What got me?

John: I'm glad you got an antibiotic. I don't like them, but there are times when it's the best option. Personally I'd be trying what I had first, before going to the doctor (lots of miles to get to them) and a lot of us who live out in the boonies have the attitude that you fix what you can, and know when to call for help. You called for help at the right time :D

Did he have any guess what might have gotten you?

Certainly they are bites not stings. Beyond that, we are not sure.

What is strange is that I am not finding any flying critters in the garden with the numbers and ability to do the damage that was done.

John F Dean wrote:What is strange is that I am not finding any flying critters in the garden with the numbers and ability to do the damage that was done.

Perhaps word spread among the fauna that you taste bad and they all lost interest. If so, you are a lucky man!

John F Dean wrote:What is strange is that I am not finding any flying critters in the garden with the numbers and ability to do the damage that was done.

I'm still wondering about spiders.

Hi Jordan,

This experience just reinforces what I already knew.  When in the garden, wear hat, gloves, long sleeved shirt, and insect repellant.   As with most accidents I have had, this happened because it was only going to take a minute, so I didn’t take precautions. In the end, it costs more in terms of time and money.

Hi Pearl,

While I can say with confidence they are not stings …it took about 24 hours to have a noticeable reaction, I really can’t rule out spiders.  

On the topic of spiders,

At first, spiders seem unlikely to me as there are several bites and spiders are solitary.

But maybe just maybe you walked through a web of recently hatched spiders and were swarmed by hatchlings?

Would immature spiders have the punch of an adult spider?  Do they bite at all?  Honestly, I just don’t know, but a bunch of hatchlings seems like the only likely explanation for so many bites.  Maybe I am wrong.

Thoughts or ideas?

Eric

Hi Eric,

My thoughts are similar.   I was in my garden, how would the spiders have reached my face?   But, I can’t rule out that I may have brushed against a bush.   I am favoring some kind of fly.  As I write this, I think I will hang up a fly trap in the area I was working in.  It may give me some insight. Iwillneed to check it regularly, I don’t want to trap the wrong creatures.

There are a few spiders here that take a chunk rather than the double puncture bite.  These can easily get necrotic as there is something in the saliva that stops the body healing the skin around the bite.  Spiders vary from place to place,  and I don't know your local octopieads.

But I usually get those in bed - spiders seek moisture - and the bites show up in a line a few hours after I start my day. Chewing some dock or plantain and holding it to the bite helps me when it's still fresh. But with swelling that bad, if you were a sheep,  I would send you to the vet.

I'm glad that you are on the mend.  I also enjoyed reading everyone's tips and tricks. Learning lots of new things.

This situation makes me think Deer flies - they will bite multiple times in different spots on the same person until they're "full". Fewer bugs but ones that try to eat you alive. They've either moved on, or are full enough that they're off laying eggs or other nastiness?

Alternatively, humans just aren't their normal prey but you happened to be a target of opportunity.

How often do spiders "bite" as opposed to "sting". I know they inject poison into prey and the job of that chemical is to essentially "digest" the fly so they can suck out the goodness. Is that what a close up of the spots on your head look like? Like you're being digested? Or do they look like something took a chunk out of you - which is what deer flies do?

Good information R.,

The nasty spider around us is the Brown Recluse, but I don’t think of those as being typical garden spiders.  And their bites are different.  But that information is good to know nonetheless.

Eric  

Jay, I was half thinking deer flies, but you beat me to the punch.  That behavior sounds a lot more typical than a spider.  Still, odd that John didn’t notice them.

Eric

Here is one of the chaps I was thinking of.   Brown recluse.   But unlikely to be found in a garden.

https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Health/aftercareinformation/pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=tm6499spec&

It's just the photos remind me of some of the bites I've seen.

They bite in a line because they get in the clothes or sheets.   Human moves, they bite, try to get away,  which makes the human move, so they bite... and so on.  Generally each bite has less strength.   I think they run low on poison or something.

But probably not your guy.

John: I'm within a couple hundred miles of you and baby spiders are ballooning here.  I have seen them. Not sure why they'd bite. unless you wiped sweat off your face and freaked them out.

Hi Eric,

To be clear, I did notice them.  I have 20/800 vision in my rt eye and had lots of perspiration in both eyes. So, while I noticed  I was encountering something, I could not identify what it was.

My feeling is that if I was bit up by a herd of Brown Recluse chomping on my head I wouldn’t be alive.  

I guess you said that before and I didn’t quite hear.

John F Dean wrote:My feeling is that if I was bit up by a herd of Brown Recluse chomping on my head I wouldn’t be alive.  

Some react strongly,  others not.  The bites are pretty common here, but the strength depends on the time of year, spider,  and human.   Infection is the main concern,  but most people just get mild itching for a few days.   It's when the immune system respond too strong or not strongly enough that things get bad.  Children, older people,  immune compromised are the main risk factors.

Here.

Different locations have different spiders,  so it's good not to overgeneralize.  

But I'm pretty sure it isn't the one that got you.   It just reminded me of the way those bites can go so I shared for future readers who might have something similar.

we see a lot of brown recluse bites around here and they are completely typical of how these spiders live-- bites are on hands, toes, or wherever a piece of clothing  they were hiding in first touches you (the one that got my daughter got her thigh from hiding in a skirt). I'm not sure I've ever heard of more than one bite at a time though-- they bite and run. they don't use silk for ballooning or to make webs for food- they hunt. And they live in dark, closed places, not at eye height in the garden. Could certainly have been some other kind of spider though.
Unless you put on a baseball cap that you were keeping in a dark corner of the garage that was where a whole bunch of them were throwing a party.....

when my kid was in her horrible allergy phase we had an allergist who made me feel a lot better- she was a mess, swollen up like an inflated alligator, and the allergist told me it was probably a sandfly or a deerfly or a horsefly bite, but that she also probably had something else in her system that suddenly made the body go into overdrive and react with everything it had: bite plus artificial coloring, bite plus cured meats, bite plus cheese, bite plus chocolate. We did a bit of hunting around and realized the day of the bite she had drunk a Tampico kind of artificially flavored orange juice. After that she had a few years free of any artificial anything, and I kept allergy tablets with me at all times (the irony of hunting for benadryl to treat an allergic reaction that doesn't have artificial neon pink coating: hopefully now, ten years later, this product exists). But it was really interesting, I had never heard of such a thing but it made sense: the immune system has a lot of moving parts. My money is on some sort of deerfly or biting fly.
Hopefully you're feeling better soon.

Edited to add, since R and I were posting at the same time: people definitely do respond differently to brown spiders, and i suspect not every spider envenomates every time (or to the same degree). my kid's university department has a research lab for brown recluses where a lot of the undergrads put in research time and i've heard plenty of people say they saw the spider bite them, identified it clearly, and not a darn thing happened. but still, it's very good to know if you have them. i tried to find something good in English, and this might be helpful. http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/pcreclusespiders.htm#:~:text=Moreover%2C%20brown%20recluse%20do%20not,other%20items%20from%20infested%20structures.

My main experience with a Brown Recluse was a relative who was bit on the little finger.   The primary discussion with the doctor was how high up the arm the amputation would be.  In the end, amputation was avoided, but the hand remained partially paralyzed.

Tereza Okava wrote:... the allergist told me it was probably a sandfly or a deerfly or a horsefly bite, but that she also probably had something else in her system that suddenly made the body go into overdrive and react with everything it had: bite plus artificial coloring, bite plus cured meats, bite plus cheese, bite plus chocolate.

This!  I have a mild allergy to strawberries - they give me hives. Before I understood this interactive effect, I'd get hives wherever artificial fabrics were touching me. I switched to pretty much all cotton, particularly cotton undershirts, but I had to wear the undershirt inside out or I'd get hives right along the line of artificial stitching. At the time, I thought I was just sensitive to the artificial fabric/thread - I hadn't figured out that the strawberries were triggering it. Now I make sure I only eat one or two strawberries at a time, and preferably not two days in a row, and I don't get hives from them. That suggests to me, it's also a matter that there's something in strawberries that my body's not keen on, but if I give my body time to deal with it, it does. Strawberries are just too delicious and too easy to grow here and too nutritious when grown naturally in good dirt, that I'm not willing to give them up entirely!

