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Don't Blame Spiders08-12-13 | News

Don't Blame Spiders

In the U.S., the brown recluse spider has a range from the southern Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. They've been found from southeastern Nebraska to central Texas and east to northwestern Georgia. Unless transported, they are not found west of the Rockies.

How many times have you been bitten by a spider while working? According to an analysis conducted by Geoffrey Isbister, MD, and Hui Wen Fan, PhD, probably never even though you might have attributed sores on your skin to the bite of an arachnid.

Isbister's and Fan's research concluded that spider bites aren't as common as most people and most doctors think. Their findings showed that people often mistake insect bites, chemical burns, allergic reactions, and skin infections for spider bites.

There are more than 41,000 known species of spiders, but very few have bites harmful to humans. The two most common in the U.S. are the black widow and the brown recluse. Their bites cause very different reactions.

The bite of the black widow may not be very painful at first but can gradually intensify. It commonly manifests as back and belly pain that can last for hours or even days.

Likewise, the bite of the brown recluse can be mild and just cause an itchy bump. But in more severe cases, a sharp, deep pain can develop followed by a burning feeling. The area around the bite can become a deep ulcer that takes weeks to heal. In the worst cases, a sizeable area of skin can die, sometimes leading to the death of the victim.

As an example of how rare spider bites are, the researchers cited an incident where a family in Lenexa, Kan., collected 2,055 brown recluse spiders over six months in their home but the four family members had suffered no bites in eight years.

And as an example of how spider bites can be wrongly diagnosed, the study found that over a six-year period, Florida poison control centers received 844 brown recluse bite reports even though extensive searches have turned up none of the spiders in that state.

A cruel irony found by the researchers was that this misinformation and an overall poor understanding of spider bites often delayed treatment in authentic cases.