Diane,

Glad you went to the doctor. This sounds exactly like what happened to my mother. She was bitten by a brown recluse spider, a particularly venemous spider indigenous to your area. (She lives in Malibu.)

She could see no physical bite, but her face swelled up terribly, and then the neurological damage set in. Pain and twitches and numb areas, and... well it wasn't pretty. She has a small hole in her cheek now where the tissue necrosed.

I say all this not to scare you but to give you a lead in case the doctors misidentify what's wrong with you (as they did in my mother's case). If they had discovered the cause earlier (evidently these spiders have migrated west, but were not common in Ca. in the past) she wouldn't have had to go through so much.

The brown recluse spider bite can be quite serious. Please keep us posted. I hope it was something else, but your symptoms sure sounded familiar.

My best to you,

Cathryn