About 23yrs ago, I had a neighbor who was bitten several years earlier, by a brown recluse, and lost nearly a pound of flesh and muscle off of that calf. About 3 years and a 30mile move later, another neighbor friend was bitten at the crown of his scalp, and those bites & the mess they made, I saw for myself (as opposed to only the scar tissue, I saw on the first neighbor). He lost a patch of skin nearly 6" in diameter, and ended up needing a skin graft. But, (THANKFULLY!) yours don't look like his did. Deer and horse flies both bite something fierce, will happily swarm you, tend to be very aggressive, and can flat mess you up. That's what I'm betting on, in your case.



An additional note about the drawing salve; we leave it on for a minimum of 10-12hrs, then clean and redress it with more drawing salve, following with additional applications, as needed. The best results for a bad situation (like this one) usually start happening after at least 24hrs of the salve. John is prone to sebaceous cysts, and before I finally managed to convince him to try the drawing salve, it would sometimes take weeks for them to finish draining and begin healing. With 2x daily applications of the drawing salve, as I described above, they're now completely gone within 3 or 4 days. The trick is to keep the salve on, constantly, until the swelling, inflammation, & infection are gone, then switch to plantain/calendula/frankinsense salve, for rapid healing.

The sharp stabbing pain is down.   Comparing pictures, it seems to be getting worse.  I sent the photo to my doctor.  I imagine I will be getting a steroid and possibly another antibiotic.

I have a neighbor who had something like that going on, I suspect a brown recluse.

He spent at least two hospital stays of about 10 days each pumping him with antibiotics.

He finally found a dermatologist who went with steroids which cleared what ailed him.

I hope you get better soon.

I'm wondering if it's possible it happened before going outside, and the flies pestering you outside was a red herring?

Hi Jordan,

I am not ruling out much of anything.  I still suspect deer flies.

Oh, John... I truly hate to say it, but those are looking more and more like the brown recluse bite, my friend had. *If it were me* I'd pack each one with the drawing salve, and redress it 3x/day, every day, while taking the antibiotics, and boosting my immune system, every way I could think of. I'm beginning to think you found a nest of baby ones, just breaking free.

Carla,

As I commented, I am not ruling anything out.   It is my understanding that Brown Recluse bites have a bullseye appearance.


I just looked up pictures of Brown Recluse bites, I can see where you are coming from.  

Anyway, I have an Rx for steroids as well as Keflex.

John,

I showed your picture to my wife and asked what her thoughts were and without hesitation she said “shingles.”

I was a bit surprised and she told me all the reasons why they weren’t flies or spiders (and all the reasons have already been discussed here).  I then went on and showed her your most recent picture, thinking that she would change her mind.  Her response: “that looks even more like shingles.”

I know you already know this next part but I do it for my wife anyway: this was not a diagnosis, merely a thought based solely on looking at a picture on a small phone screen.  No warranties expressed or implied.

Just thought you might appreciate the perspective.

Eric

I have had the shingles vaccine, but of course it is far from 100% effective.  For what it’s worth, my wife also said shingles.   But, all debate aside, shingles is much better than Brown Recluse.

Well, if I do visit my MD again, I will bring up the possibility.

John F Dean wrote:I am thinking deer fly….or similar.   The trouble is I didn’t see any.  Of course, I wasn’t seeing much at the time, my eyes were filled with perspiration. And to compound the problem, it is solely on my right side … where I have 20/800 vision.

No itching. But feels tight (as in maybe swelling).  At times there is a deep stabbing pain…sometimes intense enough to get me to stop what I am doing. Then it goes away. Some evidence of bites.  But not the chunks I have had taken out of me by horse flies. No blood. …But certainly welts.  Painful  to touch…and I normally handle pain well.  Very painful to touch.

John, out of curiosity, is your other eye better and was the decline of  your right eye progressive over the years or from some accident?  I'm somewhat leaning towards what others have noted, that being shingles, which can have an impact on eyesight as well. (The same disclaimers here are noted as others have.....I am not a health care practitioner and this commentary should not be construed as professional advice.)  Along those lines with Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV--causal virus of shingles) being a close relative of Herpes Simplex Virus-1 (causal virus of herpes blisters), I can agree with the many reports on the web about the hastened healing from using L-lysine as an amino acid supplement.  It has helped me get quicker relief with herpes flare ups.....and have read it *can* work the same way for shingles.  (Pretty sure that herpes along with other factors has impacted my right eye/vision over the years as well.)  As an over the counter supplement, may be worth a try if interested.  I can see where those would be quite painful.  Good luck and speedy healing to you!

