The Symptoms of Rabies in People

The Symptoms of Rabies in People Dr. Travis Stork: We have Jeanna on the phone with us. She’s the first person ever to survive a rabies infection without the vaccine. So we’re asking the question what happens when you get rabies? Tell us what happened to you? Jeanna: Well I was in church and theirs a bat flying around and it come down to the floor, so I want to save it and take it outside. But it bit me in my finger and I had no vaccine and we never thought about rabies and about three weeks later I just started to get real flu-like symptoms and that’s how it started. There was history of bad flu. Dr. Travis Stork: And rabies is on your own base of disease causes an encephalitis that is usually fatal. In your case, they use something called a Milwaukee protocol to keep you alive, correct? Jeanna: Yes. Dr. Travis Stork: Now Jeanna, if you would known immediately after you got bitten by the bat that a bat is a high risk animal for rabies. If you go to the ER, there is a vaccine, they will put some of the vaccine in the wound and some of it will be put into your body, you get repeat vaccinations over the next number of days and you can avoid what is otherwise a terminal illness. Rabies is a terminal illness in almost all cases. Dr. Jim Sears: Oh yeah, almost always fatal. And people use to be scared of the rabies vaccine, you know they think it’s this long traumatic painful series of shots and it really isn’t. It’s just it’s not that bad to go through it. It’s just like a few shots, no big deal. Dr. Travis Stork: If you’re not sure about your dog Dr. Schulman* that maybe bit someone you can watch the dog, if your dog or that dog doesn’t display rather behavior then your fine. Dr. Schulman: Absolutely. What usually ends up happening in cases with dogs or cats is that if they’ve bitten somebody, they’re usually quarantined for a period of about ten days because within that ten-day period of time you’re going to see them progress from being a relatively normal animal to showing all of these sorts of clinical signs that we’ve talked about. The problem is with the exposure. From the time that they could get expose to the virus until the time that they could show clinical signs is very, very variable and could be anywhere from a week to a month, to three months, to 6 months, to even years. So that’s really the problem, and the reason why these animals truly need to be vaccinated in order to prevent the spread of this disease. Dr. Travis Stork: And Jeanna, how are you doing now? Jeanna: I’m doing good. I have a few side effects but it’s not bad, just some coordination and balance issues, but I pretty much do everyday activity so it’s not holding me back at all. Dr. Travis Stork: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Thanks Lulu. Thanks Dr. Schulman for being there.