What is the Difference Between Spider Bite and Staph Infection

The key difference between spider bite and staph infection is that spider bite is a skin infection that causes a red, inflamed, sometimes itchy or painful bump on the skin after the bite of spiders like black widows, tarantulas, or hobo spiders, while staph infection is a skin infection that causes redness, swelling, pain, heat, and/or sores filled with pus after MRSA resistant Staphylococcus bacteria enters the body.

Every year, thousands of people show up at hospitals with red, swollen, and painful areas on their skin. They often believe these skin inflammation symptoms are due to spider bites. However, many a time, spiders are not to blame. This is because staph infection can also cause the same symptoms. Although both spider bites and staph infections begin as red, swollen, painful areas on the skin, they require different treatments to cure.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is a Spider Bite 
3. What is a Staph Infection
4. Similarities – Spider Bite vs Staph Infection
5. Spider Bite vs Staph Infection in Tabular Form
6. Summary – Spider Bite vs Staph Infection

What is a Spider Bite?

A spider bite is a skin infection that occurs after the bite of spiders like black widows, brown recluses, tarantulas, false black widows, or hobo spiders. These bites are usually harmless, and spiders do not generally bite unless they are threatened. Throughout the world, only a few species of spiders have fangs that are long enough to penetrate the human skin and have venom strong enough to trigger inflammation in human skin. Among these species, the most important ones are widow spiders and recluse spiders. The common symptoms of spider bites are a red, inflamed, itchy, or painful bump on the skin, cramping, nausea, vomiting, tremors, sweating, fever, chills, body aches, a bite wound with a pale center that turns dark blue with a red ring around it and a bite wound that grows into an ulcer with the skin around it dying. The complications that result from spider bites are large scars and death, specifically in small children.

Spider bites can be diagnosed through medical history, physical examination, and by identifying the spider. Furthermore, the treatment options for spider bite include first aid (cleaning the wound, applying a cool compress over the bite area, taking antihistamines (cetirizine), etc.), pain medications, muscle relaxants, and antivenom like black widow antivenom.

What is Staph Infection?

Staph infection is a skin infection that is caused by MRSA-resistant Staphylococcus bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus. Most of the time, these bacteria can be found on the skin or nose of many healthy people. Staphylococcus bacteria often cause relatively minor skin infections. However, Staph infection can turn deadly if the bacteria enter deeper into the body, entering the bloodstream, bones, joints, lungs, and heart. The usual symptoms may include boils, blisters, and redness on the skin that can be found anywhere on the body, including the face, frequently around the mouth and face. In addition, fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, dehydration, and muscle aches can also present as symptoms. The complications may include bloodstream infections (septicemia), pneumonia, heart failure, bone (osteomyelitis), and joint infections.

Staph infection can be diagnosed through physical examination, blood test, urine test, echocardiogram, and other imaging tests (CT scan and MRI). Furthermore, a staph infection can be treated through antibiotics, wound drainage, and the removal of devices that trigger infection.

What are the Similarities Between Spider Bite and Staph Infection?

• Both spider bites and staph infections begin as red, swollen, painful areas on the skin.
• Both skin conditions trigger inflammation.
• They can cause life-threatening complications.
• These can be diagnosed through physical examination.

What is the Difference Between Spider Bite and Staph Infection?

Spider bite is a skin infection that occurs after the bite of spiders like black widows, brown recluses, tarantulas, or hobo spiders, while staph infection is a skin infection that occurs after the entering of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus bacteria into the body. So, this is the key difference between spider bite and staph infection. Furthermore, the complications that result from spider bites include large scars and death, specifically in small children. On the other hand, the complications that result from staph infection include bloodstream infections (septicemia), pneumonia, heart failure, bone (osteomyelitis), and joint infections.

The below infographic presents the differences between spider bite and staph infection in tabular form for side-by-side comparison.

Summary – Spider Bite vs Staph Infection

A spider bite is a skin infection that causes a red, inflamed, sometimes itchy or painful bump on your skin after the bite of spiders like black widows, brown recluses, tarantulas, or hobo spiders. A staph infection, on the other hand, is a skin infection that causes redness, swelling, pain, heat, and/or sores filled with pus after MRSA-resistant Staphylococcus bacteria enter the body. So, this summarizes the difference between spider bite and staph infection.

Reference:

1. “Spider Bites: Pictures to Identify Spiders and Their Bites.” WebMD.
2. “Staph Infections.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.

Image Courtesy:

1. “Spider Bite” By Adam Henning (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) via Flickr
2. “Mrsa2” By Jen – Self-photographed (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia