Brown Recluse Spider Bite: Nikki Perez Almost Blinded In Texas

A venomous brown recluse spider bite almost blinded a Texas woman and took part of her ear.

Nikki Perez, 21, documented the swelling of her face and the necrosis afflicting her ear over a two week period as the poison took hold, as (gruesome) pictures obtained by the Daily Mail show.

Perez was waiting at the Amarillo airport with her boyfriend Eric and his mom last September, when she felt a sharp sting on the back of her neck.

"Next, I felt something crawling over my face and my eye," she told the Daily Mail. "I yelled for Eric to help me, and when he saw the spider crawling over my face, he swatted it to the floor and stamped on it."

Her boyfriend's mom, a nurse, identified the all-telling mark on the brown recluse instantly: a violin-shaped mark on its back.

Doctors couldn't do much for Perez until she showed signs of necrosis, or dying skin cells. She took pictures of herself as her head began to swell -- so much so that her left eye swelled shut.

"I was going blind ... it was terrifying," she said. "It was spreading all over my head, which actually felt like a bit of a relief as the pain was so concentrated behind my ear."

When her ear started to literally rot off, she visited a spider expert and spent five days in the hospital, ABC News reported. Doctors surgically removed the dead tissue around her ear and injected her with steroids as her head started to shrink back to its normal size.

Perez made it out of the hospital with little more than a skin graft on her ear.

Other people bitten by the creature -- usually the elderly and children -- haven't been so lucky. The spider's poison can be lethal.

Worse, the recluse is reportedly spreading throughout North America as the planet warms. But the spiders are called "recluse" for a reason. The creepy arachnids rarely come out, and even when they do bite, they usually don't emit venom.

Comments

[Michael Nielsen]

08:41 AM on 03/24/2012

I am not surprised by knowing this that the bitten person almost blinded by a brown recluse spider bite because these spiders known as a the most dangerous spiders in the world and they can surely do lots of damage and this story is certainly a proof of this fact. Want to know more these spiders? visit brownreclusespider.biz.

[Debbie338]

10:02 PM on 03/19/2012

Interesting sensationalistic story. I just Googled brown recluse bites and here's what I found on several different websites: "The brown recluse can cause a nasty wound, but there is not a single confirmed death in the United States from a brown recluse spider, according to Richard S. Vetter, the leading expert in the field."

[Frickett]

01:59 PM on 03/19/2012

I HATE spiders, but these guys are particularly nasty -- a friend of mine's husband lost his leg below the knee from a bite on his ankle. Over the course of 6 months, even with periodic surgical debridement, the doctors couldn't stop the spread of necrosis. Daddy longlegs spiders eat brown recluse spiders, which is why I leave Daddys and their webs alone, even in the house. Daddys are extremely venomous but their little pincers are so tiny they can't bite through human skin.

[FKHFPT]

07:57 PM on 03/18/2012

I was bit about 25 years ago in the forehead. Big swelling occurred & lasted some time even with antibiotics & steroids. Now there's a permanent indented scar that looks like a chunk of flesh is missing.

[Jenn2]

06:25 PM on 03/18/2012

Spiders freak me out. Hubby works in a lumber yard, kills about three or four a day. Brown recluse or Black Widow. I would quit.

[ringerang8]

03:25 PM on 03/18/2012

Years ago. I was in the Philippines on an island call Bohol. Two friends that I had met that lived on the island took me to a waterfall in the jungle that we were going to jump off into the deep clear water below. It rained the evening before so the water wasn't that clear because of the mudd runoff, and we weren't sure where the rocks were, so we didn't jump. But looking down from the rocks I saw this huge spiderweb that looked like it was made of cotton. I never saw a web like this. I picked up a stick that must have weighed a ponnd or two and threw it down into it. It moved a bit, but caught the stick.It didn't break through it.I could only imagine the size of the spider that made it. It must have been huge! I know that there are some spiders that hunt, kill and eat birds........I just thought i'd mention that.

[nanette755]

02:41 PM on 03/18/2012

When I was a freshman in high school, I woke up one morning and my right eye was swollen shut and crusted with a bite below it. My father took me to the doctor immediately. The doctor believed a spider had bitten me in my sleep. We lived in a big old Victorian house and my dark walk-in closet was a hiding place for many things. As a girl, I was so conscious of my looks and the patch over my eye didn't thrill me. I assume there were antibiotics and maybe steroids. Something had to be in those shots. I insisted dad buy me sunglasses and wore them to school. A couple of teachers demanded I remove them for class but others were quite sympathetic. Forty years later, the scar blow my eye is fading and it has been the same color as my skin since about five years after the bite. Now, even the slight trace of a little white spider can wake me out of a deep sleep when it lights on my face (not often but it happened recently) and they die! Then I am creepy crawly the rest of the night. I have never forgotten that spider bite, how it hurt and how my dad worried that I might lose sight in that one eye.

[John Hazelton Smith]

02:41 PM on 03/18/2012

And people tease me because there are places that I will not visit because of the spiders there. I have always been terrified of them and will always be terrified of them. And the medical world does not have an anti venom for the brown recluse spider either. Beware people.

[lawa]

02:21 PM on 03/18/2012

my friend lost a foot from a brown recluse spider bite. he said hes lucky to get treatment before it went further. in hawaii we have a venomous centipedes the grow to 4-6" in length. the bite is painful. never just pick something up from the ground. very few people would die from the venom but some have.

[rrzeus26]

02:12 PM on 03/18/2012

These little things can kill you. I almost lost my life due to a bite. I had been pulling weeds w/ my wife from the flowerbed and had hit my hand on a rock. It swelled up and I figured I may have a bad bruise. But after a few days and the pain getting unbearable, plus my hand was swollen double, I drove to the emergency room. The Dr said I might had died inanother 12 hrs. I was on antibiotics for 4 days before they could cut the dead flesh away. I thank the Lord I'm alive and still have my left hand.

[wickedlilxtalena]

01:21 PM on 03/18/2012

A brown recluse bite would only blind this girl if she had an allergic reaction to it afterward, if I'm correct.

I've been around many recluses and they lurk in my garage, working in a farm I am bound to find a lot of them lurking around. Spiders don't usually freak me out, but I will admit a recluse has a tendency of giving me the chills.

[viper1ex19]

01:14 PM on 03/18/2012

I suffer from Arachnophobia, so I would probably do more harm to myself trying to get away from it than I would to just let the darn thing bite me.

[Mack753951]

01:04 PM on 03/18/2012

My friend was sitting at his desk at work when a relcuse made its way down from the ceiling and bit him on the end of his nose. His face swelled up and eventually lost the tip of his nose. He looked like the tin man for a while, but has since has plastic surgery to repair the injury...scary.

[flkewlkid00]

12:43 PM on 03/18/2012

these spiders are in lrge numbers in the southeast and are wreaking havoc daily many of these bites go undiagnosed and can be fatal if left unattended.

[savanahrose]

12:42 PM on 03/18/2012

This is one of the reasons why I don't sit outside during the summer. I literally kick the chair over and check it before I sit down if I do go outside, then I sit on the edge of the chair. I am deathly afraid of those things. I know of two people who have been bitten by those spiders luckily they were helped in time. I don't like spiders, I don't like spiders.. and on and on.