Brown recluse bite?

Just curious if anyone here has dealt with a confirmed brown recluse bite.  I got bit probably sunday-monday of last week. Noticed the bite probably tuesday and started feeling the body aches and lethargy wednesday. Now its been a full week of feeling completely miserable like i fell off a roof or got hit by a truck.  Apparently it became infected as well.  I did a tela-doc appt over the weekend and got cephalexin proscribed.  I was worried it was getting out of hand so i went to the emergency room yesterday. Got a iv of saline and some pain meds while my blood was tested. Labs were good so i was released with another antibiotic to add in. This makes a full 7 days of feeling miserable.  Im stuck in bed or laying on the couch and i regularly get the cold sweats so bad i soak my clothes, the sheets, blanket, etc. 
 

im just curious if anyone has some real life data to share.  When i do get to feeling better, one of my first moves is to load up some insecticide and kill every insect i can on the property. 
 

the bite has not changed much. The necrotic spot on the bite is probably 3/8", puffy area around it about the size of a quarter. 
 

My daughter got bit on her leg a couple months ago.  We started drawing a circle around the inflamed area to keep track of it.  It went from probably quarter size to baseball size within about 2 days.  We got her on some antibiotics and it cleared up in a few days.  She was pretty nauseous for a few days.

Are you sure it was a spider?   Some of your symptoms sound like Lyme disease...   Just saying.

Stay in touch with the doctors.  If you don't start improving go back.

i spend too much time crawling under houses.  constant fear.  

Purple Frog (Forum Supporter) said:

Are you sure it was a spider?   Some of your symptoms sound like Lyme disease...   Just saying.

Stay in touch with the doctors.  If you don't start improving go back.

i spend too much time crawling under houses.  constant fear.  

Yeah, when I dealt with brown recluse bites in the army the bite wasn't particularly painful and symptoms weren't bad really.   The problem is the site of necrosis may need debridement (cutting away dead tissue) to heal properly.   Your symptoms sound like something else (possibly Lyme).

Call around and find a specialist in bites and such, your average ER doc doesn't have the relevant experience.

My buddy in Nebraska got bit on his side while laying in bed. The dumbass didn't go to the doctor for almost a week afterwards. The wound got to about 3" in diameter and he ended up with sepsis and nearly died. He spent a week in the hospital. Recluse bites are no joke. Good on you for going to the ER. I don't have any data to when you should start feeling better unfortunately. You might want to contact the teledoc again. Please stay on top of it.

I'm getting tested for Lyme right now (gave blood, waiting for results) for these exact symptoms, although I have not found any bite spots.  Had to ask SWMBO to do a THOROUGH check :)

Fever and nausea are typical for strong reactions to a Recluse bite.  The big indicator is an intense, deep itching at the site which doesn't typically happen with tick/lyme.  The venom creates a modest necrosis in a generalized area around the bite which feels like... well.... Ever wake up and find that you've been sleeping on an extremity and it is so tingly and dead that you can't even move it?  Now add to that an itch so deep that you can't scratch it, and even if you could, it wouldn't matter because you can't feel the scratching from your fingers.  Recluse venom is a neurotoxin, so it messes with your nerves as well as soft tissue.

I'm not doubting your diagnosis at all, but what were the criteria by which it was confirmed that it was Brown Recluse?  About 15 years ago, I was completely covered with Recluse bites.  I sat in a lawn chair that collapsed and I fell into an old, rotten wood pile.  Must have been a fresh hatch of a whole clutch because I was instantly covered like a fell asleep on an ant hill.  Doctors counted 60 bites and the worst that happened was one of the bites became a bit infected, but nothing beyond a topical antibiotic couldn't handle.

Everyone reacts differently, but I'm just curious - having had this encounter myself - what the criterion was for determining that it definitely was a Recluse bite.

I like a Koch Mason dressing for recluse bites.  

Take a warm, moist washcloth, DO NOT use one that will upset your wife if it is destroyed. Cover the bite, wrap a dry hand towel around this. Cover with saran wrap, NOT TOO TIGHT. Change after 10-12 hours.

The moist will encourage it to drain, the dry towel over wet one will help draw the crap away from the wound, the saran wrap holds in the body heat, bacteria have a fairly narrow temp range where they will survive. Warm them up and they die, one of the reasons you get a fever when you are sick.

Don't be surprised if you remove it and the washcloth has some nasty goo on it.

I like honey products for this sort of stuff.  You can make a paste out of honey and iodine, or use straight Manuka Honey on it, Whole foods should have it, or ask at a pharmacy about honey for wound care.

Don't screw around thinking it is going to heal by magic or luck.  Keflex is pretty weak sauce for this.  You want coverage for MRSA, maybe doxycycline or Sulfa, with flagyl to give better coverage for gram negative stuff.  You want a week or two of the right antibiotic, Keflex ain't it.

Thanks everyone. The hospital seemed ok with the first antibiotic and added "bactrim" sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim for 10 days. The wound is "open" so they said just keep it clean, no special treatment for now as it will drain itself. Its not really puffy anymore so thats good i guess.  I have a follow up apt soon. I'll try to remember to ask if the blood test would have shown lyme diseae. When they saw the bite, they went right to a recluse. Here is a pic of it from yesterday, its right at my ankle. This was right after a shower so it had been wet. 

Oh and the bite didnt really itch. Maybe a little, i think thats how i first found it, but it's not itchy at all now. 

