WTF Has Bitten My Sister

[KevRSA]

Hi Everyone
friday the 31st of December my sister had a small bite on her leg, on the 1st of Jan she was complainig she was feeling ill and the bite had increased in size, We decided to take her to the doctor and they did tests on her and gave her a pain injection.

The Sunday morning she had a high fever and was throwing up, the bite had increased in size again! and she had to be rushed to hospital.

Today is the 9th of January and shes been in hospital for a week now, The doctors cant explain the bite, they have done plenty of scans/blood-tests etc... but the doctors cant pick anything up. The don't know if it was a spider, Snake, scorpian bite and they are very worried about it. She has been on many different types of drips and anti-biotics an nothing has helped.

Im not sure what to do... but is there any type of links or referals that you guys can give me to get information? - I have attached a pic to show you what the bite looks like and now its spreading towards her lower leg.

Thank-You Very Much - As i say I'm very worried!

 

[copacetic]

The picture.

 

[copacetic]

That looks like quite a serious bite, whatever it is.

I hope someone here has some insight.

All the best.

 

[ponder]

There are some nasty goggos out the there which could put you in hospital for a while. Determining what it was after the fact is not always that easy.

Could be a spider, Loxosceles (family Sicariidae) and Cheiracanthium (family Miturgidae). Whatever it was though seems to have a cytotoxic venom.
Won't be a scorpion as they have neurotoxic venom.

http://www.spiderclub.co.za/medical.html
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...m2sVp4&sig=AHIEtbQY9-j9_o3sHawUV6Dg1NbIwQR9Mg
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...UPbn8l&sig=AHIEtbQpG_oc0U2OZt01vlf_wuJM7-8G9Q

Those purple parts look like necrosis.

 

[KevRSA]

The picture.

Thanks I was too sure on how to insert pictures

 

[VioAdmin]

Damn, id suggest if it doesn't improve in the next 2 days to get her to a bigger/better hospital in SA, fly her to Cape Town if you have to.

 

[kilobits]

A family member had a smaller but similar bite from a spider recently... I found this while looking around the net then... your pic reminded me of the one below...

Here is the link to the page that pic came from...

Hope she recoveres soon !

 

[GreGorGy]

Since you are in GP, check out the toxicology centre in Edenvale. It may be part of the edenvale hospital. It is thereabouts anyway.

 

[w1z4rd]

Im an amateur herpetologist and I have seen similar bites to that. It looks like a cytotoxic bite. Its the only venom I know that does so much damage around the bite. Sounds like the docs are doing the right thing keeping antibodies going because I think her biggest risk now is tissue damage and tissue decay (necrosis).

Thats most likely a spider bite. If it was a snake it would be worse.

 

[shogun]

First up... IANAVCE (I am not a venomous creature expert)

That looks like a bad version of a sac spider bite. Seen a more timid version of that on a friend. Wasn't as bad (could be because they were bitten lower down the leg), but similar in appearance. The person I know was bitten (didn't even know), realised it a day or two later as a bruise. It got progressively worse over the next week or two, and took months to heal. They didn't complain of feeling ill or throwing up... but they do have a nasty scar from the necrosis. If it's not that, it could be another form of spider, but it looks a lot like a spider bite.

 

[copacetic]

I am also under the impression some people are allergic to certain bites, so what would normally not do much to one person, could really do some damage to the allergic person.

 

[KevRSA]

I looked on the spider-club website and saw that for all cyto-toxic bites a thing called tetanus toxoid must be given to the patient, i wonder if they have done this?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Nasty thing.

Hope she recovers.

 

[stricken]

Thats CytoToxic. You need to get to a Hospital ASAP. When that heals that whole round bulge is gonna turn into a crater, tissue dead forever.

I would say it a bite by a black widow or "knopies" spider.

 

[Pitbull]

Hi Everyone
friday the 31st of December my sister had a small bite on her leg, on the 1st of Jan she was complainig she was feeling ill and the bite had increased in size, We decided to take her to the doctor and they did tests on her and gave her a pain injection.

The Sunday morning she had a high fever and was throwing up, the bite had increased in size again! and she had to be rushed to hospital.

Today is the 9th of January and shes been in hospital for a week now, The doctors cant explain the bite, they have done plenty of scans/blood-tests etc... but the doctors cant pick anything up. The don't know if it was a spider, Snake, scorpian bite and they are very worried about it. She has been on many different types of drips and anti-biotics an nothing has helped.

Im not sure what to do... but is there any type of links or referals that you guys can give me to get information? - I have attached a pic to show you what the bite looks like and now its spreading towards her lower leg.

Thank-You Very Much - As i say I'm very worried!

Would be great to start with where your sister stays or where she was bitten (Area)?

 

[ponder]

Thats CytoToxic. You need to get to a Hospital ASAP. When that heals that whole round bulge is gonna turn into a crater, tissue dead forever.

I would say it a bite by a black widow or "knopies" spider.

Which has a neurotoxic venom.

 

[copacetic]

I am not under the impression that we have any spiders native to SA that could cause such a wound, outside of an allergic reaction.

The only one I can think of is the Violin spider, but I've not seen a picture of a bite by one that even remotely reaches the dimensions of the image here.

 

[sand_man]

Agreed, Violin spider would have been my bet too...

 

[KevRSA]

the doctor told us that he had suspected it to be a Violin Spider, When I got to the hospital today the reddness of her leg has no gone up to her Knee and they have put her on the most "expensive" anti-biotic on the market - But still it isnt working, Im going to talk to the doctors about Tetanus Toxoid tomorrow and see what they say

 

[copacetic]

the doctor told us that he had suspected it to be a Violin Spider, When I got to the hospital today the reddness of her leg has no gone up to her Knee and they have put her on the most "expensive" anti-biotic on the market - But still it isnt working, Im going to talk to the doctors about Tetanus Toxoid tomorrow and see what they say

I hope things start improving soon.