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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Avicenna J Med 2017; 07(02): 51-53
DOI: 10.4103/2231-0770.203606
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Black widow spider bites experience from tertiary care center in Saudi Arabia

Ali Al Bshabshe
Department of Medicine and Critical Care, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
,
Musa Alfaifi
Department of Emergency Medicine, Asser Central Hospital, Abha, Saudi Arabia
,
Ahmed Fouad Alsayed
Department of Emergency Medicine, Asser Central Hospital, Abha, Saudi Arabia
› Author Affiliations Financial support and sponsorship Nil.
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Abstract

Introduction: Black widow spiders are one of the most poisonous species to humans; there are more than 30 species of widow spiders in the globe but good thing that not all of them are dangerous. Some of these spiders produce toxic venoms, which cause broad spectrum of clinical manifestations including skin lesions, neurotoxicity, cardiac toxicity and death in some occasions. In Saudi Arabia there were no much reports of black widow spider bites apart from the case series by BUCUR and his group in ALBAHA region. Settings: In 2 years period a total of 8 patients were presented to the emergency departments diagnosed to have black widow spider bites based on description by the patients. Results: 100 % of the cohort were males, aged between 25-58 years. The time between bite and presentation to emergency room was one hour in average (30 min to 4 hours). 75% occured during summer season. All of them 100% had one bite only and reported the bite to be at nighttime in 75% of the times. The average pain score at presentation was 4 /10.100% of the bites were in the lower extremities and almost all progressed to have lower back pain. Three patients had gastrointestinal tract manifestation in form of abdominal cramps and nausea. One had bilateral ptosis, none of them had cardiac or pulmonary complications. The outcome was excellent in all patients and the average of hospital stay was 2.5 days (1-5).

Keywords

Arachnidism - Aseer - black widow spider bite


Publication History

Article published online:
09 August 2021

© 2017. Syrian American Medical Society. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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