Black Widows...

[LadySharon]

Well, I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I have *heard* that you can only have Latro antivenom once, and that if you are bitten a second time, it is unsafe to use again because it will cause an allergic reaction. It isn't completely without a basis in fact, because if you watch Venom ER, you'll remember that Dr. Shaun is reluctant to administer antivenom in widow envenomations unless it is truly necessary. I saw an episode in which he advised the parents of a small child (who was bitten by a widow), that using the antivenom carried its own risks, and that he recommended holding off on administering it. If you are given the antivenom, then it would seem logical that if there is a risk of allergic reaction the first time, there is a greater chance the second time round, especially since the first time might have a sensitizing effect ( like a scorp sting can ), thereby setting you up for a reaction if you had the antivenom again. This is largely speculative on my part, and I certainly wouldn't say you 100% "can't" have the antivenom a second time, but it seems reasonable that there would be a higher risk of allergy associated with a second dose.

Anway, my 2 cents.

Thanks for the info... it does make sience... but it also occured to me that my friend may have been thinking that a) you did without anti venum. and therefore b) if you can't have it twice the second time you get bitten you die. (which of course is not true)

I'll have to ask her to clairfiy. Anyone know off hand if there is a website detailing widow bites and what reactions occur? If not I can do a search. Just easyer if someone knows right off the cuff. Then I can use that as a reference.

Thanks

- Sharon

 

[Venom]

"Because the possibility of anaphylaxis or serum sickness always exists, use antivenin only in those who are at high risk for severe complications. Premedication with diphenhydramine, methylprednisolone, ranitidine, and acetaminophen may help to decrease the possible allergic reaction to antivenin infusion....The antivenin is an equine serum derivative and poses a small risk of serum sickness and life-threatening anaphylaxis. Moreover, it may sensitize the blood, resulting in subsequent allergy that would prohibit future administration of any antivenin containing equine serum, such as snake antivenins."

From: http://www.emedicine.com/derm/topic599.htm


Also see this article by Dr. Sean Bush of Venom ER:

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic546.htm

 

[Libertykeeper]

Yeeeesus!!!

I realize that this isn't the forum for "sales" but I was changing the water filter under my house yesterday and encountered a black widow with a LARGE eggsac sitting under it, I was kind of surprised being only early March, but its been warm in NC. I wouldn't be adverse to transporting "the family" if someone were interested..rather they be with a caring home than with me. I typically see literally 50-100 every year while the wife gardens....always wants to bring them to me, probably to see how long it takes to clean myself off....I own 6 T's, but Widows just freak me out:wall:

 

[cacoseraph]

what kind of Widow is this?

if it came from AZ it's probably a L. hesperus, "western widow"

they can mature with designs on their back like that... i think they are quite interesting looking

 

[xanadu1015]

I would love to get a hold of an L. mactans.

 

[MizM]

if it came from AZ it's probably a L. hesperus, "western widow"

they can mature with designs on their back like that... i think they are quite interesting looking

We have both mactans and hesperus here in SoCal. I just never get close enough to make a positive i.d.

 

[blacktara]

Some stuff on widow bites

The most active component of widow venom is a-latrotoxin. It causes massive release of neurotransmittors, mainly acetylcholine and norepinephrine. The main effect is severe and painful muscle cramps, most noticeably the large muscles of the trunk and extremities.

The typical otherwise healthy patient presents with severe muscle cramps and a rigid belly (from the cramping) The rigid belly can suggest a surgical abdomen, and there are anecdotal accounts of people being taken to the OR for a laparotomy (that's of course negative) or for appendectomy to remove what turns out to be a perfectly healthy appendix.

For a healthy adult who hasnt received a score of bites, the experience will be a few days of very uncomfortable aches and cramps - like a bad bad case of the flu. Treatment will be hydration and perhaps meds to relieve the cramping and help the pain. Giving antivenom just to relieve these symptoms isnt worth the risk associated with its administration, unless the pain and cramping are extreme and not responsive to calcium infusions and/or benzodiazepines for the cramps and narcotics for the pain.

Now, how can a widow bite kill. Several ways, in a susceptible individual. Another effect of the toxin is to elevate blood pressure. This can result in a bleeding type stroke, or can put too much stress on a weak heart and cause a heart attack or heart failure. If the muscles of respiration are affected, it can cause respiratory arrest, which, if you cant reverse it fast or ventilate the patient artificially until the toxin wears off, can be fatal. A third way is that when muscle contracts and spasm for inordinately long periods of time, it can die. When that happens, the muscle cells burst and release proteins, which must be cleared thru the kidney. If this happens to enough muscle, the resultant massive protein load (called rhabdomyolysis) can overwhelm the kidney and lead to renal failure. Usually this would be temporary, but the patient may require at least short term dialysis.