Hi John,

I have been blind 2x in my life.  Both times corrected with surgery before the age of 5. My left eye has normal vision.


There is a certain possible irony here.  As I was recovering from one of the eye surgeries, someone put me in the childrens’ ward ….. where I also got measles, mumps, and chicken pox at the same time.

As long as I am making updates, let me put in a plug for the Lions Club that picked up a significant portion of the costs.

The pictures I looked up of shingles around the eye look a bit different to me. They seem to have a more raised bumpiness and redder appearance from fluids boiling up underneath, more typical of viral infections. Also they tend to have that yellowish crustiness. John's appear drier and darker and the scabbed areas appear more sunken.

The swelling is down significantly.   There is still some around the rt eye.  Of course, being on steroids and antihistamines, I would expect the swelling to be down.   The site has not expanded in size nor intensity.  

I am still interested in Eric’s thoughts on Shingles.  The doctor did ask a few screening questions regarding Shingles.  But, with me having the vaccine, things could be skewed. If I find the need for another visit with my doctor, I will certainly bring up the subject.  I suppose I will have my answer in a week or so.

Very glad to hear that you're doing better. Thanks for the update.

I looked up pictures of shingles around the eye. Some looked similar to yours, and some didn't. Maybe I missed it, but didn't your Dr. know one way or the other? My doctor got it right away when I got shingles many years ago.

John F Dean wrote:I am still interested in Eric’s thoughts on Shingles.  The doctor did ask a few screening questions regarding Shingles.  But, with me having the vaccine, things could be skewed. If I find the need for another visit with my doctor, I will certainly bring up the subject.  I suppose I will have my answer in a week or so.

I've read in a *lot* of places and seen evidence myself, of vaccines not *preventing* an illness, but simply significantly reducing the symptoms and risk factors or as you wrote, "skewed" things!

Also, just because life can be a bitch, who says it can't be more than one thing? There could have been more than one biting insect about that night, or your body could have reacted to bites by triggering a small shingles reaction, or, or, or... (I've been told shingles can be a reaction to other things challenging your immune system - I don't know how accurate that was.)

Often it comes down to trying a bunch of reasonable treatments and evaluating the results. You are keeping a close watch and an open mind. You tried home remedies as a start, but got the big guns when needed. You may never know the answer for sure, but so long as you keep getting better, in the grand scheme of things, it may not matter!

Jay Angler wrote:... I've read in a *lot* of places and seen evidence myself, of vaccines not *preventing* an illness, but simply significantly reducing the symptoms and risk factors or as you wrote, "skewed" things!

....or your body could have reacted to bites by triggering a small shingles reaction, or, or, or... (I've been told shingles can be a reaction to other things challenging your immune system - I don't know how accurate that was.)

Just some personal experience and observations from a family situation that dealt with HSV-1 for a lifetime.  Bodily "insults" have a tendency to be associated with herpes reactivation.  A combination of emotional stress, a stressful physical environment (for me, extensive sunlight/humidity/perspiration combined with chemical bug sprays,--also a laboratory environment with known toxic chemicals), and additional factors that challenge the immune system, are a perfect storm for a herpes/zoster flare up.  My dad had a bad shingles flare up in his mid-70s....during a stressful move as he was having to leave a beloved farm residence behind.  So all of what Jay noted could be at play here.  Fortunately, if one *did* want to know for sure, there are all of the same types of tests available for zoster virus that were just highlighted in the recent COVID pandemic.  Hopefully your physician is more open to running such tests than mine has been....it should be fairly routine, but I can't speak for the cost.  Good luck!

Hi Jay,

As is often noted, doctors are trained to think horses and not Zebras.

Robin, my physician and another one from his clinic thought reaction to insect bites. But, if there were100 physicians, it does not totally eliminate the possibility they are wrong.   I am following their advice. But their dx was based upon a number of things including how I answered their questions and their observations.  My answers to some of the questions were based on my belief I was attacked by flies.  Their observations could have been impacted by the vaccine which may have masked some of the symptoms.  I am still not experiencing anywhere near the discomfort that is normally associated with Shingles.  So, I still think insects.  

But, there are a number of knowledgeable people on this site who I feel it is in my best interest to listen to.  “Listen to” is much different than action on their comments.