[stlnative]

I live in the country - farmland - corn fields and very wet weather right now that makes them move indoors... they get in my house all the time. I spray 4 times a year and not gotten around to it yet. Not sure when I was bit, it could have been while I was sleeping. You do not really feel them when they bite... it is the after you have worry about as it swells and turns black in the center.

[discostu]

Sounds like you need more cats. Lousy company good for keeping bugs out. Good luck, those bites get nasty.

[templar]

You do not really feel them when they bite... it is the after you have worry about as it swells and turns black in the center.

About 3 1/2 years ago I was bitten repeatedly on the head by one of these critters. There were between 11 and 13 bites (some overlapped and the rotting sores made it difficult to count) with the ones on the top being the worse and getting less severe as they progressed toward the front of my head. I think the thing may have been slowly running out of venom and just kept biting till it was empty. They are a really nasty painful bite after the fact as you don't feel them bite. I figure that either it got in my hat or got me while I was sleeping. I treated the wounds myself using a flax seed poltice made with very hot epsom salts solution. The poltice seemed to help with removing the necrotizing flesh and kept it from spreading while the wound ran it's course. I think gangrene could be a problem, and the necrotizing of the flesh seems to penetrate deeply enough ( my skull became visible in the worst one) that a bite near an artery might actually rupture the artery. I survived, it took about four months for the wounds to completely heal and there is still a depression in the skin on my head where the bites were in a long line about an inch wide and 6 inches long that is something like half or more of the depth of the flesh on my skull.

I've also been bitten by a black widow spider, and as bad as they are, I'd say the fiddleback is by far the more dangerous.

[savagesusie]

We had them in a delapidated barn in Perry, OK. (although I never was bit)....but came close when some big scorpions slide out of my drawing pad!!! I also had a black widow hanging inside my mail box and accidently looked instead of grabbed my mail....I was lucky! How I ever survived OK--I will never know....