A larger dose of venom results in a larger metabolioc stress being placed on the victim. More extreme and/or sustained hypertension and muscles spasm, more chance of stroke or heart failure or respiratory arrest, more chance of significant rhabdo, etc etc.

Widows are fragile timid creatures. I had one for a while a few years back. Except when guarding her egg sac, she always chose to run away. Even when she was dealing with prey, she'd ever so cautiously approach, get in a quick bite and then back off to avoid the chance of being injured by the struggling prey that was usually far bigger and stronger than she was. I tried one time to see if I could coax her into going at a pair of tongs. Invariably she turned tail, maybe tried to web it up, and/or made for her hiding place (an old leaf rolled and webbed up)

The bites I have treated have been

1. a trucker who leaned against one - it bit him to avoid being crushed, wasnt successful, lost a leg and died a few days later - he felt like crap for two days and went home with a good story

2. a couple of geniuses who poked around with ungloved hands in dark places where they not only couldnt see but where they knew beforehand that there were widows around. They either squeezed the spider or tickled its web like prey. just plain stupid. These two jackasses also went home a few days later feeling achy and tired and unfortunately no smarter than when they were admitted

Fall into a nest of 'em, and you could be in serious trouble. An infant, toddler, frail and elderly, or otherwsie chronically ill person could be in trouble from a single bite, mostly if they cant get to medical care quickly. This is when you would give antivenom without waiting to see if things get bad.

Whether any of the "black" varieties (mactans vs hesparus vs gemoetricus and so on) is worse than any other - I'm not sure but dont think significantly so. The teaching we get is that red and brown widow bites are generally less severe, but remember there are far fewer case reports with these.

Last bit - about a year ago, one of the ER docs I work with was working out in his yard. He reached under a log and felt a pinprick, looked to see what the heck had happened and saw a widow scurrying away. He thought oh crap this wont be pleasant, but nothing ever happened. The thing caught him right the bony part of a knuckle - figure the poor spider banged a fang against bone and popped right out without injecting any venom. Poor thing probly had a nasty tootache

 

[fantasticp]

He He he oops.

I find them all the time at work, and have taken about 6 or so home. Well, last month I had 5 eggsacks hatch (all of the large ones were gravid) and being lazy as I am I just dumped all 200 or so of them about 20 feet outside my apartment door. (there are so many of them around here anyway, I doubt it'd hurt wild populations of anything). Well, now in the past week alone I've seen 4 small ones wandering around in the livingroom. I can only imagine the apartments downstairs!!!!! And after my bathtub flooded their apartment recently too!

 

[cacoseraph]

I find them all the time at work, and have taken about 6 or so home. Well, last month I had 5 eggsacks hatch (all of the large ones were gravid) and being lazy as I am I just dumped all 200 or so of them about 20 feet outside my apartment door. (there are so many of them around here anyway, I doubt it'd hurt wild populations of anything). Well, now in the past week alone I've seen 4 small ones wandering around in the livingroom. I can only imagine the apartments downstairs!!!!! And after my bathtub flooded their apartment recently too!

you sound like an... um, *interesting* neighbor to have =P

 

[MizM]

The typical otherwise healthy patient presents with severe muscle cramps and a rigid belly (from the cramping) The rigid belly can suggest a surgical abdomen, and there are anecdotal accounts of people being taken to the OR for a laparotomy (that's of course negative) or for appendectomy to remove what turns out to be a perfectly healthy appendix.

The only problem that I have with textbook diagnoses is that there are varying types and degrees of reactions to Lactrodectus venom, they only list the worst. My son-in-law is an a/c repair technician and is bitten often while on the job. He gets what appears to be a large pimple with a whitehead that heals in a few days. The bites are only slightly painful to him. He's seen the spiders that bite him and not only confirms they are widow spiders, but he collects them for me to pass out to arachnofriends.

IMHO, worst case scenario is similar to P. murinus or Poecilotheria venom. Those also produce muscular cramping, but from the reports that I've heard, the pain is much more intense with these two. My friend told me she'd rather give birth than feel the pain of a murinus bite again, no one has EVER told me that about a widow bite!

 

[Venom]

Thanks for the inside medical info Blacktara! That was quite informative. Do you have any estimate as to the liklihood of rhabdomyolysis occuring? I ask because I have injured kidneys, and I assume this means this aspect of a latro bite would be of especial concern to me. Any thoughts on this?


