Bitten By A Black Widow Spider
Posted by scarygeek on January 8, 2010 at 20:15 pm
Probably one of my most scary experiences ever, was the night I was bitten by a Black Widow spider. I was out cleaning the yard earlier in the day, and while I was trimming bushes, I came across a Black Widow spider that I accidentally killed with my glove. I felt bad for killing it, as I don’t like to kill any living thing insect or otherwise, especially if it is outdoors. It was a warm day, one of the warmest of the summer, and we turned the air conditioning on for the first time all year. There was a vent right above my bed, and I guess I should have checked them all when I turned the air on. Well, I went to bed and curled up under the covers as usual, when all of a sudden I felt a horrible itchy feeling. I scratched and tried to go to sleep, but not ten seconds a later it started to become more intense, and I had a strange feeling that I had been bitten by something. In the time it took me to get up and run to the bathroom to check my back, I could feel my lymph nodes swelling, and they started to ache. I looked into the mirror and I saw three large red spots on my back. I turned on the light and went to my bed, lifted the covers and found a squished black widow. I guess it had flown out of the vent and into my bed, and somehow I managed to roll over it and get bit, not once, but three times. By now, the itch was unbearable, and the pain was getting worse. I called the urgent care and they told me that people get bit by black widows all of the time, and that I should just take a Tylenol and go to sleep. Okay, I thought, my dad has been bitten a couple of times and he is okay, so I took the Tylenol and jumped into bed again. Of course, I couldn’t sleep, not because I was scared, but because I started to experience muscle spasms over my entire body, which made me feel like I was giving birth again. I was sweating, and felt these strong spasms in my bladder and stomach. So, I decided to call the doctor again, and they said I could come in if I felt I needed to. I called my mom, who lived only a couple of miles away, but by the time she got there I was in extreme pain. I tried to walk outside and my knees gave out. It was a horrible feeling. When I got to the emergency room my heart rate was in the upper 170’s to 240’s, my respiration’s were elevated, and I could feel my heart beat pounding through my chest. We brought the spider with us, and they confirmed it as a black widow, and then they decided they should give me the anti-venom, after the Valium and anti-anxiety medications weren’t working. After the dose of anti-venom everything was better. I had residual symptoms for about a week, almost like having a bad flu. I couldn’t work for a week. I stay away from black widows now, and definitely watch my kids in areas that they like to hide.
Tags:anti-venom, bite, bitten, black widow, emergency, experience, itch, pain, room, Spiders, summer