What bit me? ...and am I okay?

[Alex Franke]

Could it be ink poison?

That thought actually crossed my mind! Every time I outline it, it ends up a bit bigger the next time around. I suppose the same thing would happen if I had a reaction to the ink! :lol:

It was a saddle back caterpillar.

Creepy.

Not for nothing (and apologies to all the docs here), but would you ask a doctor how to do a glue up?

I hear ya. But it always helps to know what other people would do.

I'll ask the doctor what kind of glue she would use to attach the ice cream scoop to the handle I turned last night... we'll she what she says. :lol:

[Kristofor]

Oh wait - that's only if the spider was radioactive...

Pffft, you're showing your age! Fear of radiation was so 1960's

These days you want the ones with red and blue manipulated DNA, or at least that's what a $1B+ in Hollywood ticket sales say...

[Alex Franke]

I just got back from surgery. (Well, she brought out the knife to see if there was a stinger -- even though I assured her there was not.) There was no stinger.

10 days of antibiotics for cellulitis.

[radhak]

keep checking to see if I'm alive.

So are you alive yet?

[MilDoc]

When it comes to spider bites, "many are called but few are chosen". I would guess that only about 1% of patients I have seen who think they were bitten by a spider actually were bitten by a spider.

Gotta agree with germdoc. IMHO < 1% of the "spider bites" I see are actually spider bites. Most nowadays are injuries with subsequent Staph infection. And BTW not all brown recluse bites turn serious (few, really), and the BR is actually uncommon in your area, common in mine. Bites are rare because the BR would rather run then bite.

And from the look of your picture, this was not a spider bite. There is no central ulceration common to spider bites. And with brown recluse bites, in most cases the bite is painless and the bitten is not even aware of it until later.

You obviously have a reaction and/or cellulitis. If it's swollen, tender, and warm (tumor, rubor dolar in Latin) then probably the latter. Either way an antibiotic wouldn't hurt, along with warm compresses and careful observation.

If it looked like cellulitis to me I would have injected a small amount of sterile saline at the edge, then withdrawn it for culture.

[Bruce Cohen]

If it looked like cellulitis to me I would have injected a small amount of sterile saline at the edge, then withdrawn it for culture.

Isn't that something women get on their butt.

Bruce

[germdoc]

Isn't that something women get on their butt.

Bruce

That's celluLITE, and getting rid of it is no picnic:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...irming-op.html

[Alex Franke]

Thanks guys! You're the best!!

I haven't seen a wasp up there in over a month, and there weren't any wasp-like holes in the chair leg where I set my arm down. (It was on the bottom of a 1.5-in square leg of a wooden chair that was turned upside down atop another chair.) But maybe it was a little one hiding on the side...

The wasps we get up there are mud wasps, which I'm told are probably the most docile wasps around. Like a lot of spiders, they'll apparently only bite/sting when pressed against.

Of course, it could have also been something completely different. The only critters I know have been up there though are spiders, wasps, and flying squirrels. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a flying squirrel.

7 days of cephalexin is what I got, btw (not 10 days that I originally reported).

[tung tied]

Coulda been a Cow Killer. They are somewhat solitary in nature but give a lasting impression. Seen them in Durham and Hillsborough

[pierhogunn2]

glad to hear that it's not something more serious