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

Thanks everyone. The hospital seemed ok with the first antibiotic and added "bactrim" sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim for 10 days. The wound is "open" so they said just keep it clean, no special treatment for now as it will drain itself. Its not really puffy anymore so thats good i guess.  I have a follow up apt soon. I'll try to remember to ask if the blood test would have shown lyme diseae. When they saw the bite, they went right to a recluse. Here is a pic of it from yesterday, its right at my ankle. This was right after a shower so it had been wet. 

Yeah... That ain't no tick bite.  At least not like I've ever seen.

If they were okay with the first antibiotic, they would not have given you the Sulfa.  I suspect it did not start to improve until you were taking that.  

Do the wound care I described above and it will heal far, far more quickly.  Don't just leave it open, wounds don't "need air"  All the cells in your body that are going to heal that for you are going to get to the jobsite by swimming, not flying.

Thanks Toebra, i'll try the wound treatment. I think the sulfa did the trick, i feel like im coming out of it now. Less body ache today. Id feel a lot better if i could shake this headache.  

Lots of fluids will help with the headache probably.   Ibuprofen would help with achy breaky body and the headache.

I had EXACTLY the same thing on my arm, dang thing could be "controlled" with neosporin but it would flare if I wasn't slathering it every 4-6 hours. I hate DRs (no offense) but finally went to a urgent care in Indy and he called it cellulitis, gave me cephalexin and it cleared up in 6 days. I'm allergic to penicillin/amoxicillin or he would have given me some Other thing in that range. Hope it heals up.

This is it three weeks later

I am scared of only two things in this world:

1. Getting bit by a brown recluse anywhere in the vicinity of the twig and berries or on the face.

2. Going to harbor freight in my pick-up.

Never, EVER take a pickup to HF.

(I say as I'm planning a trip to HF in my pickup truck)

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I just did to pick up my 20 ton press. 

I felt pretty decent today. Decided to mow the lawn. Its a riding mower so I wasn't hoofing it the whole time. Took me about 3 hours with breaks instead of the usual hour and 20 or so. Felt pretty good to be outside and being productive.  Had the sweats/chills the whole time so at 90 whatever degrees it was today, it felt good. The cold sweats with this are really crazy. Ive had to do laundry about every day as i sweat up so many clothes, sheets, blankets, its ridiculous. After mowing i took a shower and the migraine started coming back so i hid under a blanket on the couch for a few hours. Was enjoyable. No nap today either, first time in a while. 
 

I also realize I probably got bit on the 23rd. I had been in my overgrown flower patch, could have easily got bit then, or what i think happened is the same day my son and i took my golfcart and his powerwheels jeep to the trails at the end of the road. I hit some "quicksand" and sunk like a rock. I know that spot well. It looks like everything else but its like soup sand when its wet, and the area was soaked. Luckly i had my lil HF 2500 lb winch. Tried it on the front and after pulling a small tree out of the ground, i moved the winch to the back and used a pine tree that was at a bad angle, but it worked. The cart was sitting on the motor cradle in flowing water and thick wet sand, it was parked hard. I was flustered so not being as careful as i should have been and probably got bit when setting up the winch cable. I had to so into taller brush than i would have liked to to hook up both times, the pine tree really had me in a spot that i could easily have been bit.  I noticed the bite i think on Wednesday the 26th and it was already clearly necrotic in the center. 
 

heres the stuck cart. Its lifted 6" and i put a 20hp kohler command v-twin in it. 

the pine thats just to the right of center is what i used, you see the tall grass around it. And how soupy the mud is. My boy there with his jeep stuck too. 
 

And after tonight, i only have 1 cephalexin left! 4 of those a day has gotten annoying. Still have like 6 more days of the sulfa but its 2 a day so not too bad. 

I got bit about 18 years ago while hiking. I woke up in the middle of the night vomiting with a high fever. I was laying outside basically naked in lower teens temps and was still sweating and delirious. We walked out through the night and I slept the 6 hours home- and then through the night. I thought I had the flu. I was sick for a few more days and then found a weird boil type spot in my front hip/groin area. I went to the er and the attending told me it was an ingrown hair. It got worse and necrosis set in. I ended up debriding the 3-4 inch wound myself (painful!) and then it finally healed. I was later told it was likely a brown recluse bite. All in, it was a pretty scary week or so. . 

I had a false alarm spider bite a few years back (it was a spider bite, but not a brown recluse, which were in the shed I was tearing down). The bite got angry, I prepared for the worst. In short, the treatment I came across that I liked the sound of best was go grab some salt pork, and slap it on there. The huge amount of salt, coupled with the fact that it's meat, draw the poison out.

Note, I am not a doctor, and have never tried this home remedy. Your Results May Vary.

To OP, I hope your recovery is swift and complete.

Thanks everyone. Im doing solid now. Went at some garage shenanigans yesterday full speed. Feels great to be (mostly)back. 

Also i may have been bit by a black or brown widow on my other leg last weekend. Fun never ends. I moved my project e36 into the garage to put it on the quickjack and get it ready to get on the road. Its been sitting in the driveway under a cover for way too long so the spiders had moved in. I sprayed bug killer everywhere and killed a bunch of spiders, but after that i got a welt on my leg that kinda checks out for a widow bite. Its just a lump. No other marks or scars. 

My fiance was bitten by a brown recluse when she was in high school. Ended up in the hospital for 10 days and part of one toe is noticeably different from some of the tissue was "eaten away."

I hate Michigan winters, but one nice thing about them is that we don't get as many nasty creepy-crawlies as you folks in milder climates do. Best of luck, I hope you feel better soon.