An Occupational Health Nurse Advisor’s reflection on her personal experience.
The false widow spider is commonly found in houses resembling black widow spiders, although not so harmful. I live at the far Southwest of England and behind me is a small grove of trees, although the seacoast is a stone’s throw from me.
When I moved into my current house there were conkers (horse chestnuts) in all the cupboards which I thought was strange and removed, realising quite sharply after research and an influx of false widow spiders moving into every room, the reason behind them and quickly returned the conkers, noticing a swift decline. Surprisingly conkers appear to keep false widow spiders away.
Being a nature lover of all things that breathe, I realise that spiders play a good part in keeping other insects out of the house, clearing them out as a tasty snack during the night as part of the biodiverse cycle; therefore, wanting to live in harmony with them, I try to face my fears and overlook a few, such as the one that was in my bathroom behind the mirror for 3 weeks coming out at night times.
On a particular morning after showering, I felt something tickle my neck and smacked it, only to be bitten, which I initially thought was a bee sting, until I saw it scuttle away on the floor which is where it sadly came to an end.
Within half an hour my neck swelled and tracked up to my ear giving me terrible earache, and tracked across my collar bone area which was itching and painful. It was clearly not Anaphylaxis as I did not have any breathing issues and would not have had to ring 999. None the less I recognised a severe localised reaction, after going to the local Pharmacy and ringing my GP for strong antibiotics; the swelling subsided but took over a week to reduce.
On reflection and the moral to the story is not to smack, hurt or threaten spiders, as they play an important part in our biodiverse system. We can live in harmony as was planned from my part initially, but clearly deserved the bite as I hurt it and should have been more respectful.
An important message to myself is to face my fears, live in harmony with the little things that tickle, as although they can bite and cause reactions, their own consequences are a lot worse from a human lashing out, as that was the end for which I regret, as things were going well until then!
P.S. The Pharmacist told me that people coming to see her with spider bites have recently increased, so we need to fight those fears, as they only bite when threatened!
