How should SPIDER BITES be treated...????

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Depends on the spider. I'd normally catch the bugger or collect his remains and treat it like a snake bite and head to the hospital! a brown recluse can wreck your day, not to mention kill you dead!

P.S
A good addition to any snake bite kit is a large caliber syringe with the needle end sawed off to extract venom.
 
I agree with everything @Magus said except for the Syringe, I don't do needles (pass out) due to bad young exposures. Back on topic, I have direct experience with the brown recluse, that bugger will wreck your week (many days) and you will not forget it...
 
The Lazy L said:
Spider bites I don’t treat or seek medical help. I do keep an eye on the bite (as I do for other insect bites) to confirm it isn’t turning in a serious condition.
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I used to think that way, until the brown, got the ring around the bite, swelling redness, then purple and black, and then chunks fell out; it was a really bad experience that I wished I had treated sooner.
 
As a DYI person I recently (several months ago) treated a brown recluse bite with mouthwash and the sun. When I was bitten by a black widow years ago there was no treating the bite, it was just a matter of living through it! That was before I discovered L-Lysine. Fever, difficulty breathing, hives, body aches, weakness for about 10 days!! Ibuprofen, Querticin, Tart Cherry, Apple Cider vinegar, were some of the supplements I took!
 
UrbanHunter said:
I agree with everything @Magus said except for the Syringe, I don't do needles (pass out) due to bad young exposures. Back on topic, I have direct experience with the brown recluse, that bugger will wreck your week (many days) and you will not forget it...
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You missed it bro, you cut the needle entirely off and use the suction to remove the venom.:)
 
Unfortunately you don't always realize that you got bit by a spider until later. I have a scar in the middle of my forehead where I got bit twice while sleeping. Took several days before I even realized it was spider bites and not just a zit coming in. At that point there was no way to know what kind so just took a wait and see approach. Was a long process and got pretty nasty. I just made sure to keep it clean and put Neosporin on it.
 
Here in the southeast... a suspected spider bite is treated with a shot antibiotics. Just on the off chance of a resulting infection. That’s all modern medicine can do when the species of spider is unknown and for most cases when the culprit is known.

The first time I used a plant as medicine was on myself. I was bitten by a brown recluse, saw it happen. Not the first time I’d been bitten by a b.recluse either. Thankfully 90% of the time a brown recluse doesn’t envenomate when they bite. Previously I hadn’t been envenomated but didn’t know so I went to the er for a shot of antibiotics.…

On this last occasion I got an immediate histamine reaction and swelling started. I used one of the plantain species (Plantago virginica) because of it’s ability to “draw out” venom from bites.

I’d chew up a plantain leaf to break the cell structure then hold it on the bite with a bandaid. I'd put on a fresh leaf every 3 or 4 hours. In 3 days I could no longer see where the spider bit me.

It’s my standard go to for any insect bite including spiders. I’d also use it for a snake bite.

Here's the link... Plantain

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That said there is an antivenom just for black widow bites. It’s works for some people but the rest get a severe allergic reaction to the antivenom.
 
I've never tried it before, but I understand that castor oil is also good 'drawer out' of poisons and such. I have a container of castor oil along with gauze that I can soak and wear it over night with a wrap, depending on where the bite is. It might be a good thing to use over top of the plantain? With both of those working together, you might be able to pull the poison out quicker. If nothing else, it certainly wouldn't hurt anything to try it while you sleep.
 
There are NO "Brown Recluse" in Alaska. But very rarely someone will get bite by one that was in furniture shipped to Alaska.
 
hashbrown said:
My grandfather was bit by copperheads twice that I remember he swore by kerosene. He would soak a rag in Kerosene and wrap it around the bite for a few days. I don’t know if he it actually helped much but that’s what he did for most types of bites. He was tougher than most folks though.
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Straying from topic a bit........good story for Hashbrown......an older lady I cleaned for ( she's been gone several years) cut the end of her finger off when she was a kid. She said her mom soaked strips of material in kerosene and wrapped the finger, severed tip in place, and told her not to even slightly bump it!! She wasn't sure how long or how many bandage changes, but the finger tip grew back on!! The skin and nail were darker than the rest of the finger!
 
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For our family, we do the following:

Baking Soda = Bee
Vinegar = Wasp
Activated Charcoal (can be bought in pill capsules) = Spider

All three of those help. If I'm not sure if it was a bee or wasp, I'll try both. One will work and if treated right away, the pain will be gone almost immediately. Charcoal absorbs things very well which is why we use it for spider bites.
 
Sourdough said:
There are NO "Brown Recluse" in Alaska. But very rarely someone will get bite by one that was in furniture shipped to Alaska.
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This used to be true in Colorado, until we had a news story about a guy in a state prison who was bitten by one. They travel in packages and other shipped items. I imagine packages and other things get shipped to Alaska, and there fore, brown recluse do as well.

Now to answer your original question: there are different kinds of reactions to spider bites, depending on the kind of spider. A brown recluse spider bite is nothing to mess with. The area around the bite rots away and exposes muscle and bone.

