Originally Posted by
CraigE
Sorry even if this did happen and most of these stories are Urban Myth and generally people can not back up these stories, it IS NOT the spider bite that causes the issue, it is the allergic reaction the persons body has with a bacterial infection. In general the necrosis stories are false. You can get small lesions from any spider bite that will cause the immediate skin area to die off and that is normal, spreading necrosis does not occur due to a spider bite, with maybe the exception being the brown Recluse Spider in the US and even wide spread necrosis spreading is rare, with it usually being contained to the immediate area with treatment. I reiterate here US not here.
Personally I do know a lady (wife of a workmate) that had an adverse reaction and was one of the early people in Australia to suffer this type of reaction about 20 years ago. Initially the white tailed spider was blamed and medical directives and research supported the stance initially. After many years of extensive research it was found to be a myth and actually nothing to do with the spider bite itself. It was to do with the make up of the persons haemotolgy and adverse allergic reactions. Yes it has adversely affected her for life, but she also knows now that she was susceptible to this type of infection anyway and could have come from many more sources.
Not much different from people who suffer allergic reactions to bees, pollen, nuts etc.
By all means if you have clinical research and supportive documentation that supports the claim put it up, we would all be interested and amazed.
There is so much clinical research that disproves this all it takes is a bit of research. I have medical books and journals, spider books and research sitting in front of me right now that dispell this myth.
The lady losing her arm is tragic, but I can almost guarantee you it was from infection, not the initial spider bite.