the story
In the 1990s, a lady crushed up a full black widow spider and injected it to get high and ended up having a really horrible time when the arachnid’s venom kicked in. She spent a few days in the intensive care unit (ICU) due to respiratory problems, muscular cramps, and suspected anaphylaxis.
The unique case was described in a letter published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine in 1996. It describes what happened when a 37-year-old lady decided to inject a solution made up of 10 milliliters of distilled water and 10 crushed-up entire black widow spiders. She would subsequently admit to physicians that the injection was meant to make her feel euphoric, but an hour later, she found herself in the emergency room with excruciating muscular cramps.
The pain was worst in her stomach, legs, and back, and it came with headaches and nervousness, which was very scary. When she was checked, her heart rate was 188 beats per minute and her blood pressure was 188/108 mm Hg. Good blood pressure is around 120/80 mm Hg.
Morphine relieved her severe pain, but she had respiratory problems and was sent to the ICU for three days of breathing treatments. Her breathing problem may have been caused by the massive amounts of black widow venom she injected when she crushed the spider, according to the physicians.
Black widow venom
Black widow venom is exceedingly lethal and 15 times more toxic than rattlesnake poison; nevertheless, these spiders only inject venom when they feel threatened, which raises questions regarding all the penile assaults. If left alone, they are entirely safe, but if you crush one up and inject it, you’re going to have a bad time.
Most healthy people will feel sick and have some pain, but they will get better, just like these three would-be spider-men who tried to get a black widow to bite them so they could get superpowers. But the bite can sometimes be fatal for very young children, very old people, or people who already have health problems.
Doctors who were treating the woman who shot the crushed-up back widow mixture thought that a protein in the spider may have caused an allergic reaction, which could explain some of her serious symptoms. We don’t know if it was the venom or something else, but it could have set off her asthma, making it very hard for her to breathe.
Thankfully, the traumatic event had a happy ending, as the woman recovered from her symptoms and was reported to be in excellent health one month later. Although humans have a long history of pursuing enlightenment from natural products (even our primate forebears spin to get high), venomous-arachnid-infusions appear to be a poor choice.
