Woman’s skin “peeled like a snake” after a brown recluse bite, she says

Woman’s skin “peeled like a snake” after a brown recluse bite, she says

A Texas woman says a brown recluse spider bite turned into a medical emergency that kept her in hospital for weeks and left her skin shedding in sheets long after she went home. The images and videos she posted online, showing her in intensive care and later showing widespread peeling, quickly went viral and sparked a wave of questions about how serious recluse bites can get.

The woman, Mynita S., 32, has said on social media that she believes she was bitten at home in Fort Bend County in May 2025. She describes a rapid decline over the next several hours, with severe pain at the bite site followed by symptoms that felt far bigger than a routine insect bite: a racing heart, difficulty breathing and worsening weakness. She says she was taken to hospital and later required ventilation.

In her posts, she also describes dangerously low haemoglobin and loss of movement in her limbs during the acute phase, suggesting her body was dealing with a broader systemic reaction rather than only a local wound. Doctors kept her admitted for weeks, she said, while they monitored her vitals and tried to prevent complications.

The part of her story that has drawn the most attention is what happened after discharge. In later clips, she shows skin peeling across large areas and describes it as “like a snake shedding.” That kind of dramatic peeling is not what most people associate with a brown recluse bite, and it is not the typical course in the majority of cases.

Medical experts generally note that most suspected recluse bites do not progress to severe outcomes. When serious reactions do occur, they are usually linked to a syndrome called loxoscelism, where venom-related tissue damage and inflammation can extend beyond the initial bite site. In rare cases, people can develop systemic illness, including haemolysis (breakdown of red blood cells), abnormal bloodwork and widespread inflammatory effects. Skin damage can range from mild irritation to blistering and, in some cases, deeper tissue injury that evolves over days rather than minutes.

Doctors also caution that many skin lesions blamed on spiders turn out to be something else, including bacterial infections, allergic reactions or other dermatologic conditions. That is one reason clinicians focus on symptoms and progression, not just the suspected culprit.

The practical advice remains straightforward. If a bite is followed by rapidly worsening pain, spreading redness, fever, breathing issues, dizziness, dark urine, unusual bruising or weakness, it is a reason to seek urgent care. Even after discharge, new or worsening skin changes should be reviewed by a clinician to check for infection, delayed inflammation or complications of tissue damage.

Mynita’s account is a vivid reminder of two truths: most bites are not life-threatening, but when symptoms escalate quickly, it is safer to treat it as a medical emergency than to wait it out.