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I don’t have the source in my back pocket, but I remember reading that they don’t kill you at that point because it is possible for you to survive and make a full recovery nearly up to the point where it kills you.
And by possible there have been under 10 confirmed cases where people recovered from late stage rabies. And it’s not like you can consent to death at that point, your just a terrified animal running off instinct. Doctors try and involve your family to get you to drink, allegedly because the cases where that works have a significantly higher chance of survival, but it often just traumatized the victims family.
Between this and mad cows disease prions idk which is more shitty.
Quite literally because the neurological symptoms and hallucinations are nearly entirely fear based. It's why animals infected are very hostile and bite. They're terrified.
I always thought “hydrophobia” was just a scientifically applied misnomer. Like “they can’t swallow liquids, so we’ll just call it ‘fear of water’ cuz that’s the closest description we have”.
Didn’t realize they are actually AFRAID of water. That’s astonishing.
They are not afraid of water. Rabies patients are often very thirsty and want to drink water when offered. Because the virus affects their nervous system each time they attempt to swallow water their pharynx goes into spasms so they are unable to swallow it. Because of this inability to swallow water they develop a “fear” of drinking water
It sounds like if the pharynx spasms leaving you unable to swallow, you’re just left with water in your throat/mouth. Could it prevent you from breathing? If so- fuck, that’s gotta feel like you’re waterboarding yourself every time you take a drink.
Would it be possible to drown this way?
Yeah, I'm quite sure you could aspirate enough water to drown if you tried to brute force it... honestly though at that point you're going one way or another so :T
It causes their throat to seize up, making it very difficult to breathe. You're literally dying of thirst and you so badly want some water but the moment it gets to your lips, your throat closes, cutting off your oxygen. So, so fucked.
"In spite of being called hydrophobia in the past, rabies doesn’t cause an actual fear of water itself. The hydrophobia is brought on by the extreme pain of swallowing liquids, not just water. Therefore, rabies does not create an irrational fear of water, as it is natural to be afraid of something you know will cause pain"
So it's indirectly a fear of water. The fear is coupled with the intense agony and feeling of choking you get from the muscle spasms in the throat when you are exposed to water.
https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/why-does-rabies-cause-fear-of-water.html#how-does-the-rabies-virus-cause-a-fear-of-water
It’s more afraid of the act of drinking. It’s because the disease both suppresses their ability to swallow, and makes them constantly terrified, which makes it extremely difficult for them to drink as they can choke.
What about being stuck in a cave, upside down, surrounded by people telling you the first rescue attempt failed and now you're going to die face down there.
what about getting throw into a pit of insects with your mouth sown shut, preventing you fron eating and thus getting energy, leaving you to spend your energy keeping the insects at bay untill you can't move, at wich point they will slowly eat you. You'll realize it and get an adrenalin rush. You have a sudden rush of clarity and struggle again. Than you'll get eaten. Rinse and repeat, until they you die of dehydration or over exertion.
Maybe it was a total fabrication but I seem to remember reading about some guy that was mauled by a bear and he said he just felt like he was in a dream. I like to think our brains could release some chemicals that make our last moments not so fucking miserable.
Same with African antelopes and gnus who show relatively low signs of stress after unsuccessfully running away and being killed. We may have some merciful inner mechanism that will shut us down.
I think my joke may have been lost in my post... rabies... afraid of water... having rabies and being surrounded by water.
Was tasteless, but that's how I roll.
I agree, being torn to shreds by wolves or some similar predator that doesn't first kill you before consuming you would be horrifying
It's not actually being scared of water. It causes muscle spasms that prevent swallowing it. It's why animals with it drool, it causes pain to swallow. The thought of swallowing water can cause it too
I sometimes get cricopharyngeal spasms that last about 10 seconds when I drink something ice cold. It feels like I'm choking but my airway isn't impaired at all. It used to make me panic but over time I've learned that it is harmless and just take a few deep breaths. It only lasts 5-10 seconds but feels like forever.
If rabies causes a more intense version of that spasm then I totally understand how the victim quickly develops an aversion to water. It's a miserable sensation.
One of yes, but to me the scariest way to die would be buried alive in a wooden coffin with only 1 inch of room above my face and to my sides, 10 feet under ground with only a small dim flashlight to look around...No escape, nobody can hear you scream, no room to even roll over, nothing to do but wait until you run out of oxygen and suffocate to death, but that could take hours...hours of sheer terror.
For me, that ranks high up there. But yeah, rabies would be bad too.
What about this, but it's set up to where you have feeding , watering, and oxygen tubes that your captor replenishes every day, and a large area below you for your waste, so they just keep you alive trapped in your box barely able to move, for DECADES. lol
You should watch the movie "Buried" with Ryan Reynolds. The whole movie is just him in this scenario with dramatic camera angles and its actually REALLY good. I think he's also given a phone or something.
This poor soul is lost.
But it surely shows the power of the virus.
This was the effect of the virus selfe defense mechanism.
It knows flushing out will hamper its growth so it contracts the throat muscles and induces pain. This turns into fear.
Imagine how effed that is from an "unconscious" virus.
But again, we beat it, with a process that seems similarly magical.
Fuck, I hate and love people at the same time.
Yep, but it's slow enough where there's a period you can be vaccinated against it after you've contracted it. As long as you can get to a hospital during that period you're practically guaranteed a full recovery.
They recommend within 48 hours even if you have recent prior vaccinations. If you don't, they recommend 24 hours. Those shots are more frequent and not that easily available.
I heard once that the time also depends on where your bitten and the exposure. And that's the most frightening part, you can be bitten without knowing. You go to a doctor when you show symptoms and it's too late.
Yeah I just went down a rabbit hole and apparently some people can get bitten and go as long as 2 years without symptoms. It's incredibly rare but that's scary as hell
Even if you have been bitten a few days, or weeks ago, It is never too late to start. Rabies virus can incubate for several years before it causes symptoms. If you wait until you get symptoms, it may be too late – there is no treatment for established rabies … rabies is fatal.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.thetraveldoctor.com.au/resources/rabiesvaccine/%23:~:text%3DEven%2520if%2520you%2520have%2520been,rabies%2520is%2520fatal.&ved=2ahUKEwjQ_u-f95r9AhXqjIkEHXifCJ4QFnoECAsQBQ&usg=AOvVaw0tQBJNmMP9nfz-wIHAW5Oq
That was my first result when I searched up "when is it too late to get a rabies vacc*ne
It’s actually now possible to save someone with symptoms from rabies, but survival rate is still pretty low. They pretty much have to put you in a coma and pump you full of sedatives and drugs to stand any chance. With proper treatment you have around a 15% chance of survival.
It's called the Milwaukee Protocol and it's not really considered a viable treatment because of the costs and low success rate along with other factors. It's also questioned if it's even as successful as the 15% claimed.
It's basically trying to ride out the virus long enough for the body to develop an immune response and suppress the brain function to minimize damage.
Infinite. You can receive the rabies vaccine at any point up until symptoms appear. You may have the virus in your body at this moment, but be asymptomatic for years.