Oh, and MizM :

"A potent neurotoxin in the venom induces the disease state latrodectism, which manifests itself with severe muscle cramping and spasms; the cramping usually begins in the large muscle masses of the legs, or the abdomen. The abdomen can exhibit a board-like rigidity, and the pain has been compared to that of acute appendicitis, and to childbirth. Some widow bite victims experience anxiety, profuse sweating, nausea, piloerection (hair standing on end), increased blood pressure, and other unpleasant manifestations. Paralysis, stupor and convulsions, as well as psychological abnormalities may occur in severe cases. Death can occur in a small percentage of cases, particularly when the victim is a small child or elderly person."

--from Darwin Vest's hobospider.org

So yes, they are similar, but latro bites can be even worse!!

 

[demicheru]

Black widow bites

One other thing that comes up relatively frequently with black widow bites is tetanus, itself quite painful. This is attributed to their typical habitats - piles of rotting wood, abandoned tires and barrels with rusting iron, etc.

From what I've read, calcium gluconate is frequently used as a muscle relaxant, and orange juice and very hot baths have been noted to reduce the pain. Morphine has been used, and seems to help some people and not others. I have read that the venom molecule is actually large enough to see with the naked eye - which would go some way towards explaining the varied reactions that people experience. A chemical that large would most likely be very complex, and be capable of acting as a catalyst for all kinds of chemical reactions.

On the subject of the envenomation itself, Gordon Grice, in "The red hourglass: lives of the predators", wrote about the experiment/experience of Allan Blair, an MD, who more or less conclusively showed that the black widow can cause excruciating pain and numerous complications: very elevated white count, very low blood pressure(75 systolic, unreadably low diastolic) early on which then rose to 154/90, fell into shock-like conditions, high pulse rate (the only noted cardiac affect, in his case. An EKG taken ~1hr after the bite was normal), difficulty breathing, and more.

"By the third day, Blair was able to sleep and eat a little. His boardlike abdomen had finally relaxed. He was beginning to look like himself again as his swollen face returned to its normal proportions. He went home that day. It took about a week for the serious symptoms to vanish. After that, his body itched for two more weeks, and the skin on his hands and feet peeled as if burned."

There are also numerous reports of people being bit and having no reactions. It seems quite likely that, like quite a few snakes, the black widow is capable of delivering "dry" bites, for various reasons.

On the whole, it is not something I would like to experience. At the same time, I've had, over about 10 years, probably 15-20 pet widows. Only one ever escaped: another one crawled over my hand without incident. I think the only truly scary experience with them is when a box containig an egg sack that my brother and I were trying to hatch turned out to not be so escapeproof as we thought, and I saw a picture with about 200-300 baby blackwidows all over our closet...that was an interesting night.

-philip

 

[MizM]

Thanks for the inside medical info Blacktara! That was quite informative. Do you have any estimate as to the liklihood of rhabdomyolysis occuring? I ask because I have injured kidneys, and I assume this means this aspect of a latro bite would be of especial concern to me. Any thoughts on this?


Oh, and MizM :

"A potent neurotoxin in the venom induces the disease state latrodectism, which manifests itself with severe muscle cramping and spasms; the cramping usually begins in the large muscle masses of the legs, or the abdomen. The abdomen can exhibit a board-like rigidity, and the pain has been compared to that of acute appendicitis, and to childbirth. Some widow bite victims experience anxiety, profuse sweating, nausea, piloerection (hair standing on end), increased blood pressure, and other unpleasant manifestations. Paralysis, stupor and convulsions, as well as psychological abnormalities may occur in severe cases. Death can occur in a small percentage of cases, particularly when the victim is a small child or elderly person."

--from Darwin Vest's hobospider.org

So yes, they are similar, but latro bites can be even worse!!

Fascinating! Cannot imagine THAT pain. We all have different levels of pain tolerance, and I had both of my kids naturally, but I would NOT want to experience it again!

 

[Trouble]

Hi! I have (2) Black Widows. "Trouble and "Blackie". I enjoy the heck out of them. I find them super interesting. Feed them and give the some water. I don't know about anyone else but mine like water every couple of weeks or so. a squirt or 2. I don't handle them or course! I learn. have fun. but be careful!

 

[Blackrose]

Hi

Is it true that latrodectus geometricus isn`t very dangerous for human?

Greets
Andi

 

[SheWithFangs]

I wish I had known people kept them as pets! I could of made a fortune selling them as a kid back in CA. They were everywhere! You had to watch where you stuck your hands always.I would see at least 3 a day. How much do you guys usually buy them for?