Wednesday 23 November 2022 02:02 AM Hotel manager, 46, feared spider eggs were HATCHING inside her after being ... trends now
A hotel manager feared spider eggs were hatching from inside her after a huge bite left her with a golf ball-sized sac that repeatedly swells up on her back.
Emmeline Botfield, 46, from Kingswinford in the West Midlands, from was in a beer garden in July 2018 when she was bitten by a spider, leaving her with a ferocious scar that has caused her years of pain.
She said that the vicious bite blistered and left her bedridden for days with a fever and 'excruciating' pins and needles down her arm, before it eventually healed and disappeared.
But a year later a bubbly blister popped up with a vengeance making her feel like she'd been 'hit by a car', and she's experienced a further six nasty 'flare ups' since then.
Ms Botfield said that the bite has caused nerve damage and left her with the shingles, an infection that causes a painful rash, which surfaces each time her immune system is low.
Emmeline Botfield, 46, was bitten by a spider in 2018, leaving her with horrible symptoms for years after
She said the bite mark causes her severe pain and has left her bedridden for days
She's now keen to raise awareness of the importance of getting bites checked out, treated and properly investigated to prevent long-term effects.
Ms Botfield said: 'Things go through your head - I thought that the spider had laid eggs in my body.
'I was petrified. I thought that they'd laid dormant and it really did frighten me [during first flare up].
'I've had seven flare ups over the last couple of years and this most recent one was the worst it's ever been.
'It felt like acid being poured onto my back and burning constantly, that's the only way I can describe it.
'And the pins and needles - the shock pain going through my arms was terrible.'
Ms Botfield was bitten on the right side of her back near her shoulder blade which was initially the size of a ten pence piece.
Ms Botfield said: 'I was out in a beer garden and I just felt something fall on me and a sting on my back.
'I saw this spider scurry around and I didn't think anything of it until that night when it blistered and - it was a rather unusual blister on my back.
The huge bite regularly flares up and causes Ms Botfield agony, more than four years after she was bitten
