout the day on Sunday, the bite site got increasingly worse. My calf was swelling at a slightly alarming rate and the itching was getting to the point of extreme annoyance.  Since my doctor's office isn't open on Sundays, I decided to call them the next day to see if I could get an appointment.  I spent the rest of the evening scratching madly at my calf (and listening to some pretty rad music, but that's another story).

Monday morning, I get an appointment for 11:20, go to take a shower, and notice a new development - a nasty-looking rash all over my torso.  By this point I am freaking out just slightly, wondering if it's a venom-related thing or an allergic reaction or what.  (And yes, it itches, too.)  Also by this point my calf is so sore and swollen that it's painful to put weight on it, and I highly suspect that I have a fever.

I go to the doctor's office.  After the nurse takes my vitals and leaves, my doctor comes in, and immediately knows, just from the look of the swelling and rash (which at this point has spread to my neck and thighs), what the problem is.  The bite itself was not toxic - nothing nasty like, you know, flesh-eating brown recluses - but has somehow gotten very badly infected very quickly.  The fever and rash are due to the infection, and the rash is actually a form of strep.  So he prescribes antibiotics, I go and get them and immediately take one.

Later that night, after taking a baking soda bath for the itching, I am standing in the kitchen discussing my symptoms with my parents, when out of nowhere, my chest starts feeling really tight.  I can still breathe, but am getting a tremendous amount of pressure, and my vision is starting to grow fuzzy.  Quickly, I sit down, recognizing the signs of an approaching faint.  It's several minutes before I feel like I can get up.

I still don't know why that happened.  Could have been a blood pressure issue, since I have really low blood pressure to begin with; my mom thought it might have even been some kind of panic attack, since rashes gross me out in a major way.  Whatever the reason, it scared me a lot.

The good news is, I woke up the next day with significantly decreased swelling, although there was still pain and the rash hadn't faded a bit.  I went to work for an abbreviated shift, since standing on a painful infected leg for four hours probably wouldn't have been the smartest idea.  The fever went away sometime in the afternoon.

Today my leg is almost back to normal, except for some very mild residual swelling and some superficial itching.  I went to work for my full shift with no pain.  The rash is about the same, but I figure that since it was a secondary effect of the infection, and since it's so widespread, it'll probably take longer to fade.

Spiders suck.