When Halle Hizer developed a sore ear two days into her week-long holiday, she put it down to wearing earphones on the flight.
But the student had actually been bitten by a venomous spider, and her idyllic Greek getaway rapidly turned into a ‘horror show’ that nearly cost the 20-year-old her ear.
Ms Hizer and her grandmother flew from their homes in Enfield, North London, to the island of Rhodes for seven days of sun soaked R&R.
Just two days into the trip, Ms Hizer woke up with a swollen left ear but assumed it was from wearing her air pods during the flight.
She said: ‘I woke up and my ear was really swollen. At the time I didn’t think anything of it.
‘I just thought it was a case of when you wear your air pods for too long and it was rubbing on my ear when it can hurt sometimes.
‘The next day it kept getting bigger and bigger and pus started coming out of it and I didn’t think at the time that I needed to go see a doctor or to the hospital.
‘I thought maybe I had an ear infection.’
Halle Hizer feared she would lose her ear after a spider bite became infected
Her ear became swollen up ‘like a cauliflower’ and began leaking pus
Ms Hizer, now suspecting she had been bitten by a mosquito, went to the local pharmacist who gave her some antibiotic cream.
However, it failed to reduce the pain or swelling—the musical theatre student says her ear doubled in size and began to resemble a ‘cauliflower’.
After several days with no improvement, and on the insistence of her grandmother, she sought the advice of a doctor.
She continued: ‘He just took one look over and said “you’ve got a bad infection in your ear” and that’s it.
‘He gave me antibiotics and I was taking them but my ear wasn’t getting any better. It was getting worse.’
After flying back home on 6 June, Ms Hizer became ‘scared she’d lose her ear’ after it began leaking pus and she started experienced ‘stabbing’ pains.
Fearing it was about to turn septic, she went straight to hospital where she was ‘shocked’ to be told the antibiotics she was given in Greece hadn’t been used in medicine for years and had led to the infection.
Days later she had surgery to remove the abscess in her ear and doctors revealed she had been bitten by a spider, not a mosquito as she had initially suspected.
Upon returning home to the UK she went to hospital, who needed to operate
Pus was pouring out of the theatre student’s ear
She said: ‘When I had surgery that’s when they realised I was bitten by a spider. [The doctor] said ‘what antibiotics you were on’ and I showed him the packet and he said “that’s so strange. We haven’t used this antibiotic for years in medicine because it’s been proven it doesn’t work anymore”.
‘I was quite shocked because I spent £155 on a private doctor [in Greece] and he gave me antibiotics that weren’t even used in medicine anymore.
‘Because I wasn’t given the right antibiotics my ear ended up getting so infected to the point pus was coming out that was basically poison.
‘Every five minutes my ear would be leaking. The doctors told me I would need surgery to remove the abscess.
‘That’s when they realised from testing it that it wasn’t a mosquito but it was a spider. You could see from the back the bite marks.’
Ms Hizer isn’t sure what spider bit her, but it might have been a Mediterranean recluse spider, also known as a violin spider, which are responsible for some very similar—and equally nasty—bites.
The spiders are relatively small, with bodies less than 1cm long, and have long spindly legs and venom which can cause redness and in extreme cases, necrosis.
She continued: ‘It was swollen from the back and the front which I didn’t realise at the time.
She feared that her ear was going septic after cream and pills she obtained from medics in Greece did nothing
She underwent an operation to remove the abscess once she got home to Enfield, London
It is not known which spider bit her, but it was likely a poisonous violin spider
‘If I was put on the right antibiotics to begin with it would’ve just got rid of the infection straight away but it just kept getting worse and worse.’
The student was on antibiotics for two weeks and had a bandage around her head but the swelling has since gone down.
She now urges other holidaymakers to use insect repellent and to read the cleanliness reviews of hotels as she believes that could’ve played a part.
Ms Hizer said: ‘My ear has gone back to normal and it’s not huge anymore. A lot of the scabbing is gone now and have fallen off. It’s still a little bit tender but granted because they did cut my ear open.
‘I have a new fear of spiders but I’m hoping because we’re in the UK I’m not going to come across any spider of that nature but who knows because I didn’t think I was going to come across that in Greece.
‘Make sure you have the repellent with you and make sure the hotel is clean because I feel like that played a big factor in it. Me and my grandma regret not reading the reviews. Just do your research before you go to places so you’re not disappointed.
‘We went for a week just to relax and it ended up becoming a horror show. I wasn’t expecting to find spiders like that in Greece.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .