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<\/p>\nA HOTEL manager feared spider eggs were growing inside her after a golf ball-sized bite swelled up on her back. <\/p>\n
Emmeline Botfield became terrified she was hosting baby arachnids after a nasty nip left a sac repeatedly swelling up on her back. <\/p>\n
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The 46-year-old, from the West Midlands, was nabbed by the spider back in July 2018, when a trip to a beer garden turned sour. <\/p>\n
After feeling a sting, she said the bite then blistered and left her bedridden for days with a fever while "excruciating" pins and needles shot down her arm. <\/p>\n
Despite eventually healing, a year later the bubbly blister popped back with a vengeance, making her feel like she'd been "hit by a car". <\/p>\n
Emmeline has since experienced a further six nasty "flare ups", and says the bite on her shoulder blade has even led to nerve damage. <\/p>\n
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The bite also resulted in a recurring case of the shingles – an infection which resurfaces each time her immune system is low. <\/p>\n
With her "flare ups" getting worse each time, she's now sharing her experience to raise awareness of the importance of getting bites checked out. <\/p>\n
Emmeline said: "Things go through your head – I thought that the spider had laid eggs in my body.<\/p>\n
"I was petrified. I thought that they'd laid dormant and it really did frighten me.<\/p>\n
"I've had seven flare ups over the last couple of years and this most recent one was the worst it's ever been.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n "It felt like acid being poured onto my back and burning constantly, that's the only way I can describe it.<\/p>\n "And the pins and needles – the shock pain going through my arms was terrible."<\/p>\n Emmeline admitted that at first she dismissed the nip as nothing serious, despite it initially growing to the size of a ten pence piece. <\/p>\n She added: "I didn't think anything of it until that night when it blistered. <\/p>\n "Within 24 hours it literally flared up and there were several bubbles and black spikes in the pockets of the bite.<\/p>\n "I was feverish, went very poorly and had pins and needles down my arm."<\/p>\n It's literally like you've been hit by a car, you've got no energy, you feel dizzy and disorientated and have pains.<\/p>\n "I had my family bathe it with TCP and they were having to pull these almost water bubble pockets with spikes in out of my back," she continued. <\/p>\n "The pain was excruciating – I had four days off work, I was totally and utterly bedridden.<\/p>\n "I was delirious and had pyjama bottoms and a top that I could pull up the front and have down [at the back] and I couldn't have any covers on me or touch me, my skin was red raw."<\/p>\n She said her recurring flare ups normally begin with just an achy shoulder, before it swells up "like an ugly acid alien spot – this time I'd say it's the circumference of a golf ball."<\/p>\n "I didn't expect to have a long term reaction from the bite", she added. <\/p>\n "If anybody does get bitten, by a spider or any type of bite, get it checked over – don't be passed off by it because I've been left with something that now flares up.<\/p>\n "If I could have had some other treatment or something initially to begin with and had it investigated more, I don't think I probably would be in the situation that I'm in now.<\/p>\n "Now I need to get them [doctors] to investigate it so I've got to force them to do something more for me rather than just pass me off."<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/ac-jeremy-hun-tcomp.jpg\")
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