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.