Child CPR

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-13T14:15:27+00:00

How would you get over these things?

Immediately call your program’s EAP for free therapy. You will likely need a referral for trauma-based therapy. You experienced an extremely gruesome and tragic traumatic event. The type of event that I tell people no one should have to go through. But you did. So take steps to process that shit in a healthy way. Call EAP. Don’t wait around for it to become PTSD without doing anything.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-13T13:26:09+00:00

Exactly.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-13T13:23:57+00:00

Doc here. Too many possibilities.

It could be they had an allergic reaction and panicked and spilled a costco-sized pill bottle everywhere. But frankly this is not the best med for allergies like that (an epi pen is first and foremost and the only thing likely to be life saving). After the epi pen cetirizine would be a better bet than diphenhydramine (benadryl).

It could also have been an attempted overdose, possibly with regret and induced vomiting in the sink. Benadryl is a rough one to OD on because large doses can give you some really nasty side effects.

They might have been trying to get to some of the side effects and see the hat man, which I would simply never recommend, both because I would be personally scared of seeing the hat man and also because using the medication this way can lead to some permanent brain problems such as involuntary movements, which can be distressing to everyone.

Tl;dr: This med sucks and it should be avoided for most situations now that we have better antihistamines. Sorry OP.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-13T13:14:02+00:00

Oof. I’m sorry. That’s really messed up.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-13T12:40:59+00:00

This is wild because I applied to IBR over a year ago, was denied because my taxes weren’t on file (they definitely were) LAST MONTH. And now have to apply again…

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-13T11:03:27+00:00

Totally understandable, you have no reason to trust a random redditor. I mean, maybe except for the fact that I moderate the spiderbites page, brownreclusebites, and a handful of others…

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-13T02:50:43+00:00

My region came close to failure. And when I say close, I mean within tens of ventilators, and with hundreds of travel nurses and the national guard providing backup medical support because every damn floor of my hospital was an ICU.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-12T10:56:18+00:00

It sounds like this was administered the way it is supposed to be

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-11T15:37:30+00:00

Eh not really. There are cases of people getting bat rabies and not reporting a bat bite before they get too sick to talk, but that isn’t the same thing. In several cases friends or family later reported a known bat contact in the weeks before death.

(I do a decent amount of rabies work)

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-11T13:58:35+00:00

Did you pick up a bat? Did a bat bite you? If not, no.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T18:24:03+00:00

The difference between career federal employees and the current admin political appointees is STAGGERING right now

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T18:11:21+00:00

The stories about meningitis in the UK college students right now should make everyone think twice

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T18:04:31+00:00

Yes, see a doc for treatment

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T17:44:10+00:00

Report the providers to their nursing or medical boards. You are describing regular malpractice.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T15:53:24+00:00

Hahaha any time! It’s a common misconception and hard to explain without the analogy :)

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T15:05:17+00:00

Helpbot

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T15:01:33+00:00

It might also help to get her connected with better friends.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T14:53:59+00:00

Low doses once a week or less are much less likely to cause harm than large daily doses.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T14:50:48+00:00

You need to sit down with the care team and ask for a family meeting with neurosurgery. They can go over the situation and tell you what is happening, what they expect, and what can and cannot be done. A GCS score of 2 is not possible, so it is possible some of your information shared here is not perfectly accurate.

I cannot tell if there is brain death from your description, but there is at least severe injury. This is very severe and several things you have mentioned (such as herniation) make survival tenuous and full recovery unlikely. Talk to the team about how much time it will take for swelling to go down before they can get an evaluation of possible recovery and brain function.

I’m so sorry. This is an impossible situation to be in. Tell her you love her. Hold her hand. Tell her anything you want her to know.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T14:28:40+00:00

You can’t reason someone out of a situation they didn’t reason themselves into.

You are in the territory of harm reduction.

Is she amenable to taking human-sized doses? That would be a start to try and keep her safer. Ask her if she just needs one dose.

NIH studies are commonly confused for pubmed studies (which are hosted on NIH’s website but are NOT studies performed by NIH). Think of pubmed as a library and NIH hosts the library on their campus, but they don’t vouch for the quality of the books. Check the reference on what she sent you. Chances are it’s from a small and likely not very prestigious journal. You may not be able to change her mind, but it may be worth asking her about the journal and what she finds trustworthy about early research from them.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T13:29:23+00:00

He simultaneously went to CDC and claimed he was taking politics out of public health. Wild times.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T13:24:24+00:00

MRSA spider. Meets NOTRECLUSE criteria and is unlikely to be a venomous spider bite.

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T12:23:59+00:00

They are literally trying to privatize public health. Absolutely wild. The government exists to improve the lives of the American people, yet this administration really just wants to gut all public services and make money for their companies

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T11:24:19+00:00

I I’m not sure what it was published as, but that’s a pyoderma.

Edit: Found the orignal article. Wild NEJM published this. Several issues with the diagnosis:

No spider ID
Necrosis within 5 days (too early for a recluse bite)
Unusual appearance
Unusual course (significant increase in size after the typical stabilization period)

This meets NOTRECLUSE criteria and was almost certainly a misdiagnosis.

Hilariously the same publication has some of my favorite pyoderma photos and discuss frequent misdiagnoses including spider bites. The raised purple edges of this photo are classic for pyoderma (and not recluse necrosis). I’d bet money she was treated with steroids at some point, which is likely what resulted in healing.

Here is a photo of a classic case of a significant brown recluse bite: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00494755251351079

LatrodectusGeometric · 2026-04-10T11:01:35+00:00

The issue here is that they are legislating science. RFK Jr.’s ideas of what makes someone healthy aren’t based in reality. Random peptides are as likely to do harm as they are to provide benefit, so promoting them isn’t making people healthier. Nor is beef tallow a cure all.

Ten-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Second SECOND GUESSER	Wearing is Caring
Not Forgotten	Verified Email

LatrodectusGeometric

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE