Real rabies

Quite a headline, right? You can imagine what I have to say is important. Do not move this thread.

My rabies fears began at the tender age of ten years old, after watching Cujo with my Oma. I was scratched by a cat, and was sent into fits of tears and panic. I did not develope rabies (obviously).

At twelve, my mom gave me a book on zoonic diseases. I went vegetarian for fear that I would contract mad cow. At fourteen, it was HIV. And after a while, I was fine. I feared nothing.

Then I had my son. My disease/illness phobias returned with a vengeance, only this time, it was my son I feared for. It began with SIDS. I cried everyday, afraid I'd lose him. After he turned a year old, I started to get better.

Then the thing happened. My son was scratched by a cat. Bellamy the cat ripped my son's Iris halfway out of his eye. It was a very traumatic experience.

Bellamy was fully vaccinated and well cared for. He was an indoor cat. If he ever went outside, he stayed on the upstairs patio. However, an evil seed had planted itself into my weak and vulnerable mind: what if Bellamy the cat had played with a bat recently, and had transferred infectious material from his claws directly into my son's optic nerve?

Thus began ALL the research. The more I knew, the worse I became. I was devastated and debilitated, I was a mushy, useless vegetable, so crippling was my anxiety. He would get sick with normal childhood illnesses, and it would destroy me, and if I'd made any progress in my mental health, I had to start all over again.i kept pouring myself into research; not just symptom googling, real research, delving into studies and papers case reports, anything I could get my thumbs on. And the more I knew, the worse I got.

Soon, I was afraid to garden in my precious flower beds, for fear a sick bat lie in wait. I wouldn't walk through grass without boots, and even then, it made me nervous. I worked in a loud, noisy club, and once I felt a sharp pain in my toe, and was then consumed by the idea that a bat had gotten ahold of my foot and disappeared.

I could go on and on about all the different stories I'd conjured up. But in the end, it began rending my life and relationships to shreds. So much so that I'm now on an selective seratonin re-uptake inhibitor, and a serious blood pressure medication to stop my bodily panic attacks. It would get so bad I would begin to hallucinate, both visually and and through sound. I wouldn't be able to swallow. I had insomnia... All symptoms of rabies, lol.

The blood pressure meds gave me numbness and chest/arm pains. Went to the ER, I just KNEW I was having a heart-attack. Why? Because I possessed the knowledge that it was possible that my meds could cause one.

By now, you've figured out that I don't actually have rabies. I do have, however, severe anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Just like many of you. We are triggered by something, a tiny wound, a bat sighting, even a little reminder of why we used to be afraid, and the thought rituals begin all over again, we run around in endless, toxic circles in our heads.

Many of you may have read the sticky for this subforum. And, like it used to be for me, it may not be enough for you, or scare you even more if you've done too much research. Numbers aren't good enough for people like use, are they? No. What you need are specifics. I'm here to share with you the only rational thoughts I ever had to arm and guard myself with.

1 - only a couple cases of rabies a year. But you already knew that. Let's explore a bit, shall we? The ONE THING that every single US-contracted case of rabies has in common is that each person absolutely KNEW about the animal, they either weren't aware of the risks, or just didn't believe it was worth worrying about (unlike us, heh). The only outlier is so far back that the CDC no longer has a record of it, I had to dig quite a bit to find it. You know what was special about that case? No one knew she'd been exposed because she lived utterly alone, in a rural area, and had told no one. I need not tell you, but ah, what the heck. She likely knew of the animal, and never told anyone about it, and no one was there to witness it.

2 - Still only a couple cases a year. Yeah, we're still on this one, but onto a different point. Think about how many millions of Americans, old, young, daft, or otherwise, go hiking, camping, fishing, or exploring the wilderness every single year? MILLIONS. How many more work at night, or in old warehouses, or in the woods? And HOW MANY MORE millions go out effing wasted at night, clearly not capable of making decisions or remembering their night clearly? Not just alcohol, think of all the tweekers and hippies and homeless, think of all the campgrounds at festivals, think of all the people who DO live in rural areas? And of ALL of those MILLIONS and MILLIONS and MILLIONS of risks, only one to two a year get rabies? And of that puny, tiny little percentage, quite a number aren't even contracted inside the U.S. borders? Just how special do you think you are?

3 - if you are completely and entirely unconvinced, and you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN you've had a real exposure, why are you here. Go get vaccinated. A rabies post-exposure prophylaxis failure doesn't even exist in the United States.

4 - If you've already been vaccinated, and you think you've had another exposure, here's something nice for ya: rabies neutralizing antibody titers persist for five years in 85-95% of those that received some time of prophylaxis. Still worried? Get a booster. You don't even need immunoglobulins.

Funny thing? I came here cause I had a pain, and I got nervous. But after reading... Well, thank you all for reminding me how completely nucking futs we are. This is my way of returning the favor.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to leave email, but if an admin gets a hold of me and okays it, I'd gladly leave it for anyone to use to contact me. This pain and panic that we share can be nearly as destructive as the illnesses we dread, only we have to live with it.
No worries, loves. You are not alone.

Diz

EDIT: tried to fix spelling, thread deleted itself instead.

Thank you for this thread :) I am sure it will help a lot of people...... if they need to they can PM you on here :)

thanks again

Great thread about how the anxious mind works. Glad you’re doing ok.

This is amazing- and this is totally for me... I’m going to pm you later

Sent you a PM!

A lady near me has the craziest job yous ever heard of which I bet you never knew existed - dog trimmer!

Her hands and arms are covered with dogs bites because the critters won't stay still.

Needless to say, she ain't got rabies and never even thinks about it

Great thread! I was hanging out with a friend recently who grew up in a pretty rural area. She said when she was a kid back in the 90s she woke up one night and there was a bat IN HER BED. She yelled for her mom and when she told her there was a bat she thought she was dreaming or imagining it. Then she pulled the cover back and the bat went flying out going round and round in circles in the room. A few minutes later her cat grabbed it and ran away and they never saw the bat again. No one got rabies shots and no one got rabies!

Thankss, What happens if they give me verorab day 0, day 7 test blood day 16, another doses i give me in another center day 17.
The day 16 blood test recieved days after say i have 2 ui/ml when the minimum recommended for the WHO was 0,5 ui/ml (so i pass it) also they where never sure of my exposure because i never see the bat, i woke up dream it, then began to screatch myself....

So you were never bitten by a bat so you don't have rabies. Please put this worry behind you now.

at least i never see it, but the worry come somethimes, the bat can be only the dream because i never found it....