Day: May 4, 2025

Spider Bite Chronicles

writ­ten 5/4/25, updat­ed 5/4/25

Foreword

I have skeeter syn­drome to begin with, yet I real­ly enjoy being out­side doing yard­work and gar­den­ing. It’s a bad mix. I’ve also been bit­ten, scratched, and stung by lots of crit­ters in the past… and my body reacts pow­er­ful­ly to them. Here, I chron­i­cle my spi­der bites. My mos­qui­to bites I have chron­i­cled on a dif­fer­ent post (and poi­son ivy, too). It’s impor­tant to note that my immune sys­tem is odd, and these lesions rarely ful­ly dis­ap­pear in a hur­ry. They tend to hang around and flare back up for some time.

Memorable Cases

October 2024

Loca­tion: Across fore­head

Symp­tom Dura­tion: Oct 5, 2024 — Oct 15, 2024; 10 days

36 hours

48 hours

Day 3

Day 4

Facial swelling and lymph node involve­ment, spread­ing to eye a lit­tle, let up around 10 days lat­er

May 2025

Loca­tion: Right eye area

Symp­tom Dura­tion: May 2 — May 9 (7 days)

4 Hours

Uh oh. It’s start­ing.

14 hours

Affect­ing vision from inflam­ma­tion, increased BP. Notice the eye­brow pushed upwards from swelling

24 hours

Fever, lymph node involve­ment. I feel bad­ly. Bite site has filled with pus

27 hours

Tired, diar­rhea, spread­ing under the eye

36 hours

Very itchy, hard to see, painful to turn head from lymph nodes, still diar­rhea, but feel much bet­ter

48 hours

Doing bet­ter. Great­ly less inflamed, bite is weep­ing, neck very itchy and stiff from lymph nodes. You can see the eye­brow has come down

60 hours

When­ev­er I wake up it looks worse, but swelling under the eye and around cheeks are decreased, and bite is weep­ing heav­i­ly now

72 hours (3 days)

Weep­ing con­tin­u­ing, swelling notice­ably dimin­ished, side of face still a bit stiff when talk­ing, neck itchy, inflam­ma­tion going in and out

4 days

Marked­ly dif­fer­ent, slept sound­ly, weep­ing has most­ly stopped, zero dis­com­fort on head turn­ing, side of face feels most­ly nor­mal, minor swelling remains (eye­brow still mild­ly raised)