A mum believes a spider that crawled out of her shop-bought fruit has left her with a giant gaping wound on her arm that keeps bursting open. Sharon Brown was bitten while making fruit kebabs in her garden in 2016 and says she became unwell within minutes as a small hole appeared on her right hand.
Suspecting she was having an allergic reaction to a potential spider bite, she visited her GP and was prescribed antibiotics, antihistamines and steroids and had the area dressed. The 43-year-old returned to the doctor days later for a check-up to have her dressings changed and was horrified to discover the sore had grown rather than improved.
Over time the 'pinhead'-sized bite grew into a gaping wound that covered Sharon's entire forearm, eating away at her flesh and revealing her deep tissues and tendons. The former garage worker has now been unable to work for the past six years due to the open wound that will not heal or respond to treatment.
Horrifying photos show Sharon's entire arm repeatedly burst open down the middle of her forearm - even with long finger-like growths coming out of the wound. Doctors have been unable to diagnose or effectively treat the condition and she is still battling the mystery condition the critter has left her with six years later.
Sharon said: "I was in the back garden and I felt myself get bitten - I'd been to the supermarket to buy a load of fruit to make fruit kebabs with my boys. I'd bought fruit from different supermarkets so I can't say for certain which punnet it came out of.
"Even doctors think it was something that came out of the fruit packets because of the severity of the reaction and how quick it happened. They think it might have been a spider bite - it could have been an exotic spider because a lot of fruit is shipped in from abroad.
"That's what they're telling me is the most likely cause of what's happened. It just felt like a gnat bite. I didn't really think much of it at first but within five minutes I didn't feel well - I started getting sweaty and having palpitations.
"I rang the doctors and because of my peanut allergy they said 'come down and we'll have a look'. There was just this tiny hole, the size of a drawing pin head. They gave me some strong antibiotics and antihistamines and that seemed to settle it down but when I went back to have the dressings changed a few days later it had got bigger.
"We kept on with the regular dressing changes, antibiotics, steroids and antihistamines and when it didn't heal after six weeks they sent me to hospital with it because it looked really infected. You could just progressively see the hole getting bigger and in time it ate away the whole back of my hand - at the moment it's right up to my elbow.
"I still haven't got a proper diagnosis. It will be six years this July since the insect bite happened. Doctors thought they'd found out what it was a few times but the treatment that would've cleared up that certain condition never cleared me up.
"To this day I'm left with a huge open wound the length of my right [fore]arm that just won't heal."
After six weeks of unsuccessful treatment via her GP, the mum was referred to West Suffolk Hospital where she initially stayed as an in-patient on intravenous antibiotics for a week, in late 2016. Over the next year she was admitted numerous times when the wound flared up and underwent three debridement surgeries, to remove dead and infected tissue, as well as two skin grafts.
When all of these attempts to heal Sharon's arm failed, she was transferred to Ipswich Hospital in early 2017 and underwent further treatment there, which again failed. In 2018 her care was taken over by Addenbrooke's Hospital, in Cambridge, where doctors performed another three skin grafts as well as a major ten-hour transplant to close the deep wound with healthy skin from her side.
After those procedures also failed, she was transferred back to Ipswich Hospital in 2019 and has been hospitalised for IV antibiotics and blood transfusions countless times between then and present. Doctors remain at a loss as to what is preventing the wound from healing but some have suggested that it may be caused by the condition pyoderma gangrenosum.
This rare condition causes painful ulcers, spreads quickly and can be triggered by insect bites. Sharon said: "That's how the vicious cycle started - I go into hospital for IV antibiotics and the wound settles down a bit but as soon as I come home and go onto oral antibiotics it flares up again.
"My wound heals to a point and then it breaks down - I almost fully healed in 2017 but then I broke down more and more and more. I had a major transplant in 2018 because by then the whole back of my hand had been lost - there was no skin and you could see my tendons and everything.
"But everything they tried to do just failed. We don't know why it's not healing. The doctors at the hospital said they just don't know what else to do, they're at a loss.
"They think it might be pyoderma gangrenosum because I fit a lot of the criteria of that condition but it doesn't scream that condition. Gangrenosum does get misdiagnosed so many times so it is still possible. They can't rule it out at the minute.
