Had a friend almost lose her pinky finger after one bit her.
Disclaimer: I’m not trying to undermine your or your friend’s story or imply anything, if you don’t want to engage further, I totally understand.
But: As a hobby arachnologist, I’ve heard these kinds of stories soooo many times. However when you look the scientific literature, there a bunch of studies that show a systematic pattern of misdiagnosed spider bites … and and astonishing lack of studies covering actual, confirmed spider bites and their medical impacts.
I’m not sure what exactly you mean by “almost lose her pinky”, but she probably didn’t? A local doctor probably gave her some antibiotika (which is for bacteria and does fuck all against venom) and that was it.
My friend had some kind of necrosis on her pinky that left it super disfigured. I have no idea what they gave her for it, but she told me she got bit by a brown recluse. We were also 14, so she could have been lying to seem cool? I do know that her finger was gross as hell.
Yeah, this is usually how these stories go. It was a long time ago, the spider wasn’t collected, word of mouth can change the story overtime. Maybe a spider was involved and is just to be remembered as part of the story now. Who knows.
Disclaimer: I’m not trying to undermine your or your friend’s story or imply anything, if you don’t want to engage further, I totally understand.
But: As a hobby arachnologist, I’ve heard these kinds of stories soooo many times. However when you look the scientific literature, there a bunch of studies that show a systematic pattern of misdiagnosed spider bites … and and astonishing lack of studies covering actual, confirmed spider bites and their medical impacts.
I’m not sure what exactly you mean by “almost lose her pinky”, but she probably didn’t? A local doctor probably gave her some antibiotika (which is for bacteria and does fuck all against venom) and that was it.
My friend had some kind of necrosis on her pinky that left it super disfigured. I have no idea what they gave her for it, but she told me she got bit by a brown recluse. We were also 14, so she could have been lying to seem cool? I do know that her finger was gross as hell.
Yeah, this is usually how these stories go. It was a long time ago, the spider wasn’t collected, word of mouth can change the story overtime. Maybe a spider was involved and is just to be remembered as part of the story now. Who knows.
🤷♀️
I know 2 people that received recluse bites. One almost died and the other ended up with a big chunk of flesh taken out of their leg.
Those sound like serious medical cases. I hope the spiders involvment was well documented, because that’s extremly rare.
Nope, doctors usually say “teehee, brown recluse never bite anybody!”
That is actually good to hear.