We have lots of creepy crawlers in our home.  One thing we deal with more here is scorpions.  We kill scorpions every day.  I have also suffered an bite in the middle of the night which is an interesting thing to have wake you up.  The clothes are hung outside to dry, and the ants like using the clotheslines to crawl from one side of the yard to the other.  So if you don’t shake out the linens well, you might find a surprise in your sheets.  It can also be more than a surprise.  I deal with insect bites almost every day at the hospital.  Scabies is very common.  Fleas and biting flies also cause a lot of irritation.  But the worst are the spider bites.  There are lots of black widows around, and their bite is very toxic.  There are some good photos on the Diospi Suyana Hospital website that show some of the side effects and the extraordinary surgical measures that are sometimes needed to cure these bites.  Read below about a recent patient.

Do you have a spider phobia?Then please do not read more

This black spider is very common in Curahuasi. It has a noble appearance of red- black color, but it is highly toxic. Everyone takes around her. Unfortunately in houses and the outdoors spiders of any kind can be dangerousness. When Maria Caceres (name changed) was bitten by a spider two weeks ago, she gave the matter no attention at first. Although it did hurt a lot, the people in the mountains of Peru are tough.

Left, the tissue over a large area (length ~ 10 cm) is dead. Right to recognize the bite site.

But her calf was changing rapidly. Maria began to limp. Finally, on a recommendation of a friend she sought help in the hospital Diospi Suyana .  The venom of the spider had killed skin and muscle tissue. The day before yesterday she was operated on by Dr. Annette Hair and Dr. Reinhard Kühn. The surgeons did the right thing and cut away all the dead tissue from the leg.  The wound will take weeks to heal. A vacuum system helps to speed up this process.

The dead tissue is cut out. The wound is treated with a vacuum system.