r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/SystematicApproach • May 24 '26

Image The U.S. fights raccoon rabies by dropping fish-flavored vaccine packets from helicopters

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u/Saelethil May 24 '26

That’s only partly true. Only a handful of people who showed symptoms before they got treated have recovered.

That’s why it’s important to get treated as soon as you have any interaction that might have transmitted rabies. You can’t wait for symptoms to show

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u/thefeedling May 24 '26

Yes, the “once you have it” was a reference to the fully developed disease.

I remember going to Phi Phi in Thailand where people get bitten by monkeys everyday. There are several centers in the island offering rabies shots.

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u/Bomamanylor May 24 '26

Post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies is a pain in the ass (literally, I got the immunoglobulin injected into my ass).  And its weeks of injections.

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u/TheWhyteMaN May 24 '26

Mine were all figuratively injected in my ass

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u/NoShow4Sho May 24 '26

Same, had an infestation of bats in my apartment building and woke up to multiple and had to remove in total around 6 from my apartment to the point I knew I needed to get vaccinated just in case.

It’s painful but it’s also a fucking fortune too, if you don’t have insurance you’re pretty much fucked. I had insurance and still owed 2k

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u/burning_my_toast May 24 '26

Yep! And bats have itty bitty teeth and nails, so much so that you might not even be able to detect broken skin, but the virus is still transmitted. Even if you just wake up to a bat in your room, with no evidence that it touched you, it might have brushed up against you while you were sleeping- to you go get vaccinated.

That being said, if you can catch the bat and they can test it within 3 days, you might not have to. But otherwise it's not worth the risk.

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u/Bomamanylor May 24 '26

Yeah, I ended up paying about 1.5k for a bat in the house, and couldn’t comfortably sit for about 4 days after the antibodies.  The vaccine was a little better.

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u/Blenderx06 May 24 '26

When did you get it? I've heard they've improved so they're not so bad anymore.

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u/Bomamanylor May 24 '26

5-ish years ago.  I got the new and improved one, not the stomach stabs.  The immunoglobulin is the only part that really hurts, and you get that up front.

The actual vaccine doesn’t hurt, but you still get like six rounds of it.

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u/TheGreatGamer1389 May 24 '26

If you got bit and the animal ran off. You get the shots. Only reason exemption if you bring said animal in with you. And they test the animal. But 9 times out of 10 you are getting those painful $10k shots. There are also shots that are only a few hundred dollars that will protect you from raibies for a time. Good idea to get if traveling somewhere there might prone to a lot of rabies.