Symptoms of a brown recluse spider bite include:
  • Reddened skin that may be followed by a blister that forms at the bite site.
  • Mild to intense pain and itching for 2 to 8 hours following the bite.
  • An open sore (ulcer) with a breakdown of tissue (necrosis) that develops a week or more following the bite.
Symptoms of a Black Widow Spider Bite
  • Muscles that begin to hurt and get stiff, usually within 8 hours.
  • Nausea or vomiting.
  • Trouble breathing.
  • Serious belly pain or cramping.
  • Heavy sweating.
  • Rash and itching.
  • Swollen eyelids.
  • Weakness or shaking.
https://www.britannica.com/list/9-of-the-worlds-deadliest-spiders
Both my daughter and I were medically treated for spider bites one month. There were spiders, but unlike many people, I didn't get too excited about them at that time. I had studied them with my students and knew that they catch insects, so what was the big deal?Daughter had a blister on her finger that was full of puss, and I had one on my toe. I had heart palpitations. That scared me.
 
While we're talking about stings, any good remedies for packsaddle, tobacco worm and other stinging caterpillar stings? I have heard paint thinner, nail polish remover and even WD-40 will help by dissolving the toxic spines.
 
My coworker was bitten by a spider just last week. No water to tell for sure what kind of spider, but the bite has signs of the brown recluse. It got him on the outside of his thigh. It began to swell after a day and the area turned really red and hard and the second day began to itch. He said it was like having bugs crawling under his skin. When the redness began to spread he went to the ER. Brown recluse venom has bacteria in it, apparently, and that causes the necrosis. The antibiotics began to help right away, but he still missed 5 days of work.

Spiders are nothing to ignore. I don't mind them outside but if they get in my house they're goners. I don't care if they eat bugs or not...
 
Thankfully Brown recluse spiders live up to their name. They are very reclusive, will not stay in areas with a lot of movement. They stay out of the way, hidden in places that aren't disturbed... like closets. A busy household has little to worry about. 99% of the time when i see them, they are outside in the shop or barns. They love dusty old buildings.

That's also their achilles heel. They can't survive hard freezes. Check the hard freeze line on a weather map of the country... that's the boundary. South of that line they survive winters and live season to season. North of that line, not so much. Might see one if they hitch a ride on a truck or in a pkg but they won't survive the following winter. They love hot weather...

I take precautions in my home... like when seasons change and I swap winter/summer clothes. I'll got through all of the ones i bring out carefully. The only b recluse spiders I see in my home are young males out looking for a mate, happen to wander into my neighborhood. They die quickly.

In summer I occasionally get a wolf spider in the house, have one now living in my bathroom. They earned their name... they kill any creepy crawly that gets in my house. After a week or so they run out of food, get hungry and wander back outside. Normally i hate spiders but make an exception for the wolf spider.
 
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Peanut said:
Thankfully Brown recluse spiders live up to their name. They are very reclusive, will not stay in areas with a lot of movement. They stay out of the way, hidden in places that aren't disturbed... like closets. A busy household has little to worry about. 99% of the time when i see them, they are outside in the shop or barns. They love dusty old buildings.

That's also their achilles heel. They can't survive hard freezes. Check the hard freeze line on a weather map of the country... that's the boundary. South of that line they survive winters and live season to season. North of that line, not so much. Might see one if they hitch a ride on a truck or in a pkg but they won't survive the following winter. They love hot weather...

I take precautions in my home... like when seasons change and I swap winter/summer clothes. I'll got through all of the ones i bring out carefully. The only b recluse spiders I see in my home are young males out looking for a mate, happen to wander into my neighborhood. They die quickly.

In summer I occasionally get a wolf spider in the house, have one now living in my bathroom. They earned their name... they kill any creepy crawly that gets in my house. After a week or so they run out of food, get hungry and wander back outside. Normally i hate spiders but make an exception for the wolf spider.
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@Peanut wolf spiders get smushed at my house. When I was in high school I had a water bed that was nice and toasty warm during winter. The damn wolf spiders loved that bed. I woke up with one crawling on me more than once, and got bitten a couple times. The bites are minor, looking like a large pimple that gets hard and crusty. They don't hurt much, they're just annoying. But those experiences gave me a life long hatred of wolf spiders, and spiders in general. The black and yellow garden spiders and the little jumping spiders can vanish too, for all I care...
 
Spikedriver said:
My coworker was bitten by a spider just last week. No water to tell for sure what kind of spider, but the bite has signs of the brown recluse. It got him on the outside of his thigh. It began to swell after a day and the area turned really red and hard and the second day began to itch. He said it was like having bugs crawling under his skin. When the redness began to spread he went to the ER. Brown recluse venom has bacteria in it, apparently, and that causes the necrosis. The antibiotics began to help right away, but he still missed 5 days of work.

Spiders are nothing to ignore. I don't mind them outside but if they get in my house they're goners. I don't care if they eat bugs or not...
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I agree, spiders SUCK! I'd rather have the other bugs!!
 
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