A mum claims a false widow spider snuck under her duvet and sank its fangs into her thigh as she slept - leaving a 50p-sized bite. Tracey Carse woke up one Saturday morning to find a painful-looking open sore on her right thigh that was red and inflamed. While attending a dermatology appointment, the 50-year-old was urged to go to A&E and get the bite, believed to be from a false widow spider, checked out to prevent sepsis.
At hospital, the wound was assessed and a course of antibiotics and cream was prescribed to tackle the infection. But the mum-of-one was horrified to discover the 'disgusting' bite had turned necrotic a week later - leaving her with a patch of blackened dead flesh that a nurse dressed weekly.
Four months on from her ordeal in November, Tracey is now urging anyone bitten by an eight-legged terror to monitor the bite and seek medical attention. Tracey, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, said: "I had it dressed weekly by a nurse for a number of weeks.
"It's finally on the mend. It was from November so it's taken until now [to heal] it's scarred now. I went to bed on a Friday night, slept under the duvet, and I woke up with a big open sore on my thigh the next morning.
"I was going to the dermatologist to have a mole removed on the Saturday morning. They said 'you need to go straight to A&E once you've left here as you need to get some antibiotics because of the risk of infection and sepsis'.
"They suspected it was a false widow spider bite. I ended up on antibiotics for a month and by the time I saw the nurse had quite a sizeable dead piece of scabby horribleness on my thigh and I had to have it dressed. There was talk of maybe having to cut it out. It eventually did move in the right direction but it was pretty disgusting for a number of weeks."
Tracey went to the A&E department at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, Greater Manchester, in the middle of November. She then had her leg dressed for a number of weeks by a nurse before it finally healed up.
Never a fan of spiders even before the incident, Tracey is now urging anyone bitten to get medical help. Tracey said: "I don't like spiders but I'm not a screaming spider hater.
"I've never experienced anything like this before. I'm a little bit more wary in my bedroom, I'm trying to visualise how it got under the covers and got me.
"I'm over it but it made me think about spiders in a different way. If I see one in the house it probably won't be in there for very long. [To anyone bitten] I would say you just need to be careful of things like that and get it checked out so it doesn't develop into something more serious.
"My main worry was getting an infection. Four months on I'm finally on the mend. It's just a scar now but I think the scar will be there forever. Luckily it's at the top of my thigh and not on my face like I've seen some people have online. I can just about live with it."
