posted on Aug, 10 2007 @ 01:30 AM
Perhaps this should be in the survival section, but I have a good home remedy for being bitten by a brown recluse. Living along the Ark/Okl border we
have a lot of those rascals. and I have personally been bitten twice in the last few years.
When bitten, there is no pain, and a person my not even notice the tiny red mark. But a clear blister will form. If you live in an area with these
critters, you learn to watch for blisters, especially if they are in a place where you wouldn't expect one to form.
Cut the skin off around the entire raised portion of the blister and wash the area with antiseptic soap. Then take a raw potato and mash it real fine.
Mix the potato with Epsom Salt, which can be gotten at any drug store. (We keep this on hand in the medicine cabinet.)
Apply this mixture over the area of the bite where the skin was removed from the blister and cover it with a clean gauze bandage. Change this poltice
out every three hours for the first day, and then every four to five hours for the next two days.
The potato and Epsom Salt will "draw" the venom out instead of letting it eat into the flesh. Untreated, a brown recluse bite can become bad enough
to require amputation, so by all means see a doctor.
I am furnishing this "folk remedy" method only because I was at least a 12 hour hike from a road when I was bitten the first time, and was lucky to
have the Salt as I carry it in case of a sprained ankle, and the potato was part of my camping larder.
I am NOT recommending this in place of seeing a doctor. But unless you go straight to a doctor after being bitten, even their drugs and ointments and
shots can leave you with a nasty infection and a big hole in your flesh. The sooner you start drawing this venom out, the better.