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helen can u help??? on the 24/12/04 my 11 yr old nephew woke up with a sore the size of a 5c coin on his right cheek almost on his ear, he already had a cold and he seemed to get worse throughout the day. he had a fever, loss of appitite, sleept most of the day felt and like being sick. on christmas day he was the same, the sore looked like a burn and it was weeping. i took him to the hospital that night because he was that ill.they didnt know what it was, they asked us if we burnt him!!! we took him home and for the next few days he just slept. the sore seemed to spread into his hair, it got about the size of a 20c coin. it then scabed, it has now gone but he has a scar. do you think it was a whitetail spider bite??? i would love to hear from you or anyone that could give me an answer. thanks.

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I was bitten in February 2004 on the leg. At the time I didn't know I had been bitten by a whitetail as I had spotted and swatted a mosquito on my right leg when I felt someting bite my left leg, I assumed that it was another mosquito and swatted it. Within seconds I was barely able to walk. The bruising was significant and the pain debilitating. I went to my doctor after been bitten and he seemed to think that the symptoms pointed to deep vein thrombosis and sent me to the hospital emergency department. They had no idea what was the matter with me until they done tests, in the meantime they gave me a shot of warfarin (blood thinner). The results showed that I didn't have DVT so they sent me home. A week later I was worse, a friend wondered if it could have been a whitetail that bit me and on close inspection of my leg I found two little blisters where the spiders fangs had penetrated. My doctor prescribed an anti inflammatory, antihistamine and pain killer. After several weeks the pain slowly eased and the bruising and swelling faded until my leg returned to normal. That was several months ago and I had all but forgotten about it until this week when pain began to return. At first I thought I must have hurt my leg exercising but as the pain has increased over the last few days I have come to believe it is from the original spider bite, as the pain is identical and the same area. The effects of the spider are certainly played down over here also. When I first identified one in 1998 I phoned government pest control and was told that i didn't need to worry they were harmless. When I asked him why then did a man have three toes amputated after been bitten that very week, he still insisted that they were harmless. Anyone that has been bitten knows this isn't true. The are well established here in NZ after getting tru our lax biosecurity, probably in a shipping container. There are two varieties of the spider here. A pest control company told us to keep all webs cleared inside and outside the house, that the whitetail comes in looking for prey, supposedly if there are no webs, the spider will think there is no food?? Personally I don't think there is any way to get rid of them. Great to read all your interesting comments, it drives home once again how dangerous these spiders can be.

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I'm over here from England for a few months and was blissfully unaware of the the whitetail spider until, that is, I was bitten by one! My partner asked me to 'deal with' the spider on the bedroom wall so just like back home I picked it up and dropped it out of the window. It bit me between the thumb and index finger. By the following morning I had come up in an incredibly irritating rash across the back of my hand and up my arm. The bite came up in two tiny, hard, white lumps which I eventualy scratched away. They then weeped a clear fluid for several days. About a week later my wrist became slightly swollen and extremely painful. A further week and I had a soreness/ discomfort under my arm. The irritating rash continued for about two weeks then virtualy disapeared but returned about a month later for a further week. The wrist pain subsided after about a fortnight. I have been tired and generally run down since. I caught a flue like virus about three weeks ago but can't get shot of it. I am unusually tired with little energy. I eventually went to a GP who has given me some antibiotics. I mentioned the spider bite and he said that he thought he recollected that it can effect the imune system which may be what is causing the continued flue symptoms and lethargy. There is currently a bit in The Lancet declaring the myth of the Whitetail so perhaps I am jumping to conclusions but if anyone has any similar experience to mine or comment, I would be pleased to hear it.