Quote:
Originally Posted by MDT
I actually had an honest-to-God Widow envenomation several years ago. My only one. Patient was a young pregnant woman and she brought in the spider to be identified. Black Widow for sure. Minimal symptoms, but w/ the neuromuscular stuff, she was at risk for uterine contraction and spontaneous loss of the fetus. We really deliberated on giving the anti-venom. In the end, we did not (after extensive consultation) based on the fact her symptoms were pretty mild and the risk for allergic reaction from the drug was so high. She and the baby ultimately did well.
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Great to hear that she did allright without it, alpha-latrotoxin together with some other Polypeptides in Latrodectus venom cause alot of uncomfortable symptoms.. Whilst L. Mactans would give a person abdominal cramps (bad when pregnant), nausea, swollen eyelids etc. L. Hasselti would give a person typically back cramps.. CSL limited makes an effective antivenom and it's currently the only Latrodectus antivenom we got here in The Netherlands.
I'm also planning to buy 2 vials of Redback antivenom since i keep two species of Latrodectus (European black widow and The redback spider) just in case, i have epinephrine and diphenhydramine in my emergency drawer so should i ever get bitten again (happend to me once, minor effects) and the envenomation would be moderate to severe then i would be able to treat myself.
Your story made me think about an incident that happend this summer in Leeuwarden, the city i live in.
A man was bitten by a stowaway spider from a package out of Australia, the man thought it was a Redback because the next day his face was a little bit numb.
I was in Mexico at the time so my co workers at the shelter couldn't get my help, but they gave me a call nonetheless.
The symptoms didn't belong to Latrodectus hasselti venom, and the reaction would be pretty late so i knew it wasn't a L.hasselti.
It turned out to be a crabspider (Thomisidae spp.) harmless little spiders! But the doctors in our hospital went crazy because they couldn't tell the diffrence between redback and crabspider, luckily my colleagues were able to determine te spider at last.
This is one of the reasons why i started my venom project, the medical community here in The Netherlands knows very little about venom, even that from local species, yet about 100 venomous bites are reported every year.
I hope to help doctors understand the wide variety of toxic effects caused by venom, and hope to find some answers about the venom composition etc.
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