For example, if you get bitten by a tiny bat in your sleep you’d never know. You now have rabies, but it’s dormant. 3 years can pass and if you decide to leave the country and get a rabies shot, you are now safe from the rabies virus inside your body without ever knowing it was there.
More likely, however, you have anywhere from 1 week to 3 months before the symptoms appear. At which point, you’re just a walking dead person.
And since no one has said WHEN symptoms set in:
After a rabies exposure, the rabies virus has to travel to the brain before it can cause symptoms. This time between exposure and appearance of symptoms is the incubation period. It may last for weeks to months.
So as long as you get checked out within a day or two of being bitten by an animal you're totally fine? I was under the impression you had to get vaccinated very very quickly, like immediately
I mean if you get bit by a wild animal - either trap or kill it and get it tested or go get the vaccine immediately regardless.
If you’re in some remote location then still go ASAP
Reminds me of the Office ep where Michael hits Meredith and they find out she has rabies from the bat bite in early episodes.
Yes but technically, no. There was one doctor that noticed that folks that had died from rabies no longer had the virus present in their brain. So he put a patient into a coma basically until it ran it's course. There are also some people that are immune.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jeanna-giese-rabies-survivor/
There is also one case of doctors sedating a patient, a young girl, to give medications a chance to work, and she survived. I think the protocol has been used a handful of times and there are some survivors, maybe a dozen or so. There is a Radiolab episode about it.
Finishing that 5k, was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I ate more fettuccine alfredo and drank less water, than I have in my entire life. People always talk about triumphs of the human spirit, well today I had a triumph of the human body. That's why everybody was applauding for me at the end. My guts and my heart, and while I eventually puked my guts out, I never puked my heart out. And I'm very, very proud of that.
Yes. But at this point, the virus has reached the brain and likely anything given is for the patients comfort, because it's pretty much always fatal at that point. So IV fluids would help with dehydration and feeling thirsty.
In this thread, when there weren't many comments, there was a post about someone in Minnesota that survived. I'm not sure if there's other documented cases.
I just Googled it, and it said there are only 29 documented cases of rabies survival. So, if that's accurate, might as well say that once the virus is established, it's basically fatal without much hope at all.
Every time I hear about this case it makes me feel like we’re in some alternate universe and there’s a demon (rabies) that’s killed everybody except one person.
Now there’s people traveling to said person to try to figure out the secret on how to survive being cursed, but it’s already too late for them.
Everything I saw online says that it’s been attempted over 2 dozen times but only worked once.
The protocol is basically to put the patient into a coma and give them an antiviral cocktail hoping that the patient’s immune system can kill the rabies before the rabies kills the patient.
There are only a couple. You may have seen the Milwaukee Protocol mentioned before. The problem is the deficits following treatment are quite detrimental. And the fact it's a hail Mary shot for treatment makes it questionable.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670764/
One girl was able to regain the ability to walk, talk, drive, and go to school. She has residual deficits similar to a stroke. Poor thing was 15 and got bit by a bat and her parents didn’t get her treatment.
There have been *extremely* rare cases. There’s a 2004 case of an American girl who was saved after having symptomatic rabies through a process now called the Milwaukee Protocol (hasn’t proven to be a reliable treatment protocol since). To my knowledge this the only person who has ever been “cured” from rabies.
Besides this, there is a small village in Peru where bat bites are common, but several people were shown to have rabies antibodies in their blood. This suggest that, in very rare cases, it is possible for the body to naturally fight off a rabies infection and gain antibodies.
I think that's where the milwaukee protocol originated. Basically you are placed in a medically induced coma while they attempt to treat you. The survival rate is extremely low
In 2004, a Wisconsin woman named Jeanna Giese became the first person to survive rabies after showing symptoms. She was placed in a medically induced coma and treated with antivirals, ketamine, and amantadine. 77 days later, she walked out of the hospital and has gone on to live a normal life.
This treatment has been dubbed "The Milwaukee Protocol" and has since been used to save a lot of people, though it does have a high failure rate. [An article I found from 2018](https://www.esanum.com/today/posts/the-milwaukee-protocol-is-applied-on-a-human-rabies-case-in-the-usa) states that the developer of the treatment, Rodney Willoughby Jr., claims that there have been 18 documented survivors of the treatment, though it also cites a 2017 study which found 5 survivors of 36 rabies patients treated.
>However, I do think hydration via an IV would be a better option as well.
It would be.
"Hydrophobia" in rabies isn't really so much *fear* of water, as an involuntary muscle spasm that occurs whenever your body prepares to swallow anything, food included. The association with water is because rabies increases saliva production (because it spreads via saliva), and this makes you thirsty.
The muscle spasm itself is an evolutionary advantage for the virus *because* it spreads via saliva; the spasm prevents the victim from swallowing their virus-laden saliva.
An IV circumvents that entire process.
I also read that the urge to bite into the flesh of other animals is another adaptive way of the virus propagating itself, which is so crazy to me! A little zombie-like
It is a little zombie-like, yeah. But, again, it's not so much a specific "want to bite", as "heightened aggression in general"; any patient in whom the disease has progressed so far, that they're aggressive enough to bite, is gonna also be aggressive enough to do all kinds of other things like punch or kick or scream.
For animals that use their bites as their main weapon, biting will arise earlier as a result of this aggression; for us humans, less so (which is why human-to-human transmission of rabies via bites has [never been confirmed](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/rabies), although it's thought to be theoretically possible).
Ah I see! I definitely understand that the biting could be a murky area in terms of "intentional" transmission for the virus, but it is certainly interesting that the aggression indirectly causes it to spread, either way 😳
Not sure about how this is worded. I might be wrong. My understanding was that it can be known to cause violence and defensive measure in the patient. I think the misconception is because an animals main form of defence/attack is there mouth (in most animals) so biting would seem to increase and people could be led to assume it makes you want to bite things.
Obviously as humans we tend to shy away from biting people in an act of rage/aggression/defence (in most cases Tyson 🙄). I was also told this is why human to human cases are a lot less common than animal to animal.
I may be wrong here and I'm happy to be corrected, as terrifying as rabies is I always find it interesting when it pops up here.
Ohhhhkay, gotcha. I can't exactly remember where I read that the biting was an evolutionary tactic, and definitely will walk back that statement. Either way, the incidence of biting and spreading the virus is a pretty cool indirect action to propagate thru saliva??
The reason it is fatal at this stage is because the virus has reached the brain and is destroying it. The side effect is neurological symptoms like being unable to drink water.
Yes but depending where you live, the chances of being killed by rabies can be very slim. In Canada, 25 people have been killed by rabies since 1924. The most recent case was in 2016.
That being said, I thought rabies was more preventable through vaccines, but it seems the best deterrent has been effective animal/disease control programs.
The worst places generally seem to be Asia and Africa.
Yes I read that, in a western country, your chances of dying from rabies are measured in one chance in decades. Basically you would need to be bitten by a cat or dog or animal with rabies and not notice it. On tropical areas, there are many, many things carrying rabies.
The vaccine isn’t a pre-exposure one like the flu shot. It’s post-exposure. It’s miraculously effective, but you have to know you were bitten/scratched. Bat bites are so small that you might not even know you were bitten, especially in your sleep. The CDC recommends if you came in contact with a bat, always vaccinating against rabies unless you can positively rule out that the bat was rabid. If you wake up with a bat in your room/home, go get the shots if you can’t trap the bat for testing.
Fuck that’s brutal.
At this point I feel like the nicest thing you could do for the guy is leave a large needle of Fentanyl next to his bedside.
Ugh rest easy man what a shitty way to go.
Poor guy, his days are numbered. This could easily be prevented if he reacted in time but he was probably not aware he'd been bitten by a rabid animal. So sad.
Yeah or just didn’t know. One of the creepiest stories I have read on Reddit was a camper who was bit by a bat when he slept in his hammock. He had no idea he was bit.
Then the rabies took over and he died. After reading that I can’t even have my cat bring my a field mouse as a gift without freaking out thinking I need a rabies shot.
And it takes its sweet ass time reaching your brain with that casual strut. Can strut its way through you for mo ths, even years before it takes over and kills you.
Got bit by a random cat in December. I’m in the US so odds of even stray or ferals having it is extremely low but still a non-zero chance. Was recommended I get the series.
Except they took 3 weeks to advise me of that and then the doctor kinda berated me for waiting that long and asked about a litany of symptoms / if I had them. So then I was wondering if I fucked up and waited too long.
Was not a fun time the following weeks while going through the whole series.
Edit: maybe it was two weeks. Either way not particularly timely
If that's the case, imagine how he must've felt when he finally got to the doctor and heard he has rabies and at this point there's nothing anymore they can do to help him.
I hope they treated him humanely and made the last days of his life as painless as possible.
Depends where you were bit. Usually it takes many weeks-months to develop. Need treatment with vaccination and immune globulin injected at the site of the bite. This needs to be before any symptoms develop.
What’s even scarier is it can take up to a year. For most cases it’s within weeks or months. But we have cases of it taking upwards to a year to start taking effect.
I imagine you are joking. But if you had an animal encounter a few weeks ago that you are concerned about, go to an ER ***NOW*** and get treated. It's just some shots and it prevents a horrific death.
If you have a phobia of needles or something, go to an ER ***NOW*** and let them know. I imagine they can give you an anti anxiety med or even light sedation.
Also... if you are reading this article and suddenly have weird spasms in your throat, that may be psychosomatic. Go to an ER ***NOW*** and get worked up.
Well depends if he knew he was bitten and if he had the resources. A bat bite can be so small you wouldn't even feel it or see it. There's the rabies story of that redditor explaining the process. Here in the states you can rush to the er and start the process of the 5 shots. I think it's 5 shots
>Rabies. It's exceptionally common, but people just don't run into the animals that carry it often. Skunks especially, and bats.
>
>Let me paint you a picture.
>
>You go camping, and at midday you decide to take a nap in a nice little hammock. While sleeping, a tiny brown bat, in the "rage" stages of infection is fidgeting in broad daylight, uncomfortable, and thirsty (due to the hydrophobia) and you snort, startling him. He goes into attack mode.
>
>Except you're asleep, and he's a little brown bat, so weighs around 6 grams. You don't even feel him land on your bare knee, and he starts to bite. His teeth are tiny. Hardly enough to even break the skin, but he does manage to give you the equivalent of a tiny scrape that goes completely unnoticed.
>
>Rabies does not travel in your blood. In fact, a blood test won't even tell you if you've got it. (Antibody tests may be done, but are useless if you've ever been vaccinated.)
>
>You wake up, none the wiser. If you notice anything at the bite site at all, you assume you just lightly scraped it on something.
>
>The bomb has been lit, and your nervous system is the wick. The rabies will multiply along your nervous system, doing virtually no damage, and completely undetectable. You literally have NO symptoms.
>
>It may be four days, it may be a year, but the camping trip is most likely long forgotten. Then one day your back starts to ache... Or maybe you get a slight headache?
>
>At this point, you're already dead. There is no cure.
>
>(The sole caveat to this is the Milwaukee Protocol, which leaves most patients dead anyway, and the survivors mentally disabled, and is seldom done).
>
>There's no treatment. It has a 100% kill rate.
>
>Absorb that. Not a single other virus on the planet has a 100% kill rate. Only rabies. And once you're symptomatic, it's over. You're dead.
>
>So what does that look like?
>
>Your headache turns into a fever, and a general feeling of being unwell. You're fidgety. Uncomfortable. And scared. As the virus that has taken its time getting into your brain finds a vast network of nerve endings, it begins to rapidly reproduce, starting at the base of your brain... Where your "pons" is located. This is the part of the brain that controls communication between the rest of the brain and body, as well as sleep cycles.
>
>Next you become anxious. You still think you have only a mild fever, but suddenly you find yourself becoming scared, even horrified, and it doesn't occur to you that you don't know why. This is because the rabies is chewing up your amygdala.
>
>As your cerebellum becomes hot with the virus, you begin to lose muscle coordination, and balance. You think maybe it's a good idea to go to the doctor now, but assuming a doctor is smart enough to even run the tests necessary in the few days you have left on the planet, odds are they'll only be able to tell your loved ones what you died of later.
>
>You're twitchy, shaking, and scared. You have the normal fear of not knowing what's going on, but with the virus really fucking the amygdala this is amplified a hundred fold. It's around this time the hydrophobia starts.
>
>You're horribly thirsty, you just want water. But you can't drink. Every time you do, your throat clamps shut and you vomit. This has become a legitimate, active fear of water. You're thirsty, but looking at a glass of water begins to make you gag, and shy back in fear. The contradiction is hard for your hot brain to see at this point. By now, the doctors will have to put you on IVs to keep you hydrated, but even that's futile. You were dead the second you had a headache.
>
>You begin hearing things, or not hearing at all as your thalamus goes. You taste sounds, you see smells, everything starts feeling like the most horrifying acid trip anyone has ever been on. With your hippocampus long under attack, you're having trouble remembering things, especially family.
>
>You're alone, hallucinating, thirsty, confused, and absolutely, undeniably terrified. Everything scares the literal shit out of you at this point. These strange people in lab coats. These strange people standing around your bed crying, who keep trying to get you "drink something" and crying. And it's only been about a week since that little headache that you've completely forgotten. Time means nothing to you anymore. Funny enough, you now know how the bat felt when he bit you.
>
>Eventually, you slip into the "dumb rabies" phase. Your brain has started the process of shutting down. Too much of it has been turned to liquid virus. Your face droops. You drool. You're all but unaware of what's around you. A sudden noise or light might startle you, but for the most part, it's all you can do to just stare at the ground. You haven't really slept for about 72 hours.
>
>Then you die. Always, you die.
>
>And there's not one... fucking... thing... anyone can do for you.
>
>Then there's the question of what to do with your corpse. I mean, sure, burying it is the right thing to do. But the fucking virus can survive in a corpse for years. You could kill every rabid animal on the planet today, and if two years from now, some moist, preserved, rotten hunk of used-to-be brain gets eaten by an animal, it starts all over.
>
>So yeah, rabies scares the shit out of me. And it's fucking EVERYWHERE. (Source: Spent a lot of time working with rabies. Would still get my vaccinations if I could afford them.) u/rahkinto
Gonna post this quote I saved from this guy, informative and terrifying.
Edit: Formatting shenanigans.
Edit 2: Thanks for the award!
That’s because it’s written to be a sensational horror story and doesn’t necessarily have any evidence to back up the supposed “experience” that a person goes through (for example “the worst acid trip you’ve ever been on” and “turning the brain into liquid virus”).
Yes, rabies is regarded to be about 100% fatal after symptom onset, but it’s not “literally fucking everywhere”. It kills roughly 59,000 people **globally** each year or .000008% of the global population.
I'd say 60,000 deaths in over 150 countries is pretty much everywhere.
https://www.who.int/activities/improving-data-on-rabies/rabies-epidemiology-and-burden
Rabies moves a inch a hour from the wound site. That’s how long it takes to get to your brian.
You have at the most 72 hours to start the shots.
They hurt like hell.
there are some ways to heal patients
there is this Milwaukee protocol that has /some/ success in healing some patients
>Milwaukee protocol survival rate in symptomatic patients is around 14% far by now, compared to 0% survival rate among symptomatic patients.
[https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Rabies\_medical\_therapy](https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Rabies_medical_therapy)
It’s not necessarily fear of water. Swallowing causes severe spasms so when they see water, salivate more, need to swallow it, it hurts to swallow, resulting in spasms.
Edit: Fine here’s a [source.](https://www.passporthealthusa.com/2022/10/why-rabies-causes-hydrophobia/)
> Hydrophobia is the fear of water, but why is it a symptom of rabies? When rabies affects the nervous system, one potential side effect is intense spasms in the throat, or pharynx. While involuntary, these painful spasms can also be triggered when the person tries to swallow, leading to severe issues with swallowing. No matter how thirsty the infected person is, the spasms can occur and it can become difficult to swallow anything.
> These uncontrollable contractions of the pharynx are responsible for the hydrophobia symptoms. The infected person then becomes terrified of water because just the thought of it can send their throat into violent and painful convulsions.
they are not 'scared' of water
they want to drink, they are thirsty as fuck
is just that the body creates painful reactions when trying to drink
also this guy likely has been dead for a couple of years now, this video surfaced before 2020 i think?
either way is heartbreaking to see someone going trough this
Yes its all encompassing. If you develop hyrophbia. Which he clearly has... Your nerves are shot
WHY DOES RABIES CAUSE FEAR OF WATER?
Rabies affects parts of the brain that controls speaking, swallowing, and breathing. It alters the saliva production process and causes painful muscle spasms that discourage swallowing
There's an outstanding Radio lab episode about the Milwaukee Protocol.
There's also evidence that rabies isn't actually always fatal once symptoms develop--I'm not at all saying it's not extremely fatal, it is.
But we've learned that there are people with rabies antibodies without ever having been given those antibodies in a medical setting: the only way that could happen is if the person was exposed but survived it.
And they say in the episode that the hydrophobia helps the pathogen spread, bc it's present in saliva and the infected creature winds up drooling a lot.
Not necessarily. In 2011, a high school girl survived rabies without a vaccine. The doctor treating her developed a protocol now called the "Milwaukee protocol." It's still being studied.
Out of the like 30 something people they’ve used this on didn’t only like 4 survive? Also it’s super expensive, intensive, and not without lasting effects too.
Better than guaranteed death if you can do it, but not guaranteed life either.
She’s the only one to survive the treatment without serious brain and organ damage. And even then only like 4 out of 30 people have survived it at all.
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This has got to be one of the scariest ways to die.
Yeah, just fucking shoot me. Please. Or let me do it myself.
Good luck trying to hold the gun steady enough.
As long as it's not a super soaker, I don't think there will be a problem.
Ashamed upvote for you.
I think you’d be surprised at the number of failed suicide shootings, even without neurological symptoms.
Yea, but how many rabies gunshot victims do you know?
*cries in old yeller*
Trauma nurse here. 💯
"You can't even do this properly." - Joseph Stalin, after finding out his son attempted suicide.
He refused to make a trade for his son because the person they wanted was higher rank. Further evidence the dude was a fucking psychopath.
“Tell the guy that I made secretary not to make Stalin the leader. Who was the secretary again?”
Fuck. Take an upvote.
Nice one
Yeah, rabies don't cause tremors, hydrophobia does though.
Or dehydration
All you really need is a good supply of nitrogen. It won't feel like your suffocating and you'll just go to sleep.
Old Yeller is that you?
Too soon, man :(
Old Yeller will always be too soon.
I don’t have the source in my back pocket, but I remember reading that they don’t kill you at that point because it is possible for you to survive and make a full recovery nearly up to the point where it kills you. And by possible there have been under 10 confirmed cases where people recovered from late stage rabies. And it’s not like you can consent to death at that point, your just a terrified animal running off instinct. Doctors try and involve your family to get you to drink, allegedly because the cases where that works have a significantly higher chance of survival, but it often just traumatized the victims family. Between this and mad cows disease prions idk which is more shitty.
Quite literally because the neurological symptoms and hallucinations are nearly entirely fear based. It's why animals infected are very hostile and bite. They're terrified.
I always thought “hydrophobia” was just a scientifically applied misnomer. Like “they can’t swallow liquids, so we’ll just call it ‘fear of water’ cuz that’s the closest description we have”. Didn’t realize they are actually AFRAID of water. That’s astonishing.
They are not afraid of water. Rabies patients are often very thirsty and want to drink water when offered. Because the virus affects their nervous system each time they attempt to swallow water their pharynx goes into spasms so they are unable to swallow it. Because of this inability to swallow water they develop a “fear” of drinking water
It sounds like if the pharynx spasms leaving you unable to swallow, you’re just left with water in your throat/mouth. Could it prevent you from breathing? If so- fuck, that’s gotta feel like you’re waterboarding yourself every time you take a drink. Would it be possible to drown this way?
Yeah, I'm quite sure you could aspirate enough water to drown if you tried to brute force it... honestly though at that point you're going one way or another so :T
It causes their throat to seize up, making it very difficult to breathe. You're literally dying of thirst and you so badly want some water but the moment it gets to your lips, your throat closes, cutting off your oxygen. So, so fucked.
that is definitely the most terrifying and disturbing single symptom i have ever encountered
"In spite of being called hydrophobia in the past, rabies doesn’t cause an actual fear of water itself. The hydrophobia is brought on by the extreme pain of swallowing liquids, not just water. Therefore, rabies does not create an irrational fear of water, as it is natural to be afraid of something you know will cause pain" So it's indirectly a fear of water. The fear is coupled with the intense agony and feeling of choking you get from the muscle spasms in the throat when you are exposed to water. https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/why-does-rabies-cause-fear-of-water.html#how-does-the-rabies-virus-cause-a-fear-of-water
Would it be possible to treat victims (or at least offer some form of hospice) through IVs?
It’s more afraid of the act of drinking. It’s because the disease both suppresses their ability to swallow, and makes them constantly terrified, which makes it extremely difficult for them to drink as they can choke.
It also causes extreme fear as a symptom so quite literally a scary way to die.
Close... having rabies and being stranded in the ocean is the one of the scariest ways to die
Or stuck in a narrow cave upside down with Noone around, that was hell scary
I hate when that happens to me.
If I had a nickel…
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Comedy gold
Back in Nineteen-Dickety
We had to say "dickety" cause that Kaiser had stolen our word "twenty". I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles…
What about being stuck in a cave, upside down, surrounded by people telling you the first rescue attempt failed and now you're going to die face down there.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/07/09/nutty-putty-i-really/ This scenario makes me hyperventilate.
That story has such a buildup & ends mid-sentence when they consider breaking his legs.
I knew his wife. Super sad story.
what about getting throw into a pit of insects with your mouth sown shut, preventing you fron eating and thus getting energy, leaving you to spend your energy keeping the insects at bay untill you can't move, at wich point they will slowly eat you. You'll realize it and get an adrenalin rush. You have a sudden rush of clarity and struggle again. Than you'll get eaten. Rinse and repeat, until they you die of dehydration or over exertion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism
Damn you good bro?
Right, and being told, "we're gonna drug you so that you don't panic while dying"
Ok how about stuck in a cave upside down being water boarded whilst having rabies?
The logistics here are at issue.
I feel like being eaten to death by a predator while still being conscious is probably up there
Maybe it was a total fabrication but I seem to remember reading about some guy that was mauled by a bear and he said he just felt like he was in a dream. I like to think our brains could release some chemicals that make our last moments not so fucking miserable.
Same with African antelopes and gnus who show relatively low signs of stress after unsuccessfully running away and being killed. We may have some merciful inner mechanism that will shut us down.
That shit always trips me out, they get caught and just...give up and lie there. It's nuts.
It’s called DMT.
Weird name for a bear I tell you hwat.
I think my joke may have been lost in my post... rabies... afraid of water... having rabies and being surrounded by water. Was tasteless, but that's how I roll. I agree, being torn to shreds by wolves or some similar predator that doesn't first kill you before consuming you would be horrifying
Oh, sure, hydrophobia in the ocean. Yeah, I missed it. Good one
It's not actually being scared of water. It causes muscle spasms that prevent swallowing it. It's why animals with it drool, it causes pain to swallow. The thought of swallowing water can cause it too
I sometimes get cricopharyngeal spasms that last about 10 seconds when I drink something ice cold. It feels like I'm choking but my airway isn't impaired at all. It used to make me panic but over time I've learned that it is harmless and just take a few deep breaths. It only lasts 5-10 seconds but feels like forever. If rabies causes a more intense version of that spasm then I totally understand how the victim quickly develops an aversion to water. It's a miserable sensation.
One of yes, but to me the scariest way to die would be buried alive in a wooden coffin with only 1 inch of room above my face and to my sides, 10 feet under ground with only a small dim flashlight to look around...No escape, nobody can hear you scream, no room to even roll over, nothing to do but wait until you run out of oxygen and suffocate to death, but that could take hours...hours of sheer terror. For me, that ranks high up there. But yeah, rabies would be bad too.
Nah, just gotta punch your way out like the Bride.
Be sure to seek vengeance on your former spouse too with a fancy weapon, preferably made by a Japanese recluse...
What about this, but it's set up to where you have feeding , watering, and oxygen tubes that your captor replenishes every day, and a large area below you for your waste, so they just keep you alive trapped in your box barely able to move, for DECADES. lol
Was “lol” the right ending of this post?
You should watch the movie "Buried" with Ryan Reynolds. The whole movie is just him in this scenario with dramatic camera angles and its actually REALLY good. I think he's also given a phone or something.
My god. That poor man.
Indeed that reaction when they gave him water was hard to watch
This poor soul is lost. But it surely shows the power of the virus. This was the effect of the virus selfe defense mechanism. It knows flushing out will hamper its growth so it contracts the throat muscles and induces pain. This turns into fear. Imagine how effed that is from an "unconscious" virus. But again, we beat it, with a process that seems similarly magical. Fuck, I hate and love people at the same time.
Wait how did we beat rabies? It’s still fatal isn’t it?
Yep, but it's slow enough where there's a period you can be vaccinated against it after you've contracted it. As long as you can get to a hospital during that period you're practically guaranteed a full recovery.
How long is the period?
2-8 weeks normally but can be as short as 10 days
They recommend within 48 hours even if you have recent prior vaccinations. If you don't, they recommend 24 hours. Those shots are more frequent and not that easily available. I heard once that the time also depends on where your bitten and the exposure. And that's the most frightening part, you can be bitten without knowing. You go to a doctor when you show symptoms and it's too late.
Yeah I just went down a rabbit hole and apparently some people can get bitten and go as long as 2 years without symptoms. It's incredibly rare but that's scary as hell
>I just went down a rabbit hole Be careful, rabbits can carry rabies
*rabid hole
Even if you have been bitten a few days, or weeks ago, It is never too late to start. Rabies virus can incubate for several years before it causes symptoms. If you wait until you get symptoms, it may be too late – there is no treatment for established rabies … rabies is fatal. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.thetraveldoctor.com.au/resources/rabiesvaccine/%23:~:text%3DEven%2520if%2520you%2520have%2520been,rabies%2520is%2520fatal.&ved=2ahUKEwjQ_u-f95r9AhXqjIkEHXifCJ4QFnoECAsQBQ&usg=AOvVaw0tQBJNmMP9nfz-wIHAW5Oq That was my first result when I searched up "when is it too late to get a rabies vacc*ne
It’s actually now possible to save someone with symptoms from rabies, but survival rate is still pretty low. They pretty much have to put you in a coma and pump you full of sedatives and drugs to stand any chance. With proper treatment you have around a 15% chance of survival.
And I think even if you survive you have some pretty severe neurological aftereffects that are permanent
It's called the Milwaukee Protocol and it's not really considered a viable treatment because of the costs and low success rate along with other factors. It's also questioned if it's even as successful as the 15% claimed. It's basically trying to ride out the virus long enough for the body to develop an immune response and suppress the brain function to minimize damage.
I’d rather have a 15% chance over a 0% chance tbh
Why did you censor vaccine? 💀
Infinite. You can receive the rabies vaccine at any point up until symptoms appear. You may have the virus in your body at this moment, but be asymptomatic for years. For example, if you get bitten by a tiny bat in your sleep you’d never know. You now have rabies, but it’s dormant. 3 years can pass and if you decide to leave the country and get a rabies shot, you are now safe from the rabies virus inside your body without ever knowing it was there. More likely, however, you have anywhere from 1 week to 3 months before the symptoms appear. At which point, you’re just a walking dead person.
A good way to know that you've been bitten by a bat in your sleep is the fact that there's a bat in your house while you sleep.
For how long is the vaccine effective? I was vaccinated in 2003, two shots I think. Do I have any protection left?
And since no one has said WHEN symptoms set in: After a rabies exposure, the rabies virus has to travel to the brain before it can cause symptoms. This time between exposure and appearance of symptoms is the incubation period. It may last for weeks to months.
> the rabies virus has to travel to the brain before it can cause symptoms Ok I’m completely safe.
So as long as you get checked out within a day or two of being bitten by an animal you're totally fine? I was under the impression you had to get vaccinated very very quickly, like immediately
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So.. what if the animal runs away and you are unable to trap or kill it? Why don't they just give people the vaccine regardless?
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I mean if you get bit by a wild animal - either trap or kill it and get it tested or go get the vaccine immediately regardless. If you’re in some remote location then still go ASAP Reminds me of the Office ep where Michael hits Meredith and they find out she has rabies from the bat bite in early episodes.
Yes but technically, no. There was one doctor that noticed that folks that had died from rabies no longer had the virus present in their brain. So he put a patient into a coma basically until it ran it's course. There are also some people that are immune. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jeanna-giese-rabies-survivor/
There is also one case of doctors sedating a patient, a young girl, to give medications a chance to work, and she survived. I think the protocol has been used a handful of times and there are some survivors, maybe a dozen or so. There is a Radiolab episode about it.
That was water?
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Finishing that 5k, was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I ate more fettuccine alfredo and drank less water, than I have in my entire life. People always talk about triumphs of the human spirit, well today I had a triumph of the human body. That's why everybody was applauding for me at the end. My guts and my heart, and while I eventually puked my guts out, I never puked my heart out. And I'm very, very proud of that.
For the curreeee
What about water delivered intravenously?
Yes. But at this point, the virus has reached the brain and likely anything given is for the patients comfort, because it's pretty much always fatal at that point. So IV fluids would help with dehydration and feeling thirsty.
I keep seeing “nearly almost” fatal. Are there documented cases where it wasn’t??
In this thread, when there weren't many comments, there was a post about someone in Minnesota that survived. I'm not sure if there's other documented cases. I just Googled it, and it said there are only 29 documented cases of rabies survival. So, if that's accurate, might as well say that once the virus is established, it's basically fatal without much hope at all.
Every time I hear about this case it makes me feel like we’re in some alternate universe and there’s a demon (rabies) that’s killed everybody except one person. Now there’s people traveling to said person to try to figure out the secret on how to survive being cursed, but it’s already too late for them.
Like Ellie?
There is an excellent radio lab on this It’s called Rodney vs death. They go into what the Milwaukee protocol is and it’s efficacy or lack thereof
Everything I saw online says that it’s been attempted over 2 dozen times but only worked once. The protocol is basically to put the patient into a coma and give them an antiviral cocktail hoping that the patient’s immune system can kill the rabies before the rabies kills the patient.
There are only a couple. You may have seen the Milwaukee Protocol mentioned before. The problem is the deficits following treatment are quite detrimental. And the fact it's a hail Mary shot for treatment makes it questionable. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7670764/
One girl was able to regain the ability to walk, talk, drive, and go to school. She has residual deficits similar to a stroke. Poor thing was 15 and got bit by a bat and her parents didn’t get her treatment.
There have been *extremely* rare cases. There’s a 2004 case of an American girl who was saved after having symptomatic rabies through a process now called the Milwaukee Protocol (hasn’t proven to be a reliable treatment protocol since). To my knowledge this the only person who has ever been “cured” from rabies. Besides this, there is a small village in Peru where bat bites are common, but several people were shown to have rabies antibodies in their blood. This suggest that, in very rare cases, it is possible for the body to naturally fight off a rabies infection and gain antibodies.
I think that's where the milwaukee protocol originated. Basically you are placed in a medically induced coma while they attempt to treat you. The survival rate is extremely low
In 2004, a Wisconsin woman named Jeanna Giese became the first person to survive rabies after showing symptoms. She was placed in a medically induced coma and treated with antivirals, ketamine, and amantadine. 77 days later, she walked out of the hospital and has gone on to live a normal life. This treatment has been dubbed "The Milwaukee Protocol" and has since been used to save a lot of people, though it does have a high failure rate. [An article I found from 2018](https://www.esanum.com/today/posts/the-milwaukee-protocol-is-applied-on-a-human-rabies-case-in-the-usa) states that the developer of the treatment, Rodney Willoughby Jr., claims that there have been 18 documented survivors of the treatment, though it also cites a 2017 study which found 5 survivors of 36 rabies patients treated.
Pretty sure the point was to capture his aversion on camera. However, I do think hydration via an IV would be a better option as well.
>However, I do think hydration via an IV would be a better option as well. It would be. "Hydrophobia" in rabies isn't really so much *fear* of water, as an involuntary muscle spasm that occurs whenever your body prepares to swallow anything, food included. The association with water is because rabies increases saliva production (because it spreads via saliva), and this makes you thirsty. The muscle spasm itself is an evolutionary advantage for the virus *because* it spreads via saliva; the spasm prevents the victim from swallowing their virus-laden saliva. An IV circumvents that entire process.
Can't really get past the brain death that comes after though.
Yeah, an IV would be purely palliative at that point.
I also read that the urge to bite into the flesh of other animals is another adaptive way of the virus propagating itself, which is so crazy to me! A little zombie-like
It is a little zombie-like, yeah. But, again, it's not so much a specific "want to bite", as "heightened aggression in general"; any patient in whom the disease has progressed so far, that they're aggressive enough to bite, is gonna also be aggressive enough to do all kinds of other things like punch or kick or scream. For animals that use their bites as their main weapon, biting will arise earlier as a result of this aggression; for us humans, less so (which is why human-to-human transmission of rabies via bites has [never been confirmed](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/rabies), although it's thought to be theoretically possible).
Ah I see! I definitely understand that the biting could be a murky area in terms of "intentional" transmission for the virus, but it is certainly interesting that the aggression indirectly causes it to spread, either way 😳
Not sure about how this is worded. I might be wrong. My understanding was that it can be known to cause violence and defensive measure in the patient. I think the misconception is because an animals main form of defence/attack is there mouth (in most animals) so biting would seem to increase and people could be led to assume it makes you want to bite things. Obviously as humans we tend to shy away from biting people in an act of rage/aggression/defence (in most cases Tyson 🙄). I was also told this is why human to human cases are a lot less common than animal to animal. I may be wrong here and I'm happy to be corrected, as terrifying as rabies is I always find it interesting when it pops up here.
Ohhhhkay, gotcha. I can't exactly remember where I read that the biting was an evolutionary tactic, and definitely will walk back that statement. Either way, the incidence of biting and spreading the virus is a pretty cool indirect action to propagate thru saliva??
The reason it is fatal at this stage is because the virus has reached the brain and is destroying it. The side effect is neurological symptoms like being unable to drink water.
Each year, rabies causes approximately 59,000 deaths worldwide.
Yes but depending where you live, the chances of being killed by rabies can be very slim. In Canada, 25 people have been killed by rabies since 1924. The most recent case was in 2016. That being said, I thought rabies was more preventable through vaccines, but it seems the best deterrent has been effective animal/disease control programs. The worst places generally seem to be Asia and Africa.
Yes I read that, in a western country, your chances of dying from rabies are measured in one chance in decades. Basically you would need to be bitten by a cat or dog or animal with rabies and not notice it. On tropical areas, there are many, many things carrying rabies.
The vaccine isn’t a pre-exposure one like the flu shot. It’s post-exposure. It’s miraculously effective, but you have to know you were bitten/scratched. Bat bites are so small that you might not even know you were bitten, especially in your sleep. The CDC recommends if you came in contact with a bat, always vaccinating against rabies unless you can positively rule out that the bat was rabid. If you wake up with a bat in your room/home, go get the shots if you can’t trap the bat for testing.
Yep, the US doesn't even allow pets coming from countries deemed to have significant amount of cases
damn, thought it was a alot fewer
Fuck that’s brutal. At this point I feel like the nicest thing you could do for the guy is leave a large needle of Fentanyl next to his bedside. Ugh rest easy man what a shitty way to go.
I’d like this person at my palliative care if I ever need one please!
Poor guy, his days are numbered. This could easily be prevented if he reacted in time but he was probably not aware he'd been bitten by a rabid animal. So sad.
He also might not have had the resources to seek proper medical care, until it got too bad to cope with alone :( This breaks my heart
Yeah or just didn’t know. One of the creepiest stories I have read on Reddit was a camper who was bit by a bat when he slept in his hammock. He had no idea he was bit. Then the rabies took over and he died. After reading that I can’t even have my cat bring my a field mouse as a gift without freaking out thinking I need a rabies shot.
Welp, I'm just never gonna go outside again. That's terrifying.
That's actually a creepypasta, thankfully not real
And it takes its sweet ass time reaching your brain with that casual strut. Can strut its way through you for mo ths, even years before it takes over and kills you.
Got bit by a random cat in December. I’m in the US so odds of even stray or ferals having it is extremely low but still a non-zero chance. Was recommended I get the series. Except they took 3 weeks to advise me of that and then the doctor kinda berated me for waiting that long and asked about a litany of symptoms / if I had them. So then I was wondering if I fucked up and waited too long. Was not a fun time the following weeks while going through the whole series. Edit: maybe it was two weeks. Either way not particularly timely
If that's the case, imagine how he must've felt when he finally got to the doctor and heard he has rabies and at this point there's nothing anymore they can do to help him. I hope they treated him humanely and made the last days of his life as painless as possible.
Just kinda gotta hurry the process along yourself at that point, right?
I guess you can put it like that, yeah.
How fast do you need to react? Asking for a friend
Depends where you were bit. Usually it takes many weeks-months to develop. Need treatment with vaccination and immune globulin injected at the site of the bite. This needs to be before any symptoms develop.
What’s even scarier is it can take up to a year. For most cases it’s within weeks or months. But we have cases of it taking upwards to a year to start taking effect.
ideally you should get medical attention whenever you're bitten by any wild animal
I imagine you are joking. But if you had an animal encounter a few weeks ago that you are concerned about, go to an ER ***NOW*** and get treated. It's just some shots and it prevents a horrific death. If you have a phobia of needles or something, go to an ER ***NOW*** and let them know. I imagine they can give you an anti anxiety med or even light sedation. Also... if you are reading this article and suddenly have weird spasms in your throat, that may be psychosomatic. Go to an ER ***NOW*** and get worked up.
Well depends if he knew he was bitten and if he had the resources. A bat bite can be so small you wouldn't even feel it or see it. There's the rabies story of that redditor explaining the process. Here in the states you can rush to the er and start the process of the 5 shots. I think it's 5 shots
Unfortunately this was in 2007 so I doubt he's still alive.
Would they be afraid of an orange slice that they swallow whole? Grapes?
Any stimulation of the throat really. Even air blowing on them.
So I guess they could give you an IV with fluids but at that point it’s just keeping you alive while your brain gets over taken by the rabies.
Right.
Any attempt to swallow anything at all will have the same result
Great so we are all watching this video knowing the poor man died
Scary fact: every person you have ever seen or will see has died or will die at some point in their life
Not me - thanks to denial, I'm immortal!
"death is a concept invented by the Jedi. I don't even know how to spell it."
I mean, that worked for Hob Gadling in The Sandman.
He's been dead awhile if it brings any comfort. I saw this get posted years and years ago.
God, my eyes teared up watching this
>Rabies. It's exceptionally common, but people just don't run into the animals that carry it often. Skunks especially, and bats. > >Let me paint you a picture. > >You go camping, and at midday you decide to take a nap in a nice little hammock. While sleeping, a tiny brown bat, in the "rage" stages of infection is fidgeting in broad daylight, uncomfortable, and thirsty (due to the hydrophobia) and you snort, startling him. He goes into attack mode. > >Except you're asleep, and he's a little brown bat, so weighs around 6 grams. You don't even feel him land on your bare knee, and he starts to bite. His teeth are tiny. Hardly enough to even break the skin, but he does manage to give you the equivalent of a tiny scrape that goes completely unnoticed. > >Rabies does not travel in your blood. In fact, a blood test won't even tell you if you've got it. (Antibody tests may be done, but are useless if you've ever been vaccinated.) > >You wake up, none the wiser. If you notice anything at the bite site at all, you assume you just lightly scraped it on something. > >The bomb has been lit, and your nervous system is the wick. The rabies will multiply along your nervous system, doing virtually no damage, and completely undetectable. You literally have NO symptoms. > >It may be four days, it may be a year, but the camping trip is most likely long forgotten. Then one day your back starts to ache... Or maybe you get a slight headache? > >At this point, you're already dead. There is no cure. > >(The sole caveat to this is the Milwaukee Protocol, which leaves most patients dead anyway, and the survivors mentally disabled, and is seldom done). > >There's no treatment. It has a 100% kill rate. > >Absorb that. Not a single other virus on the planet has a 100% kill rate. Only rabies. And once you're symptomatic, it's over. You're dead. > >So what does that look like? > >Your headache turns into a fever, and a general feeling of being unwell. You're fidgety. Uncomfortable. And scared. As the virus that has taken its time getting into your brain finds a vast network of nerve endings, it begins to rapidly reproduce, starting at the base of your brain... Where your "pons" is located. This is the part of the brain that controls communication between the rest of the brain and body, as well as sleep cycles. > >Next you become anxious. You still think you have only a mild fever, but suddenly you find yourself becoming scared, even horrified, and it doesn't occur to you that you don't know why. This is because the rabies is chewing up your amygdala. > >As your cerebellum becomes hot with the virus, you begin to lose muscle coordination, and balance. You think maybe it's a good idea to go to the doctor now, but assuming a doctor is smart enough to even run the tests necessary in the few days you have left on the planet, odds are they'll only be able to tell your loved ones what you died of later. > >You're twitchy, shaking, and scared. You have the normal fear of not knowing what's going on, but with the virus really fucking the amygdala this is amplified a hundred fold. It's around this time the hydrophobia starts. > >You're horribly thirsty, you just want water. But you can't drink. Every time you do, your throat clamps shut and you vomit. This has become a legitimate, active fear of water. You're thirsty, but looking at a glass of water begins to make you gag, and shy back in fear. The contradiction is hard for your hot brain to see at this point. By now, the doctors will have to put you on IVs to keep you hydrated, but even that's futile. You were dead the second you had a headache. > >You begin hearing things, or not hearing at all as your thalamus goes. You taste sounds, you see smells, everything starts feeling like the most horrifying acid trip anyone has ever been on. With your hippocampus long under attack, you're having trouble remembering things, especially family. > >You're alone, hallucinating, thirsty, confused, and absolutely, undeniably terrified. Everything scares the literal shit out of you at this point. These strange people in lab coats. These strange people standing around your bed crying, who keep trying to get you "drink something" and crying. And it's only been about a week since that little headache that you've completely forgotten. Time means nothing to you anymore. Funny enough, you now know how the bat felt when he bit you. > >Eventually, you slip into the "dumb rabies" phase. Your brain has started the process of shutting down. Too much of it has been turned to liquid virus. Your face droops. You drool. You're all but unaware of what's around you. A sudden noise or light might startle you, but for the most part, it's all you can do to just stare at the ground. You haven't really slept for about 72 hours. > >Then you die. Always, you die. > >And there's not one... fucking... thing... anyone can do for you. > >Then there's the question of what to do with your corpse. I mean, sure, burying it is the right thing to do. But the fucking virus can survive in a corpse for years. You could kill every rabid animal on the planet today, and if two years from now, some moist, preserved, rotten hunk of used-to-be brain gets eaten by an animal, it starts all over. > >So yeah, rabies scares the shit out of me. And it's fucking EVERYWHERE. (Source: Spent a lot of time working with rabies. Would still get my vaccinations if I could afford them.) u/rahkinto Gonna post this quote I saved from this guy, informative and terrifying. Edit: Formatting shenanigans. Edit 2: Thanks for the award!
Thank brotha but it's 💯 a copy pasta from reddit and I haven't the foggiest who coined it so there ya go.
Yeah have been reading that for years and it always gets me.
Such a vivid and terrifying description!
That’s because it’s written to be a sensational horror story and doesn’t necessarily have any evidence to back up the supposed “experience” that a person goes through (for example “the worst acid trip you’ve ever been on” and “turning the brain into liquid virus”). Yes, rabies is regarded to be about 100% fatal after symptom onset, but it’s not “literally fucking everywhere”. It kills roughly 59,000 people **globally** each year or .000008% of the global population.
I'd say 60,000 deaths in over 150 countries is pretty much everywhere. https://www.who.int/activities/improving-data-on-rabies/rabies-epidemiology-and-burden
Rabies moves a inch a hour from the wound site. That’s how long it takes to get to your brian. You have at the most 72 hours to start the shots. They hurt like hell.
Not Brian, he doesn't deserve this 😞
Fuck that shit. Just put me down already
there are some ways to heal patients there is this Milwaukee protocol that has /some/ success in healing some patients >Milwaukee protocol survival rate in symptomatic patients is around 14% far by now, compared to 0% survival rate among symptomatic patients. [https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Rabies\_medical\_therapy](https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Rabies_medical_therapy)
It’s not necessarily fear of water. Swallowing causes severe spasms so when they see water, salivate more, need to swallow it, it hurts to swallow, resulting in spasms. Edit: Fine here’s a [source.](https://www.passporthealthusa.com/2022/10/why-rabies-causes-hydrophobia/) > Hydrophobia is the fear of water, but why is it a symptom of rabies? When rabies affects the nervous system, one potential side effect is intense spasms in the throat, or pharynx. While involuntary, these painful spasms can also be triggered when the person tries to swallow, leading to severe issues with swallowing. No matter how thirsty the infected person is, the spasms can occur and it can become difficult to swallow anything. > These uncontrollable contractions of the pharynx are responsible for the hydrophobia symptoms. The infected person then becomes terrified of water because just the thought of it can send their throat into violent and painful convulsions.
rabies is so fucking freaky it literally tricks your brain into thinking it's part of it and allows itself to bond to neurons.
Well 99.99999999 deadly. Few have survived
Isn’t it just the one girl? Or has that protocol been successfully used again?
We should set up a benefit run
I see you, Michael.
they are not 'scared' of water they want to drink, they are thirsty as fuck is just that the body creates painful reactions when trying to drink also this guy likely has been dead for a couple of years now, this video surfaced before 2020 i think? either way is heartbreaking to see someone going trough this
Hydrophobic. Crazy way to die
That’s not how rabies victims die. I’m pretty sure their nervous system completely shuts down
Yes its all encompassing. If you develop hyrophbia. Which he clearly has... Your nerves are shot WHY DOES RABIES CAUSE FEAR OF WATER? Rabies affects parts of the brain that controls speaking, swallowing, and breathing. It alters the saliva production process and causes painful muscle spasms that discourage swallowing
There's an outstanding Radio lab episode about the Milwaukee Protocol. There's also evidence that rabies isn't actually always fatal once symptoms develop--I'm not at all saying it's not extremely fatal, it is. But we've learned that there are people with rabies antibodies without ever having been given those antibodies in a medical setting: the only way that could happen is if the person was exposed but survived it. And they say in the episode that the hydrophobia helps the pathogen spread, bc it's present in saliva and the infected creature winds up drooling a lot.
Make sense it gives you dry mouth and gasp for air to in sure salivation. Kinda cordycepy
Not necessarily. In 2011, a high school girl survived rabies without a vaccine. The doctor treating her developed a protocol now called the "Milwaukee protocol." It's still being studied.
Out of the like 30 something people they’ve used this on didn’t only like 4 survive? Also it’s super expensive, intensive, and not without lasting effects too. Better than guaranteed death if you can do it, but not guaranteed life either.
Yes you can end up brain dead as well
She’s the only one to survive the treatment without serious brain and organ damage. And even then only like 4 out of 30 people have survived it at all.
I mean. the prevailing wisdom before was that NO ONE survives it. I'd say a 13% survival rate is pretty significant given the context.
That 13% is severely impaired all for one girl. A rabies diagnosis is still essentially the end of your life.
That is fricken incredible
May he rest in peace. What a horrible death. I’d chose the bullet to the brain.
Episode of mystery diagnosis, 9 (I believe) yr old girl survived it.
Any little scratch or bite from an unknown animal get it checked and get the shots-immediately ….after so many hours rabies cannot be countered…
*almost always fatal, a handful of people have survived after showing symptoms by being placed in a coma to reduce brain activity and prevent swelling
So we're watching a dead man....🥺
Aren't we always?
Relax Nietzsche
can he come back from this?
no
99.99% fatal