Man Left with Flesh-Eating Wound After Being Bitten by a Spider

A man hailing from the United Kingdom was bitten by a spider which is considered to be mildly venomous and not too dangerous for humans. But in a rare case, the bite has left the man with a flesh-eating wound that won't heal.

The man named Carl Jones was bitten by the False Widow spider in January 2021 and his wound didn't heal for five months. At the beginning of June he underwent a biopsy which was successful in removing the infected wound.

Spider Web
Representational image / Pixabay

The 26-year-old man was unaware of being bitten by the spider and revealed that he is an arachnophobe right from his childhood. For the uninitiated, arachnophobia is an irrational fear of spiders. Reports suggest that close to 6.1 percent of the global population suffer from it.

Carl, who works as a lab technician, revealed he woke up one day with a blister on his left-upper arm and was unsure what had caused the mark. He then checked in to the emergency care and doctors were equally puzzled at the blemish and decided to simply dress the wound thinking he would be out of danger.

Unfortunately, things turned sour a few days later as Carl's condition began to deteriorate and the blemish began causing blisters on his arm as big as the size of a coin.

Carl revealed that he began experiencing fever, chills and broke out with constant sweating. ''I was at work and someone said I didn't look very well. I experienced lots of sweating and fevers,'' he told the Daily Star.

The same day, his blister ballooned up and was filled with pus. Carl immediately rushed to the hospital for treatment and doctors investigated him for borrelia, tuberculosis and even skin cancer as his wound was not healing.

Doctors then prescribed him with three different anti-bodies but the flesh-eating wound remained intact with no changes. Despite trying all medications, Carl's salvation finally came in June after doctors advised him to undergo biopsy and were successful in removing the infected portion of the wound.

Only after the wound was healed did Carl and doctors realize that the blister was caused by a False Widow spider after spotting it in his bathroom. ''I came home from work the other night and I've never seen anything like it before,'' he said. ''I looked into cases around Milton Keynes and I saw a news article about an increase of false widows in the area.''

Carl revealed that he killed every single spider in his home to prevent himself from being bitten and landing with a flesh-eating wound once again.

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