A MUM couldn't sit down for a week after she was bitten on the BUM by a spider.

Nicola Martin, 30, was left in agony and spent three days in hospital after suffering a severe allergic reaction to the venom of the cellar spider.

Doctors said she was lucky not to have contracted deadly sepsis.

"It was the worst pain I've felt in my life," said Nicola, from Burnley, who had been cleaning out a cupboard under the stairs.

"I thought I was dying when I got chest pains. My heart rate went through the roof.  I was burning up, I was red hot."

Cellar spiders look like daddy long legs and rarely attack humans, but Nicola was unlucky.

Nicola, a restaurant manager, said: “I woke up about 2am and my leg was hurting but I didn't think anything about it and went back to sleep.

"When I woke at 8am, the lump was the size of a 2p. It was red with a black hole which was really sore but I thought I had been bitten by a mosquito."

Later she started to get chest pains and felt sick. She noticed the lump had doubled in size. She went to the pharmacy to get some antihistamines, but chemist urged her to go to hospital.

Nicola said: "I had shooting pains down by legs, my heart was racing and I was sweating.

"I went to Burnley's urgent care centre and there was a seven hour wait.

"I felt like I was going to faint. I was shaking, I couldn't sit down.

"They saw me after an hour as it was an emergency. It started to blister and where black thing was, it had popped and yellow puss came out. The doctors thought it was a horsefly bite but I've had those before. They didn't know what it was."

She was transferred to Royal Blackburn Hospital and admitted to a ward. Her heart raced and her temperature soared to 39.8 degrees. She was put on a drip and stabilised with anti-biotics as doctors feared she could develop sepsis.

Meanwhile her husband Kirk went home and found three cellar spiders under the stairs. He looked them up on the internet and found similar symptoms which helped doctors treat the bite.

Nicola was allowed home but had to keep her leg up for a week as she suffered muscle damage.

Nicola, who has a son Cooper, aged four, said: "I had to lie on one side for six or seven days to stop the pain spreading. The lump got very big and hardened. I was struggling to walk for three weeks.

"I thought I was dying when I got chest pains. My heart rate went through the roof.  I was burning up, I was red hot. It came down eventually with the drip. I was working myself up as well."

She warned parents to be more aware of the dangers of cellar spiders, adding: "They look like daddy long-legs but have a bigger body in the middle.

"Apparently they don't bite very often but they are venomous. If they are carrying eggs, they bite to protect their eggs.

"It would have been terrible if Cooper had got bitten.

"I'm not touching a spider ever again. I had a phobia before and its made it twice as bad. I'm definitely not going to Australia."