We had a good scare on March 8. I was getting the kids ready for school, fixing breakfast and lunches, etc. Coen was wresting around with Beckham and Beckham started crying saying his finger hurt. I looked at it and saw a big blister. It was really weird looking and very round and cloudy. I asked Coen if he pinched his finger somehow. He said no. I thought it looked more like a burn at first. But I didn't have anything hot on and he didn't have it when he went to bed the night before.
We got the kids off to school and it was just getting worse and worse. I really felt like it was a spider bite. I googled it and it looked exactly like all of the images of a Brown Recluse spider bite. Google that and you'll see some scary images. You don't mess around with those. By noon he was in serious pain and his finger was really swollen. It was so tight he couldn't even bend it. I could see purple creeping in. Signs of necrosis or tissue damage.
We called our friend who is a doctor and he said there's nothing they can do for it at the hospital. They give antibiotics to get rid of infection from the open wound but that's about all they can do. That was not ok with me! I got on the internet and spent hours researching what I could do for my baby so he wouldn't have to amputate his finger or hand.
I read that a lot of people had used activated charcoal on
brown recluse bites with amazing results after being sent home from doctors who
couldn't do anything. So at 2:00 I made a paste and put it on him and wrapped
it up. I changed it every 30 min. Then at about 4:00 Tory called to say the guy
he's doing a job for (Vaughn, who used to be in our ward) had a friend who was bitten
on his arm and a doctor used an electric shock (not a normal MD solution) to
fix it. His had already progressed to a huge open sore, loss of nerve
sensation, and severe pain after just a couple days. The doctor showed his wife
how to do it. After the shock therapy he hardly had any pain within a couple
hours. He and his wife went ahead and purchased a unit seeing the amazing
results and told our friend that we could bring Beckham to them for a
treatment.
They live about an
hour away. We got there at about 6:00. We took Beck's wrap off before we went
in and were amazed at how much the charcoal had already done! It hadn't looked
that "good" since this morning! That charcoal absorbs the toxins and
poison. You can use it on any bug bites and even snake bites! Good to know. I
will never have a medicine kit without it.
So anyway, the unit
was basically a tazer gun modified to have two probes. She put one on the wound
and one just outside and tapped the button. Since it was on his finger it hurt
worse than it would have otherwise with all those nerve receptors right there.
Poor baby. Had to do it three times, too, in a different place each time. It
actually popped the blister on the first one. But when it was over he was fine.
I felt so much better
knowing we did something instead of just waiting for it to get worse and then
hopefully get better. Just makes me upset that most (not all) medical doctors
never try things like this. Think how many lives and limbs they could save.
This little boy has a long life ahead of him and can't afford to lose a finger
or hand.
Four days later it was looking so much better. The skin was a little raw but healing nicely and he wasn't in any pain anymore.
We think the spider had been in Claire and Beckham's closet. I had just done a major cleaning and organizing of it. I took every single thing out. That closet hadn't been organized since we moved in 7 1/2 years ago. Those brown recluse spiders like to live in closets, boxes, and clothes that aren't disturbed. I had stacks of baby blankets in there and we had just moved Beckham to a new bottom bunk bed.
We didn't have a mattress for him so we were just using a folded up eggshell padding. I used the baby blankets to fill in the sides where the mattress didn't quite fit. I think the spider was probably in those blankets. They were all folded and I didn't even shake them out first. He probably rolled over in the night and put his hand right on it. And...they are most active at night. Perfect. I put my baby to bed with a brown recluse. So scary! I'm so glad it turned out ok for our little boy. My mom telling a lady she works with about Beckham and she held up her hand and one finger was almost half gone from a brown recluse bite. She was getting Christmas boxes down from a shelf and was bitten. Scary stuff! Amazing that such a small thing can cause such damage. Now we need to invest in one of those tazers!
