Are You Prepared to Confront Spider Bites?

[UCanoe_2]

Medscape quick quiz about creepy crawly things that may cause first aid incidents:

https://reference.medscape.com/view...CPEDIT_etid7414107&uac=389934HN&impID=7414107

 

[Gamma1214]

Good grief, we've worried about ticks and bears and wolves and moose; bigfoot, chupacabra and running out of toilet paper or coffee and now we have to worry about spiders too?!

To answer the question in the title... no. What color cat repels spiders?

 

[Erica]

Good grief, we've worried about ticks and bears and wolves and moose; bigfoot, chupacabra and running out of toilet paper or coffee and now we have to worry about spiders too?!

To answer the question in the title... no. What color cat repels spiders?

Well, you don’t have to worry about the brown recluse because it hangs out in the south.

 

[memaquay]

We have the Brown Recluse up here, and a bite from one can be devastating. A buddy of mine was in the forest fire fighting industry. About five years ago, their helicopter was forced down by bad weather. That night he got bit by Brown Recluse on his hand, and due to the weather conditions, they were not able to get back in the air for a couple of days. By the time he got to the emergency department, his hand looked like something out of a horror movie. They put him on an IV for quite a while, I'm not sure what they were pumping into him, but the Doc said another day without treatment could have been fatal.

Another pal was getting wood from his woodpile. He got bit on the neck by a Brown Recluse. Within a day or two, he had something that resembled flesh eating disease, and they had to carve large portions of his flesh off. He ended up hospitalized for a few weeks.

However, the deadliest canoe related disease up here is not well known. Blastomycosis is a fungal thing that lives in decaying plant matter. It can be fatal. Recently, rumour has it that three people at the local gold mine who worked in the truck washing facility came down with it. There have been locals, as well as dogs, who have died from it.

Best gun for Brown Recluse defence? Same as the one I use for bear defence, none, lol. If your number's up, its up.

 

[Erica]

I thought brown recluse was a southern spider. I checked google and apparently there are brown recluse spiders in Ontario but supposedly rare.

A good thing to know.

Woodpiles are a common habitat for the brown recluse.

 

[Penns Woods]

I have been outdoors working and playing all my life and never really gave it a thought about insect bites. Then last year a noticed something on the back of my leg. These pictures tell the story the best.

ONE DAY AFTER BITE





TWO DAYS AFTER BITE



AFTER TREATMENT

I'm so glad I listened to my wife and went to the emergence ward to get treatments. It pays to take these little gritters serious.

 

[tketcham]

Brown recluse spiders aren't something I've ever thought about but if they're showing up outside the normal range I'll be paying more attention.

When I lived in the Pacific Northwest I learned to always look for black widow spiders but was never fearful of them. They're pretty docile unless you disturb them. We had one living in the juniper shrub next to the front steps and we taught our daughter and her friends how to identify them and where to look out for them. It's just something you pay attention to, like listening for rattlesnakes.

Here's a big black widow that decided to take up residence in the house while remodeling...

 

[tketcham]

However, the deadliest canoe related disease up here is not well known. Blastomycosis is a fungal thing that lives in decaying plant matter. It can be fatal.

There's been an increase in this lung disease in parts of Vermont, especially after the repeated flooding of the past few years.

 

[jdeerfoot]

I met a an MD who was from Wausau Wisconsin (mid state area) on a bike trip about 30+ years ago and we were talking about insects to be concerned about. He told a story about a guy being treated in his clinic who continued to decline while the specialists were unable to determine what was wrong. It turned out this hunter had been bitten by a brown recluse spider. They saved his life but he nearly died before they correctly diagnosed and treated him.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

The spider quiz linked in the OP was rather medically technical. I did poorly.

Aside from that, spiders have been a fairly significant phobia of mine around water. That's because when I was a young boy spending all my summers on a lake in Maine, we always had these big, ugly dock spiders under our dock. Like this one:



They are not venomous as far as I now know, but scary to the young boy me. One day while I was swimming around the dock area with my two twin uncles—who, after they returned from the Korean War, bought the Grumman canoe that began my lifelong love of canoes—one of the big dock spiders emerged from under the dock, walked on the water over to me, and crawled up my arm. I screamed. One of my uncles brushed it off. I survived, only to get chased later by a swimming leech (thread anyone?), but I still won't look under a dock.

One of my favorite types of canoeing is on small streams with overhanging vegetation, as well as slaloming along a shoreline in and out of and among overhanging branches. Inevitably, and all over North America, the same kind of small spiders frequently fall into my canoe. I don't know what kind they are, and they seem harmless, but I've often almost tipped over trying to induce them to exit my canoe or, as Hamlet might put it, to help them shuffle off their mortal coil.

 

[lowangle al]

I didn't like this guy being in my boat. Luckily I was able to get him to climb onto my paddle blade, then I shook it off outside the boat. I think I read that all spiders are venomous.

 

[Erica]

My understanding is that spiders use venom to kill or paralyze their prey. But most spiders do not have the physical equipment to bite into human skin nor the venom strength to cause major damage.

For some reason, those really large spiders do not frighten me. I don't handle them, but they are relatively easy to coax onto a canoe paddle for transfer somewhere else, as low angle al pointed out.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

.....Inevitably, and all over North America, the same kind of small spiders frequently fall into my canoe. I don't know what kind they are, and they seem harmless.....

Are those the white or pale green ones with long legs and tiny bodies? I just count on sharing my canoe with them at some point.


I have a favorite kind of spider - in fact, I consider them pets in my home. I read some years ago that jumping spiders tend to discourage other spiders from hanging around, and that seems to be the case here. I taught my wife and kids to not kill them, and to pick them up and move them to a safe place if they're in danger. The cobwebs they leave are a minor annoyance, but we rarely find other spiders in the house. The jumping spiders are cute and fuzzy up close, and can be fun to play with.


I am more concerned about hornets, yellowjackets and wasps in my area. Oh...and ticks.

 

[Erica]

Are those the white or pale green ones with long legs and tiny bodies? I just count on sharing my canoe with them at some point.


I have a favorite kind of spider - in fact, I consider them pets in my home. I read some years ago that jumping spiders tend to discourage other spiders from hanging around, and that seems to be the case here. I taught my wife and kids to not kill them, and to pick them up and move them to a safe place if they're in danger. The cobwebs they leave are a minor annoyance, but we rarely find other spiders in the house. The jumping spiders are cute and fuzzy up close, and can be fun to play with.


I am more concerned about hornets, yellowjackets and wasps in my area. Oh...and ticks.

I leave spiders alone in my house for the same reasons. I do help the large hunting spiders to the door. They aren't going to find enough to eat in my home.

I even left a black widow in place for a summer. She wasn't bothering me any. She was outside but near the door and on the lanai.