[Ansteorra] OT: Help if you can

[Chelsea Durham]

Well we scrounged together the money and went to the vet. The doc said it was *drumroll* an abscess. She's got meds and a follow up appt next week. Thank you all for your support, guidance, and everything. She came out of hiding today and her face was just dripping blood. We tried to clean it but I insisted on a vet visit. The doc drained it and the swelling is dramatically reduced. 
-Grainne 



-- Sent from my Palm Pixi
On May 31, 2010 2:43 PM, Galen of Ockham, OP <galen.of.ockham at gmail.com> wrote: 



>> Your cat may have been bitten by a spider. You need to take her to the Vet as soon as possible. The bite sounds like a spider bite and the Kingdom of Ansteorra ( no insult) has very nasty insects that crawl around our fair lands.

>>     

I usually don't jump in on these discussions, but I need to here.

Despite what most people have been told, *spider bites are essentially a

MYTH!* Mundanely I'm an Air Force flight surgeon (MD, MPH with 3 board

certifications) and almost 20 years of wilderness and environmental

medicine experience, including extensively looking into the issue of

spider bites. Now, I realize that almost everyone has known someone who

has been told by a doc that they have a spider bite, and I was taught

that spider bites were common when I was in my initial residency. But,

more research has shown that in actuality spider bites are very rare and

it is even more rare that they cause any clinical problems. Most of what

gets called spider bites (even by the pros) are actually skin

infections, and in recent years are usually MRSA (methicillin-resistant

Staphylococcus aureus, a drug-resistant form of a common bacteria that

has become very prevalent recently).

The horror stories of brown reculse bites are very overblown, with bites

being very rare and the nasty tissue destruction that makes it into

textbooks even more rare. The only North American spider of real medical

importance is the Black Widow.

This information has been collaborated with wilderness medicine experts

(such as Auerbach of Auerbach's Textbook of Wilderness Medicine), docs

who have studied spiders extensively (mostly Randy Reynolds, also an

USAF flight surgeon who goes by the nickname of 'Spider Doc'), and an

arachnologist (Rick Vetter of the University of California, Riverside

[UCR]). I highly recommend the UCR spider website at

http://spiders.ucr.edu/brs.html for good articles and links to peer

reviewed literature on the topic.



To answer your immediate question, an infection is likely and your pet

should be evaluated by a veterinarian. But, I can tell you with 99+%

certainty that it is NOT a spider bite (even if that's what the vet

tells you).

-- 

Magister Galenus Ockhamnesis

Friar Galen of Ockham, OP

A Study in Natural Philosophy: http://medievalscience.org

Chirurgeon's Point: http://chirurgeon.org <http://chirurgeon.org/>





<http://chirurgeon.org/>

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