MRSA-- The Spider Bite that lead to MRSA which went undetected for six months.

Tweet

JANUARY 21st 2007 I had gone to my aunts house and somehow got bitten by a brown recluse. I read about them previously and even recieved emails about them but never thought it could happen to me. So its sunday night and i get a burning sensation on my leg upper thigh by the buttocks. I look it looks like a small mosquito bite, i ask my aunt if she has the house sprayed she says no. But it cant be a mosquito because they cant survive during the winter so what could it be???? Who knows at that point i wasnt worried it was harmless. I wake up the next morning and this thing is four times the size it was with a yellow spot on the top of it. so i call my sister whos an EMT she takes a look says its a bite and sucks the fluid out with a syringe....everything looks good from here right???? I went to work that night but when i got off my rear end is burning like fire....what is going on with my why am i in so much pain? I stop off at the ER (emergency room) to see what is happening they take a look and the DR says oh its just a skin infection its nothing serious looks like whatever bit you didnt leave much and your sister got all the venom out so its just a small skin infection should heal up in a couple days. The Dr sends a nurse in and gives me a shot then gives me a prescription for medication. I am hoping at this point everything will be ok but its not....As the week goes on the pain is getting worse my bite area is getting bigger and its swelling up. What started out as a little mosquito bite has now swollen into an area about the size of a small frying pan. I go to work all week in pain and agony then come friday night i can barely move my leg i talk to my boyfriend and we figure we are going to use moist heat and that will draw out any infection that may be there. Saturday morning we start the moist heat process im exhausted from the week from the pain from the struggling with this thing on my leg. I sleep all day saturday this thing feels great all moist and warm. I am able to relax with no pain no discomfort everything seems to be OK. That night we take the heat pad off and this small pan sized thing has swollen up into a softball size knot with a big black hole on the center of it. This mark litterally looked like a bullseye. My boyfriend and i discuss the looks of this thing and it ends up were going to the hospital because something isnt right. Once i reach the hospital they are just amazed at how i have functioned with this thing on my leg/rear for a week the DR is concerned and will not let me leave until i have surgery becasue this bite has now become an absess and it has to be removed because its now killing flesh. Now i have called the hospital all week almost everyday telling them what is going on asking them questions about if it should look this way or feel that way or what i can do about the pain and swelling but everyone said the same thing "spider bites are painful and take a long time to heal you will be fine just be patient". The ER doctor has my boyfriend hold me down while they take this long needle full of liquid nitrogen and pump it in and out of my absess five times the first two or three times all i could do was cry and scream because it hurt so bad. After he got done with all the shots he had to cut the absess and then drain it and clean it then pack it with packing. I thought i was on the road to recovery but I WAS WRONG. What i didnt know is that a bite like that can cause MRSA (methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus). No body thought about MRSA no body questioned it. I was on antibiodics many many times but i kept getting these things come up on my face first it started in my ear. These cyst like things came in my ear, one at a time but i had five total they get painfull and make my whole head hurt, then all the sudden it would break and i would start feeling better. I got a sore on my face and my whole face swelled but no one tested me they just let me suffer. I got a pain in my face under my nose but above my lip i could almost pin point it but i couldnt find it an one day i looked in my nose and as i lifted my nose it broke and this thick ooozy yellow stuff came out just as i remeber it coming out of my ear and my bite. The day i found this spot in my nose i called the dr she gave me a tube to sample with i had no clue what i was in for but as the nite went on my face began to burn i went to work i sneezed and another one broke i go to the bathroom to clean if up but MRSA is highly contagious so since i thought that is what it might be i had to be very careful. As i am leaving work my face begins to burn more i decide i have to stop by the hospital again and see what is happening so i do and they break another one but by this time i am noticing that i have a trail down the side of my face and its pooling in my jawline. The Dr says if i dont get it out there going to have to put a drain tube in my neck and i said i dont want a scar like that he said he wanted to try antibodics before he did anything like that so he gives them to me and i go home. the next day my face is on fire my face is hurting and swelling and something has to be done so i get a mirror and im looking at these patches in the bottom of my nostril and decide its up to me to remove this from my body since no one else wants to deal with it. so i get all my supplies kleenex, tweezers, q-tips and lay on the bed because i know this is going to hurt but i grab the scab from the first one that broke and pull it off this yellow infection oooze is coming out like mad...so thinking ahead i call the boyfriend he comes in with the sampler and i start pushing the stuff from my jaw up my face and out my nose needless to say it almost made him sick but i knew it had to be done so i didnt have to have a tube put in my face. I ran the sampler in the next day and it came back as MRSA. They give me Bactrim but after the cycle was done it didnt work. This whole process from teh time i had the bite to the point i figured out i had MRSA took six months. Well it has now been almost 12 months since i had the bite and the dr has put me on Bactrim three times at least i still get breakouts once in a while but there usualy just little ones now there not big like the first one i had from the spider that ended up giving me MRSA. Its alot easier to deal with and alot less worrysome. Some MRSA never goes away some pple carry it all the time others like myself we get rid of it eventually but its very very hard to get rid of and sometimes its hard to tell if you have it. If you susspect you have MRSA please be very cautious and make sure you keep everything from they sheets to the clothing washed and clean because MRSA is very contagious and very hard to get rid of properly.