A woman was left in agonising pain after a false widow spider feasted on her as she slept - resulting in 'golf ball sized' lump on her arm. Kayleigh Ward woke up in the morning to find her upper left arm severely swollen and red - with the infection continuing to spread.
The next day at work, the 27-year-old's arm 'tripled in size' and she was rushed to hospital, where she underwent blood tests and was prescribed antibiotics for the unknown wound. She went to bed that night with a hot water bottle on her arm to ease the pain - but it soon started 'seeping' with puss, Hull Live reports.
In a desperate bid to relieve the pain, the restaurant manager asked her sister Natalie Ward, 24, to help squeeze out the infection. Nauseating footage showing the thick, greyish fluid from oozing down her arm as Natalie applies pressure to the lump with her gloved hands.
It was only after a third visit to the hospital that doctors were finally able to identify the wound as a false widow spider bite, which Kayleigh believes sneaked in through her bedroom window.
Now the brave hospitality worker claims she has been left sleeping in a hoodie and wrapped in her duvet as she fears the creepy-crawly is still loose in her home. Kayleigh, from Poole, Dorset, said: "I woke up with the lump in my arm.
"It was probably the size of a golf ball. I think I was asleep when it happened. I don't sleep with my window open. I just open it in the day for an hour or two to let some air in.
"I haven't found the spider which is why I've been sleeping wrapped up in a duvet. I've never been worried about anything like that until this bite. My arm was humungous. It started just under a golf ball and I reckon it got three times bigger."
Kayleigh went to work at the weekend and drew a line around the infected wound, watching it creep across her skin as it became more severe. She said: "I went to work on the Saturday and drew a line around my arm to see if it spread.
"I think I was infected or allergic to the bite. I then went to the hospital to A&E and they took some blood tests. I was there for about seven hours and didn't see a doctor because it was about 5.30am.
"They booked me an appointment on the Sunday where they gave me antibiotics and said if it got bigger to go back. The next day, the redness had spread about 3cm across my arm. There was a redness that went all around my arm and the size of my arm tripled by Sunday.
"I went to hospital two or three times. There wasn't an entry wound where the spider had bitten me until Sunday. When I went back again [on Monday], that's when the lady said it was a bite from a spider. I reckon it was a false widow spider bite.
"It's infected and just to make it worse, I'm type one diabetic. That's why I went to the hospital so many times. I was worrying at first because they didn't tell me what it was until the Monday."
The bite victim then found herself in so much pain on Tuesday morning that she begged her sister to squeeze out the fluid that had already begun seeping from her arm. Kayleigh said: "In the end, I put a hot water bottle on it to bring it to the surface.
"The following morning when I touched it, it was seeping for about half an hour. When I woke in the morning my other sister, Mia, asked me how my arm was. All I did was touch it to show her and as I touch it [pus] started to come out of my arm, so you can imagine how full it was.
"[Natalie] was squeezing it for me in the video. I wanted to try and get everything out. It was oozing the pus for about half an hour. It was huge. After that, it wasn't as full so it didn't hurt as much.
"It was throbbing until all the stuff [pus] came out. I still have it on my arm almost a week later. I wear dresses at work and it's not nice to have a big lump on my arm."
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
