What should have been a restful sleep turned into a nightmare for a 21-year-old woman after a spider bite left her with temporary paralysis on her left arm and four days in the hospital.
In an article published in Daily Mail UK on Friday, October 31, Lauren Reid, who lives in Kingstanding, Birmingham, was sleeping when a spider attacked and bit her. She felt something crawling up her arm, and when she took a look at it, she noticed a black limb and, later, a thick black hair protruding. She pulled it, cleaned the bitten area, and eventually went back to sleep.
However, by the time she awoke, the bite became a huge lump filled with abscess. She went to the doctor who prescribed her with antibiotics.
But the pain didn't subside. Instead, it got worse as her left arm, where the bite was, became incredibly painful she couldn't lift it properly. She also developed dizziness, hot and cold flushes, and drowsiness.
A friend who learned of her condition advised her to go to the hospital, which she did. The doctors, though, didn't know what to do with it since they hadn't encountered anything similar before, so they recommended that she stay until they learned more about the kind of spider that bit her and how to treat the bite. She spent four days before she was released while she continued taking her antibiotics.
It may take a few more weeks before they found out what spider attacked her, but Reid believed that what happened had already caused her trauma physically and emotionally and that the wound, which has already left a gaping hole, may compel her to keep her arm covered.
On the other hand, some experts gave their opinion as to the nature of the spider and the kind of wound she developed. While most of them are in agreement that she developed necrosis as infection set in to the wound, they are also left unsure as to the spider type. Some theorized that it might be a common house spider, which tends to attack if it feels vulnerable.