Rabies - maybe a dumb question?

[StrawberryBlondie]

So... There's a bat in my house. Or, was. It's been dealt with.

Do I need to get a rabies shot, and if so, where TF do I get one?

[af1212]

Did it bite you or have you had contact with it?

[wanderingback]

The emergency department

[wanderingback]

ETA: it’s not a dumb question. The recommendation is somewhat mixed, but bat bites can be "cryptic" meaning you might not know you’ve been bitten or scratched. The bites are super small and evidence of them can disappear on the skin within a couple of hours. So if the situation is you woke up and the bat was in your bedroom then I’d def get a rabies vaccine.

@@@@ or if younger kids are involved or anyone who can’t communicate well, I was taught to get them vaccinated.
But if you were chilling in the living room and saw the bat fly in and had no contact with it for sure then prob don’t need a vaccine.

[StrawberryBlondie]

Aug 4, 2022 22:04:37 GMT -5 af1212 said:

Did it bite you or have you had contact with it?

No. We were sitting in the living room watching TV and saw something flying around. We didn't see it come in though.

I panicked and ran and hid in the bathroom.

ETA: we've been at our lake place for a week and this is the first we've seen a bat so I doubt it's been chilling in the house without us noticing.

[babsbunny]

wanderingback,when you say vaccine, do you mean a one-time shot, or the feared 14-shot to the belly button treatment I could have gotten in the 80s if the neighbor's cat that rightfully scratched me hadn't had proof of its annual rabies vaccine?

[StrawberryBlondie]

Aug 4, 2022 22:12:26 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

ETA: it’s not a dumb question. The recommendation is somewhat mixed, but bat bites can be "cryptic" meaning you might not know you’ve been bitten or scratched. The bites are super small and evidence of them can disappear on the skin within a couple of hours. So if the situation is you woke up and the bat was in your bedroom then I’d def get a rabies vaccine.

@@@@ or if younger kids are involved or anyone who can’t communicate well, I was taught to get them vaccinated.
But if you were chilling in the living room and saw the bat fly in and had no contact with it for sure then prob don’t need a vaccine.

What if you're *pretty sure* you had no contact with it? We definitely didn't tonight but since we didn't see it come in we can't say for 100%.

There's 5 of us here. Realistically should we spend tomorrow at the ER?

I'm planning to call the nurse line tomorrow but more wondering if this is a drive an hour to the ER tonight situation.

[mcmel]

If you didn’t come in contact with it then I would not worry about it.

A bat touched my face when I was trying to catch it and the rehabber I called told me that they felt confident that I didn’t need a vaccine.

I’ve seen people pick them up barehanded on some Facebook nature pages I follow and always cringe a little.

[basilosaurus]

Not a dumb question. You are supposed to assume if it was flying at night while you slept that you need the shot even if you show no signs of bite. If it flew in and out with no contact, and you witnessed the whole time, you're fine. Most want nothing to do with you.

When my dumbass cats brought their prize to me it was a maimed bat. I didn't feel the need to get the shots. But if I'd awoken with that thing flying around me I'd have marched my ass to the public health dept.

If bat exposure happens regularly you can get a not as invansive set of shots.

[womet]

Aug 4, 2022 22:23:09 GMT -5 babsbunny said:

wanderingback ,when you say vaccine, do you mean a one-time shot, or the feared 14-shot to the belly button treatment I could have gotten in the 80s if the neighbor's cat that rightfully scratched me hadn't had proof of its annual rabies vaccine?

Not wandering, but my grandmother just had to get the rabies shots after a dog attack where the owners couldn't prove the dog had been vaccinated. She got 5 shots in total. And they are no longer given in the stomach. 

[pandorica]

If you still have the bat, you may be able to get that tested for rabies before going through the vaccine series for everyone. I would call the health department to see their recommendations.

But if you're not 100% sure it wasn't flying around while you were sleeping I might get the shots. Rabies freaks me out (and I work with bats 🤣 this is why I wear gloves when handling).

[missva]

If you still have the bat, call the health department. They will test it for free (and are usually excited to do so). I would not get the shots if it was just flying around.

[kath16]

if you can test the bat, do that.

if you can't, i would probably err on the side of caution and get the shots (during regular business hours should be fine). i think once any rabies symptoms would set in, it's 100% fatal.

[Pilsy]

Aug 5, 2022 6:41:53 GMT -5 womet said:

Aug 4, 2022 22:23:09 GMT -5 babsbunny said:

wanderingback ,when you say vaccine, do you mean a one-time shot, or the feared 14-shot to the belly button treatment I could have gotten in the 80s if the neighbor's cat that rightfully scratched me hadn't had proof of its annual rabies vaccine?

Not wandering, but my grandmother just had to get the rabies shots after a dog attack where the owners couldn't prove the dog had been vaccinated. She got 5 shots in total. And they are no longer given in the stomach. 

Hi! It's good to "see" you here. I feel like it's been a while. 

I hope your grandmother is ok. 

[NewOrleans]

Ack! If you have reason to think it was there while you slept, you need the shots.

I don’t mess with rabies. 😭 I don’t think it’s a stupid question.

[vamoose]

I would get the shots because my anxiety would be too high otherwise, especially since you didn’t see it fly in so it could have been in the house at night.

[midwestmama]

Not a dumb question. Once we woke up to a bat flying in the room we were sleeping in at my parents' cottage, so we did get the rabies vaccine series because we couldn't be absolutely sure that we didn't get bitten and that it wasn't infected. (I did have what appeared to be a bite mark on my foot, though.) We had to get the 1st shot at the ER, and then subsequent 3 shots at an urgent care center.

We of course panicked when we woke up to a bat flying around the room, but what we should have done was capture it and take to the health dept. to get it tested.

And that was the last time we slept at the cottage.

[womet]

Aug 5, 2022 8:43:32 GMT -5 Pilsy said:

Aug 5, 2022 6:41:53 GMT -5 womet said:

Not wandering, but my grandmother just had to get the rabies shots after a dog attack where the owners couldn't prove the dog had been vaccinated. She got 5 shots in total. And they are no longer given in the stomach. 

Hi! It's good to "see" you here. I feel like it's been a while. 

I hope your grandmother is ok. 

Aww, thanks Pilsy. It has been a little while. I'm super busy at work and just really don't have time to be here during the work day like I used to. 

My grandmother has recovered from her bite, thankfully. And since she's moved now to a nursing home, she doesn't have to worry about getting bit by that dog again. 

[lo]

The last week of school a bat somehow got into the school I work at and was flying up and down the hallway while all the kids and teachers closed the doors and watched as one brave soul came armed with tissue boxes that she threw repeatedly at the bat. Shockingly this plan didn’t work, and the bat flew upstairs and that’s all I know. But no one got close to it, so no vaccines.

[NewOrleans]

Aug 5, 2022 12:59:58 GMT -5 lo said:

The last week of school a bat somehow got into the school I work at and was flying up and down the hallway while all the kids and teachers closed the doors and watched as one brave soul came armed with tissue boxes that she threw repeatedly at the bat. Shockingly this plan didn’t work, and the bat flew upstairs and that’s all I know. But no one got close to it, so no vaccines.

omg 🤣

[aurora]

It was actually here a couple of years ago that I learned that we needed rabies shots after waking up to a bat zooming around our bedroom. We called our county health department and they said we'd probably need the shots and to go to urgent care. We did, and the doctor said we probably weren't bitten, but if we were we'd likely die, so we had to get the sequence of shots.

Good news: they weren't all that painful (nothing like they used to be, similar to a flu shot).

Better news: neither of us got rabies.

Bad news: between the two of us our insurance was billed over $50,000. No, that's not a typo. Fortunately we have good insurance and paid only a small fraction of that, but the cost could have easily put someone into bankruptcy.

[aurora]

Aug 5, 2022 7:47:07 GMT -5 pandorica said:

If you still have the bat, you may be able to get that tested for rabies before going through the vaccine series for everyone. I would call the health department to see their recommendations.

But if you're not 100% sure it wasn't flying around while you were sleeping I might get the shots. Rabies freaks me out (and I work with bats 🤣 this is why I wear gloves when handling).

We were *definitely* kicking ourselves over this. We captured the bat in a cardboard box to get it out of the house! We could have avoided all of the costs and shots if we had known and kept it for testing.

[pugz]

My husband got bit by a stray cat in like 2008 and had to get a series of rabies shots. $20,000 was billed to our insurance, it was insane. We didn't pay that but did max our out of pocket

[StrawberryBlondie]

Aug 5, 2022 8:50:37 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Ack! If you have reason to think it was there while you slept, you need the shots.

I don’t mess with rabies. 😭 I don’t think it’s a stupid question.

I'm nothing if not logical and logic is telling me that there's no way it couldn't been in the house when we were sleeping and none of the 5 people or 1 dog would've noticed.

At the point it was flying around in the living room, we'd been awake for almost 15 hrs so in order for it to have been around when we were sleeping it would've had to have been in the house without a single one of us noticing for longer than that, and that doesn't seem particularly likely.

[tamarindy]

Aug 5, 2022 14:31:51 GMT -5 pugz said:

My husband got bit by a stray cat in like 2008 and had to get a series of rabies shots. $20,000 was billed to our insurance, it was insane. We didn't pay that but did max our out of pocket

This was exactly me in 2012 but it was about $26,000. It was explained to me that the immunoglobulin doesn’t have a long shelf life. If I had another option I would have gone for it - the pain of a needle in the cat bite was one of the worst things I’ve felt, pain wise.

[wawa]

This is all totally new information to me. So like, in summer camp when there were MULTIPLE episodes of a bat getting into our cabin and waking us up swooping around....we all all should have been vaccinated???

Is that a newer recommendation?

[pierogigirl]

There is a rabies vaccine for people (edit: apparently it is one of the shots given after an exposure). My brother had to get it due to his job- he was a Forest Ranger.

I would get the shots.

[pixy0stix]

Aug 5, 2022 15:52:14 GMT -5 wawa said:

This is all totally new information to me. So like, in summer camp when there were MULTIPLE episodes of a bat getting into our cabin and waking us up swooping around....we all all should have been vaccinated???

Is that a newer recommendation?

Yes you should have been vaccinated. It's been the procedure forever. Your camp sucked.

[macmars45]

My friends had a bat in their house a few years ago. They both got all the rabies shots recommended.

[winecat]

Aug 5, 2022 15:56:38 GMT -5 pierogigirl said:

There is a rabies vaccine for people. My brother had to get it due to his job- he was a Forest Ranger.

I would get the shots.

I feel like I should get the vaccine.  I've been bitten and scratched by stray cats/kittens more times than I can count.  Now that I think about it, none of the urgent care or ER docs have told me I should get the rabies shots.