Spider Bites--much swelling--much healing

[Truman]

Anyone ever experienced a spider bite?

Whew, I did. 4pm last wednesday...walk in the park no problem. 30 minutes lying in the back yard and I couldn't move. (I had just been neutered 4 days earlier...so mom's diagnosis wasn't immediate.)

Next morning to the doc's with extremely swollen leg(happily a newfy specialist too). Some anti-inflamatories and antibiotics. Watched the leg for few days.

With long walks and lots of love, swelling went down. But then (of course late at night) started to ooze. 24 hr vet~cone~morning trip to regular doc~Surgery~swelling relieved~Woke-up~ate drainage tube in doc's office~keeping it clean with daily compress.

The Question: is he ever going to wag his tail again? He's so deflated. (I realize in one sense~the leg~that's a good thing). How long is a messy slow recovery? Anyone else have experience with these 8-legged Charlotte-imitating pests?

Best,

Duncan & Truman

[ 04-07-2007, 12:59 AM: Message edited by: Truman ]

 

[sarnewfie]

dont have any experience with it, but, your vet prolly can answer that, is he on any steroids or antibiotics?

 

[Ginny]

I know with humans, spider bites (depending on the type of spider) can take long stints on antibiotics to improve. Glad the vet knew to consider a spider bite. Hope all improves quickly for your fur baby.

 

[Jenn]

We have quite a few spiders where we live but ours have only been bit a few times. I keep Benedryll capsules on hand but better yet BENADRYL Quick Dissolve Strips. No need to try and force a pill down an unwilling dogs mouth. Oopen mouth slap it in and it disolves, they cannot spit it out. I wish all animal meds came in that form. It would be so much easier.

Depending on the spider, recovery may take a while.

Considering he was just neutered it was easy to confuse. Not to mention al the darned hair so you can't see the problem.

 

[Truman]

Doc says, "lookin' good." Return on Wed. just to see. Mom & Dad sighed with relief. Wagged the tail today and almost smiled.

Jenn, thanks for the Benedryll tip. I'll look for it and always have it on hand.

The spider got away, so we don't know what kind it was. You'd think a big black hairy monster sitting on it would just do it in.

Thanks for the assurance I'll be up and back to normal eventually. These sunny 70 degree spring days are tough to watch a hurtin' newf through.

~duncan

 

[CMDRTED]

Generic 25mg Benidryl is what I used. Unfortunately the first time I freaked, as mine looked like "Chippy the Chipmunk." The second time, I just gave her the Benidryl for three days, and everything was okey-dokey

 

[Truman]

It's Wednesday...Doc said tissue looked good. Also mentioned that he had seen 3 other nasty spider bites since mine...a horse, a goat and a Rottweiler. My sympathy to all.

The question: He also suggested we have benadryl and cary an epi PEN. Ok, I guess he's big enough...and metabolism is fast enough. And we are outside people. Alas.

~Duncan & Truman

 

[Blacknewfs]

Glad to hear Truman is on the road to recovery....spider bites can take a long time to heal!

 

[Truman]

Ugh, Truman! You are never sitting on a hobo spider again!

We went to the vet yesterday for a "re-check"... the drain hole had opened earlier in the week and was, well, still weeping (after being healed for three weeks.) The vet asked if we could find something to do for an hour and 1/2 (luckily he's located in the heart of Wine country...so that was easy) and put Truman under and lanced the leg again.

It's been 6 or 7 weeks since the pesky bite.
At least, there's much less pain, less swelling, and much more happy-newfy-attitude. And, of course, another round of antibiotics. Hopefully the last for this fiasco.

There does seem to be a frequent flyer discount at our vet...that's nice. And our vet is simply an experience large animal doc. and all around great guy!

~Duncan

Post Script (as if this entire entry isn't a post script) Since Truman was diagnosed with spider bite...the doc said he's seen six more animals with exactly the same issue. (A horse, A llama and various dogs, including a rottweiler who got one in the face...blech!)