The reclusa species (red area) is likely the most abundant in its range.
Posted on 08/23/2019 2:09:09 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Doctors in Kansas City, Missouri, pulled a venomous brown recluse spider out of Torres' ear, and somehow, she kept her cool.
But she's never sleeping without earplugs again. She woke up Wednesday morning with popping and swishing sounds in her ear. She decided to check it out after work, though she didn't think much of it at first, she said.
A medical assistant examined Torres' ear, then ran out of the room to grab more sets of eyes. Soon, two nurses, three medical students and a doctor joined the assistant in the tiny exam room to break the news--a spider had set up shop in her ear canal.
Remarkably, she stayed calm, even with the knowledge that a skittering spider was squatting in her head, she said.
"Seeing the instruments they were going to put in my ear started to make me panic," she said.
The doctor flushed her ear with water, but it didn't budge.
After a few more tries, the doctor pulled it out in one piece and laid it out, legs flayed. They determined the invader to be a brown recluse spider, a nocturnal spider that can inject victims with a venomous fluid if it bites, she said.
"The nurses said it was dead, but they might've just said that so I wouldn't freak out," she said.
In some sort of miracle, the team informed her the arachnid skated down her ear canal without so much as a bite, she said.
She thinks it might have entered her ear while she was sleeping, so now she doesn't take any chances. She bought ear plugs shortly after her ordeal ended.
"I just didn't think it was possible for them to come inside the ear," she said. "Who would've thought?"
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
Reminds me of a “My Name is Earl” episode.
That happened to me at Emory University, GA, when I had a detached retina. They called in a bunch of students to take a look, with half of 'em having a "you poor bastard" look on their faces.
Made me feel REALLY comfortable.
Luckily, the doc put a "buckle" on m eyeball and I've been fine ever since. In the old days, I would have been blind in that eye.
I forgot to mention...we had those also.
“Kansas City, Missouri”
Hmmm. This is a desert spider. Usually it is someone who has traveled to Arizona or Nevada that ends up bringing on back.
I bet I remember it...the one where the punchline after the man survived the torment of an “ear wig” crawling through his brain, was that it laid eggs on the way.
Nightmarish, always remembered that.
..on..your..head.
That reminds me of the scene in the movie SQUIRM of 1976. The female laying down inside the jail cell thinking her boyfriend was there. LOL
The reclusa species (red area) is likely the most abundant in its range.
I once told my doctor I had a bug in my ear.
He thought it was a jokey figure of speech, IOW like I had some kind of big idea.
I kept insisting, No, really, there’s a bug in my ear.
Finally he looked & there really was a live bug in my ear.
“The er doc scraped and cleaned the wound, which had began to eat into my bone.”
From what I have read removal of the affected flesh is about the only treatment. So the longer you wait, the worse it would be.
I would like all spiders, snakes, and sharks to die.
(Not really, I understand their purpose...)
My husband’s grandma had a wasp in her ear. It bite her a few times before it came out. Horrifying experience.
And flies and mosquitoes. Especially mosquitoes!
Nah, not noted for the desert. Very prominent in Missouri but anywhere, they are very reclusive and it is rare to get bitten. I’ve had a cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks and my pest control guy finds them in the glue traps occasionally. I was all over Missouri for most of my 70 years and have never had one bite but I have cleaned dark corners etc. to make sure I keep them from being too prominent.
He was a genius..no doubt. I liked the episode where the former nazi stood in front of a peaceful painting...night after night he stood there willing himself into the painting. It went on like that for sometime then one night he went in there, in the dark, stood where he’d always stood and once again, willed himself into the painting. And it worked that time....but someone had replaced the ‘peaceful’ painting with a painting of the Crucifixion....... :O
Woman has mean ear wax.
Unless you have actually live in Kansas and have been bitten by them many times you would be nervous. Most of the time the bites are a bit more irritating than misquitoe bites and are successfully treated with neosporin.
I had the same procedure. The recovery was pure torture. Having to keep my head down and lie face down for a month.
I was speaking to a lady at church about it. She too had a detached retina one time. She put it off. Didn’t realize it required immediate medical attention.
She lost the sight in that eye.
It wouldn't come out, so I pulled a leaf off a tree, and used the stem to get it out.
I like radio dramas, and a few years ago, came across a South African radio series that also did that story around 1971, give or take.
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