Woman loses breast after brown recluse spider bite

Woman Loses Breast After Spider Bite

Updated: 9:55 am EDT May 21, 2010

PAULDING COUNTY, Ga. -- A Paulding County woman is recovering from major surgery after being bitten by a brown recluse spider at her home.

“I would have never known in a million years that a spider could ever do this much damage,” said Victoria Franklin.

Franklin was at WellStar Windy Hill Hospital Friday morning, recovering from an April mastectomy.

“I didn’t flip out over that. I was glad to be alive,” she said of her surgery.
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Warning from the web of Brown Recluse Spider

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Send this around to people you love, because it is almost summertime.

People will be digging around, doing yard work, spring cleaning, and sometimes in their attics.


The Dangerous Brown Recluse Spider

Please be careful. Spider bites are dangerous and can have permanent and highly negative consequences.

They like the darkness and tend to live in storage sheds or attics or other areas that might not be frequented by people or light.


If you have a need to be in your attic, go up there and turn on a light and leave it on for about 30 minutes before you go in to do your work!

The brown recluse spider,

Loxosceles reclusa, is a well-known member of the family Sicariidae (formerly placed in a family "Loxoscelidae"). It is usually between 6–20 mm (¼ in and ¾ in) but may grow larger. It is brown and sometimes an almost deep yellow color and usually has markings on the dorsal side of its cephalothorax, with a black line coming from it that looks like a violin with the neck of the violin pointing to the rear of the spider, resulting in the nicknames fiddleback spider, brown fiddler or violin spider. Coloring varies from light tan to brown and the violin marking may not be visible.

Habitat
Recluse spiders build irregular webs that frequently include a shelter consisting of disorderly threads. These spiders frequently build their webs in woodpiles and sheds, closets, garages, cellars and other places that are dry and generally undisturbed. They seem to favor cardboard when dwelling in human residences, possibly because it mimics the rotting tree bark which they naturally inhabit. They also go in shoes, inside dressers, in bed sheets of infrequently used beds, in stacks of clothes, behind baseboards, behind pictures and near furnaces. The common source of human-recluse contact is during the cleaning of these spaces, when their isolated spaces suddenly are disturbed and the spider feels threatened. Unlike most web weavers, they leave these webs at night to hunt. Males will move around more when hunting while females don't usually stray far from their web.

Bite treatment
First aid involves the application of an ice pack to control inflammation, the application of aloe vera to soothe and help control the pain, and prompt medical care. If it can be easily captured, the spider should be brought with the patient in a clear, tightly closed container so it may be identified. However, by the time the bite is noticed any spider found nearby is not likely to be the culprit.

There is no established treatment for necrosis. Routine treatment should include elevation and immobilization of the affected limb, application of ice, local wound care, and tetanus prophylaxis. Many other therapies have been used with varying degrees of success including hyperbaric oxygen, dapsone, antihistamines (e.g., cyproheptadine), antibiotics, dextran, glucocorticoids, vasodilators, heparin, nitroglycerin, electric shock, curettage, surgical excision, and antivenom. None of these treatments have been subjected to controlled, randomized trials to conclusively show benefit. In almost all cases, bites are self-limited and typically heal without any medical intervention.[3]

It is important to seek medical treatment if a brown recluse bite is suspected, as in the rare cases of necrosis the effects can quickly spread, particularly when the venom reaches a blood vessel. Cases of brown recluse venom traveling along a limb through a vein or artery are rare, but the resulting mortification of the tissue can affect an area as large as several inches, to the extreme of requiring excising of the wound. While it is possible, and even likely, that many cases of "brown recluse bites" are indeed misidentifications of other infections or envenomations, the brown recluse has justly earned its reputation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider