Ok, I need to know what would cause a leg and foot to swell up 4 times its normal size. The foot and leg became so large, it was having eruptions of liquid like volcanos. And all this occurred within a 2 hour period. This happened to me several years ago and was diagnosed as cellulitus. I was put on 4 IVs of antibiotics overnight. The typical blood poisoning red traces were visible slowly moving up my leg. They mentioned that it could have been a spider bite or something infecting the little toe where it started. I have been researching cellulitus and brown recluse spider bites and none of the symptoms described are what I had. So now I am confused as to what may have happened to cause such a bizarre affliction. Any ideas?
Hi, Welcome to Chat Doctor. Many of the spider bites usually do not cause much harm except for some spiders like black widow spider and brown recluse spider. Your symptoms are suggestive of a brown recluse spider bite where the skin around the bite wound swells and reddens due to a local reaction. Such wounds should be cleaned thoroughly to avoid secondary bacterial infection. Based on the symptoms you have mentioned in your query, I suspect the above scenario where your wound was not attended to in time and secondary bacterial infection has occurred leading to cellulitis. Cellulitis is caused by bacteria like staphylococcus and streptococcus. You were correctly treated by broad spectrum antibiotics as cellulitis spreads very fast and cause septicemia. Hope I have helped you with this answer. Thanks.