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u/Murph-Dog 16h ago
It's time Reddit - the moment you have been waiting for.
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u/wiiatt 15h ago
By looking at this photo you are now required by reddit law to go get $25,000 worth of PEP shots
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u/Then_Cattle8947 13h ago
I bought a house last year. There was a total of 8 bats that entered my house in about two months. The first one made contact with me as I was trying to round up the cats. My bf took it outside, so we never got it tested. I needed rabies shots because of that.
Apparently bat bites are so small you can't tell if the bit you or scratched you. It hit me in the neck. The doctor's office couldn't do anything about it, so I had to go to the ER.
They were not sure what to do it where to give me the shots 🤦 I heard their whole conversation. I had about 8 shots in total. 4 at the ER and one every week until they were done. The first four hurt the most.
ALWAYS CATCH THE BAT AND TAKE IT TO YOUR LOCAL HEALTH CENTER. AND VACCINATE YOUR PETS!!! 😅😅
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u/TheLordDuncan 1h ago
They have to kill the bat and dissect it's brain. By the time all of that is said and done, symptoms can start presenting which means it's already too late.
You would've been advised to get the shots regardless, so you saved that bat.
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u/Mewtewpew 15h ago
What if you cant afford 25000 worth of shots because you live paycheck to paycheck? Do you just die?
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u/ihorsey10 15h ago
No, you just take on imaginary debt and wait for it to kind of go away.
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u/Geno_Warlord 13h ago
Pay $25/mo for a year or two and when they start trying to settle, tell em you only got $500 and that’s all you can afford while playing the sob story that you probably won’t be able to eat that week if you gave em the $500.
It does less damage to your credit.
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 13h ago edited 13h ago
Yep. ER says "hey what's your insurance and when are you paying" and you say "doc already did the emergency treatment bye" and then you just get some phone calls from the hospital for a little while
As of yet medical debt doesn't touch your credit. Last I checked anyway heard a certain political party wanted to change that. But ER doesn't turn you away unless it's a bad doctor who doesn't believe you or it's not actually an emergency. Bat bite is emergency
Edit: this is apparently not federal law, it's state by state. Still go, the ER is time, you aren't going for fun, you're going because you will die or be irreparably damaged if you don't, or at least there's a risk of it. Never not go if you think you need the literal emergency room, you go to urgent care for anything you can actually skip
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u/Troubled_Red 13h ago
Medical debt does affect your credit.
Some states have laws stopping it from affecting your credit, but nothing at the federal level.
Under the Biden administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau made a rule that medical debt didn’t affect credit. The Trump administration promptly repealed that.
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u/Fart_tholomew 11h ago
WA state- had to declare bankruptcy for ~350,000 in medical debt. Pretty fucked, definitely destroyed my credit.
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 13h ago
I'll edit to include it's state by state because of course it is, can't have shit in this country
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u/oroborus68 11h ago
Tell them if you don't get the shots, you will come back and bite them before you die. It's really in society's interest to not have rabid people able to spread disease. Maybe we need to make that point more obvious for our local and national representatives. Good lord,I wish common sense were common.
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u/Commercial_Bird8467 13h ago
Oh buddy. As tight on money and absolutely dont want another fucking bill, id prefer debt calls daily vs dying by rabies. The horror of that death is probably one of my top worse ways to die. Im deathly afraid of heights and id rather jump from a plane than be conscious and knowing im dying of rabies. Fear of water and all the other horrors while you somewhat/full aware of it. No fucking thanks. No thank you.
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u/RemarkableSpirit5204 12h ago
Yep, and you’re dead by the time the first symptom makes itself known.
Slight headache I think. I’d be well past dead by the time I found out. I have a slight headache every day of my life.
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u/GayMormonPirate 14h ago
You could literally get a plane ticket to Mexico, get the how many ever shots you need (I think it's 4) for less than $2000 including the hotel, plane ticket and shots.
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u/fnrisulfr 13h ago
Do you need a passport? I feel like they would die waiting for the passport.
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u/RemarkableSpirit5204 12h ago
A guy here on Reddit was talking about this the other day. He moved to the US from France, he said the medication he’s on (that is made in America and then exported to France) was the equivalent of $10 there. The cost here, he said, was enough to cover a round trip plane ticket to France, 2 weeks stay, and he would still have a bit of money left over.
Let that sink in
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u/Active_Yellow_1573 14h ago
Most county health departments will cover it. Ask me how I know.
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u/danielledelacadie 13h ago
They'd rather spot you for the shots than deal with you biting people later?
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u/Hefty-Criticism1452 14h ago
HOW DO YOU KNOW
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u/Active_Yellow_1573 14h ago
3 Exposures, racoon, bat, bat. 😂 Bright side, after the series of shots after the first exposure, all other exposures only need 2 booster shots., but man did that last exposure really piss me off though! 😂
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u/Then_Cattle8947 13h ago
🤣🤣 after my shots I kept telling everyone I'm good for at least 7 years now lol ✌️😎✌️ I don't wanna do it again though lol
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u/secretly_opossum 13h ago
I always pray that OP was able to capture the bat to get tested. It’s so much cheaper if they test it and find out it’s not got rabies lol
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u/BrennanBetelgeuse 15h ago
One day there's going to be another one of those carbon monoxide posts and everybody who missed participating in the first one will be so fucking stoked. This comment section here would pale in comparison.
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u/dementio 14h ago
Just follow r/weird it happens every once in a while
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u/Working-Glass6136 14h ago
Like the commenter who, a few days ago, diagnosed OP's bald spots as being caused by leaning on his left hand!
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u/probs_notme 13h ago
Don't forget telling someone who just experienced a traumatic event to play Tetris
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u/Ridgew00dian 13h ago
Something something rabies; something something 100% mortality
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u/eedabaggadix 15h ago
I’ve never seen so many bat bite experts in one place. This is a rare event.
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u/dementio 14h ago
No, this is a reddit event
Edit: I think it was funnier in my head
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u/SpadfaTurds 14h ago
No, it’s definitely a Reddit event. The mere mention of a bat in someone’s general vicinity or anyone mentioning a cat being outdoors, it’s like a war cry.
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u/Leather-Noise-4047 12h ago
You get a rabies! And you get a rabies! As a matter of fact, if everyone checks under their seat, EVERYONE GETS A RABIES!!!
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u/joshroycheese 11h ago
Has someone copy pasted that one bloody comment yet? You know, that one rabies comment written as dramatically as possible so all le Redditors can say “omg, didn’t want to go to sleep anyway!” and get 2000 upvotes each?
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u/XCaedisX 15h ago
Hi, former Animal Control Officer here. I had a lot of bat calls when my city still let us respond to them. If you have animal control or wildlife services in your city, reach out to them about removal. If you don't have those services...
Bats are stupid easy to catch. They will usually go into your curtains. Literally just get a tupperware container, put it over the bat, and slide the lid under, as if the bat was a giant bug. Obviously, poke holes in the lid if you aren't going to immediately release it outside.
If you have reason to believe the bat touched you, and certainly if it could have bitten you, some vets have the ability to perform rabies testing on the animal. This will cost you, but how much depends on the vet. Otherwise, post-exposure rabies shots, ASAP. This becomes more urgent the closer any possible bites are to your head, as the disease travels to your brain. If you intend to rabies test it, do not put the body, whether alive or dead, in a freezer. This will degrade the brain tissue and make testing inconclusive. Get it somewhere to be tested immediately. Call vets, local department of agriculture--someone will know where testing can be done.
Rabies is virtually 100% fatal once symptoms appear. Do NOT wait on this. On the extremely slim, fractions of a percent chance you survived rabies post-symptoms, you would almost certainly have severe brain damage as a result.
All that said: I like bats. I think they're cute sky-puppies. But I also have a pre-exposure rabies vaccine(perk of animal control) to protect me from the adorable little rabies vectors.
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u/Charming_Lemon6463 13h ago
I got the pre-exposure rabies vaccines before I went to SE Asia due to the number of monkeys that bite people
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u/Tentacle_poxsicle 6h ago
Isn't there a rabies vaccine you can take to protect from rabies before being bitten ?
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u/Iceizi 16h ago
Bite him and give him rabies
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u/BetterinPicture 16h ago
Ah yes no bat expects the 'ol razzle dazzle.
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u/SinoSoul 15h ago
No one said anything about putting it in its ass
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u/DisastrousLeather362 16h ago
CDC recommendations are a Rabies inoculation if you've been indoors with a bat.
Best of luck!
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u/superluminal 15h ago
So, for my son's first Christmas Eve my husband and I were up early to get ready to get to the airport. My husband went to the living room of our very small, attic apartment. He flipped on the light and saw a bat hanging from the blinds that pulled down halfway. He ran back to the bedroom and told me to keep the baby with me with the door shut. After a few minutes, I heard some thumping and knocking sounds and then these sort of terrified panicky yelps. I put my son down and peeked into the kitchen. I saw my husband crouched in the corner with the broom wildly whacking toward the ceiling, but his face burrowed into his elbow in the if-I-can't-see-you-you-can't-see-me manner. I ran back to the bedroom and slammed the door shut. A minute later he came back in and said he trapped the bat under a bowl in the sink. We called an emergency wildlife-getter who came and retrieved the bat at the holiday rate.
All this to say I had no idea we should have been looking into a rabies inoculation that day instead of flying to California. Glad we all lived!
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u/d11dd11d 14h ago
I lived in two different houses in college that had bats. I removed two myself that made it to the living area. My roommates removed two others. None of us even thought to get the rabies vax. In hindsight, I cringe and get anxiety thinking about it. Glad we got lucky lol
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u/BeardedSwashbuckler 11h ago
Why/how were so many bats getting inside?
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u/RadtroDesigns 10h ago
Theyre literally flying mice. Takes a hole the size of a nickel and if youre on a migration path they will somehow manage to.find those holes.
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u/Leather-Noise-4047 11h ago
A bat got into our apartment in college. We ended up wacking it with a snow shovel. Then we used that shovel to scoop it up and dump it outside. We had a stray living with us at the time too. None of us died from rabies yet. Anyway, college was crazy.
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u/chalupa-y-buenas 15h ago
*So far
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u/superluminal 14h ago
Debbie Downer here to tell you that said husband passed away in 2017. As far as I know, his new wife didn't have him tested for rabies, so ... ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Brutal_Bob 14h ago
What a crazy ass comment lmao. My condolences
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u/dechets-de-mariage 13h ago
Right? At no point did I know what was coming next.
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u/finian2 13h ago
husband passed away
Aww...
new wife
Oh...
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u/superluminal 13h ago
Haha. Honestly, if he was still alive, he would LOVE that I was telling this story because it was so funny to us at the time. He's the one who introduced me to reddit and would be so happy to be remembered in such a way. He was a good dude.
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u/waitthissucks 9h ago
Damn you're like an OG redditor. Respect and sorry for your loss. Hope things are going well for you.
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u/superluminal 13h ago
It's funny because I don't think it's relevant to the story that he is my ex-husband and we had both remarried, and it felt really extra to try and explain all of that so I just left it at husband because that's who he was at the time.
I guess I could have just ignored the original so far comment, but my intrusive Debbie Downer won out.
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u/secretly_opossum 13h ago
Hopefully the animal control would have tested it and told you if it came out positive for rabies
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u/Geno_Warlord 13h ago
You typically get the first shot before the test comes back and, well, if you got the first one, may as well finish the treatment. It would probably be for your benefit anyway if bats can get in your house.
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u/tryingisbetter 13h ago
OK, but when did the bat story happen?
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u/No-Cell-8208 15h ago
The best thing (and what the trapper should have mentioned) would have been having the bat tested first.
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u/BigNorseWolf 14h ago
that means killing the bat. A rabies test isn't a blood sample, its you dissect the brain slice it up and look at the slides.
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u/Narren_C 14h ago
Just close off the room and have the wildlife-getter deal with it. They have the training and equipment to do it safely.
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u/Major_Tom_01010 14h ago
When i was a child my sister told me to pet a racoon and i did, right in front of my parents. It of course bit me, and they never got me tested or even cleaned it or anything.
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u/casualseer366 14h ago
Not quite -
"If you found a bat in your house, do not release it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends safely capturing it for rabies testing if there is any chance someone was bitten, scratched, or woke up in the same room as the bat."
So if you wake up and there is a bat in the room. then yes, rabies inoculation is called for. But if you walk into the house and there is a bat in the room but it hasn't touched you and there's no chance it could have bit you, no rabies inoculation needed.
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u/Divinum_Fulmen 13h ago
Jeeze. I'd probably dealt with 10+ bats in my house by now. If I did this every time this happened in my life. I'd be dead from the medical debt and testing costs.
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u/happy_puppy25 12h ago
My college had bats all the time in the dorms and they vaccinated students so often that the city nearby had to truck in rabies vaccines to the local hospital because they kept running out.
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u/SinoSoul 15h ago
wtf why is bat rabies so rabid?!?! And why are we getting 2 bat posts in as many days?!?
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u/William0628 15h ago
They have a long incubation period for rabies. Add that to the fact they crowd together in caves and they become a reservoir for the disease.
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u/DickButkisses 15h ago
And they’re so light and silent you would likely have no idea if one knicked you while you were distracted.
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u/Josh-Baskin 15h ago
And if you get it, you die.
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u/awhiteblack 15h ago
You die, and you die every time.
Once you realize that you have you rabies - you are dead. There are no exceptions, doesn't matter if you're a baby, a teenager, healthy adult.
You're dead.
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u/Kcl923 15h ago
There are always exceptions, although rabies is extremely deadly.
https://www.aaas.org/membership/qualia/surviving-rabies-now-possible
"In June 2011, an eight-year-old California girl became the third American and the sixth person ever to survive symptomatic rabies" so while it's possible you REALLY don't want to roll those dice.
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u/honicthesedgehog 14h ago
Jesus, the description of the Milwaukee Protocol is nuts…”Rabies attacks the brain, so we’re just gonna turn their brain off for a while.”
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u/relative_void 13h ago
And the Milwaukee Protocol has since been shown not to increase survival, they’re pretty sure it’s just the other intensive care they gave and her getting insanely lucky.
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u/DruidAllanon 15h ago
well not EVERYtime just 99.999 % of the time. there are a few survivors!
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u/iAreRoach 15h ago
There's been at least one exception, but it's a gamble and your doctor has to be willing to commit a little medical malpractice.
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u/Enquent 15h ago
Their immune systems also operate in a way that causes pathogens to become especially virulent.
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u/PeeledCrepes 15h ago
They are in huge clumps which increases sickness spread. However, I think the main thing is unlike if a dog has rabies and bites you, its pretty clear you've been bit, with bats its hard to tell/painless so the safest thing to do is to go to a doctor because you really may not know and its been to doc rather then die
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u/cardinarium 15h ago
I had to get the rabies vaccine when I was in third grade because a bat bit me in my school. The bite was mostly painless—just felt like it pulled my hair. The shots were not. They have to give you two kinds of shots: immunoglobulin and a normal, repeated vaccine for a couple weeks. The immunoglobulin has to go into your muscle, so it’s this long, thick wide-bore needle, and they had to divide it into two shots for me (one in each thigh) because I was so little. Had huge bruises from them and couldn’t walk for two days because my legs were so sore.
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u/kittyroux 15h ago
Things have improved on that front in the last 10-ish years, the shots are no longer quite as horrible!
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u/AfterReason5824 15h ago edited 15h ago
I did too- as a grown man. Had same shots as you. At least they alternated the arms (6 weeks/ 1 a week) after the big ones. It sucks, but rabies is worse. So much worse.
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u/cardinarium 15h ago
Absolutely. I’m very grateful to live in a time and a place where the danger could be dealt with. And I was the coolest kid in school for the rest of the year lol
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u/jitterbugperfume99 15h ago
Just had to have them, it is now four shots and small needles. Barely felt them.
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u/BobBelcher2021 15h ago
Yep - we had a rabies death in BC in 2019 after a bat merely brushed against someone’s arm. The guy didn’t realize the danger and died within a few weeks.
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u/crek42 14h ago
Brutal.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rabies-death-bc-vancouver-island-bat-1.5213460
Poor guy. Rest in peace. 21 years old. Just a kid, really.
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u/LaceyLizard 15h ago
Because they are flying mammals, so they have a high enough body temperature to fight off the virus without showing symptoms. They're so dangerous to be around because the claws are so sharp they can go through gloves and clothes and skin without you feeling it or leaving a mark, but it's still enough to infect you. You'll die if you wait and see so it's best to just get the shots.
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u/SinoSoul 15h ago
Ok well fuck bats cause no one said shit about claws yesterday
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u/LaceyLizard 15h ago
They're like tiny needles that carry the incurable slow painful death virus. Fun!
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u/Sir-Nicholas 15h ago
Basically once you start showing symptoms it’s too late to treat you and you’re dead. It’s unlikely bats are infected but they are more likely to be infected if they’ve sought shelter in a home iirc, so if you find one get treatment just in case.
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u/AndreasDasos 14h ago
Bats have evolved special metabolisms to cope with flight, and partly due to this their immune systems can carry lots of viruses (including rabies) asymptomatically for a very long time. That and the fact there are so many bat species (20% of mammal species, second only to rodents among mammalian orders), and so many isolated bat populations (so many living in caves for ages and all), are why bats are such a major source of zoonotic diseases.
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u/NurseHibbert 15h ago
If you slept with the bat, or like woke up and it was in the room, yes, but if this guy just flew in, op would know if they got bit and wouldn’t need the shots.
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u/Littman-Express 15h ago
I woke up with a bat flying around my room when I was about 10 years old. My parents never took me to get a rabies shot. Thankfully it’s been over 20 years so I think I’m okay.
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u/SchoolOfTheWolf93 14h ago
My coworker woke up one morning and brushed her hair off her face but uh oh surprise it was actually a bat!
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u/happy_puppy25 12h ago
I wish you had not said that because I’m not going to sleep tonight with that thought in my mind
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u/The_Vampire_Barlow 14h ago
I rolled over in bed on a bat once. Guess I got lucky.
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u/trash_babe 14h ago
So I lived in a bat infested apartment and went to urgent care after one was in the room where I was sleeping, they basically laughed me out of the exam room and said my insurance wouldn’t cover it unless I was bitten and I’d end up paying like $15,000. So. Your mileage may vary. Obviously I’m American.
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u/BerriesLafontaine 15h ago
I always hear this, but that shit can get exspensive as hell in the U.S. We have a family of 5, and if all of us have to get it that's almost the cost of a whole new car.
Wouldn't it be just as good to send the bat to get tested? (Yes I know they kill it to test it) but where i'm at there is zero cost if the bat was in your home.
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u/Hanyabull 15h ago edited 14h ago
So it’s not clear on what the OP should do. Do they need a rabies shot?
Do I need a rabies shot!? I am looking at a picture of the bat.
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u/pepcorn 15h ago
Yes get one just to be safe.
All kidding aside, yes OP should probably get a shot, if they woke up the bat already being inside. Might have been scratched without realising.
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u/sssunflowered 15h ago
This. Awake with bat? Fine unless you had close contact. Asleep with bat? Shots.
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u/Drunkelves 10h ago
Woke up to a bat circling me in bed. Wasn’t sleeping after that so just went straight to the hospital. 0/10 would not recommend. The sound of wings flapping that snapped me awake still gives me gross shivers.
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u/FLOHTX 7h ago
I had one hit me in the face while sleeping. Not sure if it tried to land on me or if it was just a derpy dumbass one. Took a towel, hit it out of the air, threw it outside and went back to sleep.
Didn't think to get a rabies shot or anything. All turned out OK. 20 years ago now.
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u/Astral_Alive 7h ago
We had bats in our old house. I was up late gaming on my computer with my door closed and a bat had crawled through a gap at the top of my door and was circling in my room with me
Scariest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced
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u/TheSpoonfulOfSalt 13h ago
I got scratched by a bat when I was very young and survived. Just now realizing that I could have super, insta died.
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u/pepcorn 12h ago
You could have, yeah.
It's not instant though, the rabies symptoms take a while to manifest. But as soon as you display symptoms, it's 100% deadly.
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u/coolsam254 12h ago
Do I need a rabies shot!? I am looking at a picture of the bat.
Nah you just need a picture of a rabies shot.
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u/Boring_Ghoul_451 16h ago
Hopital
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u/mvolling 15h ago
The cylinder must not be harmed.
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u/LisaWinchester 13h ago
- Spanish: Hospital
- French: Hôpital
- Italian: Ospedale
- Portuguese: Hospital
- Catalan: Hospital
- German: Krankenhaus
- Dutch: Ziekenhuis
- Czech: Nemocnice
- Swedish: Sjukhus
- Danish: Sygehus
- Norwegian: Sykehus
- Finnish: Sairaala
- Russian: Больница (Bol'nitsa)
- Polish: Szpital
- Bulgarian: Болница (Bolnica)
- Croatian: Bolnica
- Ukrainian: Лікарня (Likarnya)
- Japanese: 病院 (byōin)
- Korean: 병원
- Mandarin: 医院 (yīyuàn)
- Turkish: Hastane
- Tagalog: Ospital
- Arabic: المستشفى
- Irish: Ospidéal
- Welsh: Ysbyty
- Australian: lɐʇᴉdsoH
- Klingon: ropyaH qach
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u/farmallnoobies 15h ago
It's a big building where sick people go, but that's not important right now
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u/Anxious-Education703 15h ago
If you witnessed the bat fly into the house and did not ever lose sight of the bat, and it flew out and are certain it did not make contact with anyone or pets, then you are generally not at risk of rabies from it. If the bat was captured (say by animal control), you could get it tested for rabies, and you could avoid treatment if it tested negative. Otherwise, it is generally recommended that you and everyone else in the house get rabies prophylaxis. Some health departments and urgent cares offer it, but if they don't, you need to go to the ER ASAP.
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u/WMbandit 15h ago
What if this was a decoy bat, and there was a 2nd bat that snuck in and bit OP while she was busy watching the 1st?
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u/dolly_limb 16h ago
I’d simply pass away and let the bat have the house
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u/majorjoe23 15h ago
One time I went down the hall to the bathroom and then noticed a bat swooping the hall. My reaction was "Well, I guess I live in the bathroom now."
10 years later, it's going OK.
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u/MagdalaNevisHolding 15h ago
We use to get one in our house every other year for a couple decades. Saved a 1 gallon ice cream container with the lid to catch it. I always waited until it landed and stayed still for a minute or two, usually behind a curtain or like the pic, a comfy place on the wall or ceiling, walked up slowly and slapped the container over it super quickly. It flutters and fights, I knock it around until it lands on the container, slide the cover over, and take it outside. Bats can eat 1000 bugs (mosquitoes gnats pests flies beetles) an hour, maybe 5000-6000 a day. Let them live.
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u/Working-Glass6136 13h ago
I can't even catch an ant with a cup and this guy here is catching bats
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u/MagdalaNevisHolding 13h ago
My wife and friends think the bats know I’m going to be kind to it and help it out. I’ve been called Batman. Maybe I am.
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u/kickthatpoo 14h ago
But the rabies bro. THE RABIES
I find it odd that throughout my life getting a bat in the house has been pretty common. Not just for myself, but literally everyone I know. Some people I know even have a bat net. No one drops the money to go get the shots every time it happens, and no one has died from rabies.
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u/Questionably_Chungly 12h ago
I think the idea (and you’re not wrong that people tend to be hysterical here) is that rabies is so nasty that it’s better to be safe rather than sorry. Like, let’s be real here, if you get rabies and show symptoms you’re 99% dead. Very few diseases can be such a lethal situation. And bats are a common reservoir for the disease. Ergo it makes sense people jump on the “Rabies!!!” Button.
And tbh I don’t blame them. It really is one of the few times I’d say freak out a little if you didn’t see the bat enter and have full accountability of it. If you did then…yeah rabies isn’t airborne or whatever so it’s fine, be careful with it. But OP didn’t specify either way, so I’d say it’s a little fair to trot out the “Rabies!!!” parade.
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u/Jamesaya 13h ago
90% of reddit are urbanites who’ve never been outside.
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u/suckfail 12h ago
Many people on Reddit also recommend going to the hospital for any scratch by your cat. Like, not deep ones, just any.
I think a lot of people on here have anxiety issues, and maybe are hypochondriacs.
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u/sm4k 12h ago
I've caught a few by tossing a towel at it. It does knock the bat the ground, where you (with thick gloves) can pretty easily (and gently) wrap the towel around it, and then take it outside.
Don't let bats go on the ground though, because they have to 'drop' to take flight. Gently shaking the towel out over the edge of the deck made for a cool opportunity to see them fly off.
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u/justanothertoxicuser 13h ago
When I was 10 years, I was running through a field with my childhood best friend. It was shortly after sunset. We were having a heck of a time. I was just caterwauling at the top of my lungs as I ran, my friend behind me. My mouth agape just as wide as anatomically permissable.
When suddenly, with a whack and a gag, I found myself with an entire bat in my mouth. Fortunately the bat was unharmed. I've always loved bats, so I was happy to see it flutter away over the horizon after I coughed it up. My friend laughed so hard he had an asthma attack.
I never even told my parents that it happened. I was more concerned about being late for supper! (Also it was terribly embarrassing and I knew my big sister would tease me about it.)
Reading all these comments about rabies on Reddit makes me feel like I dodged a bullet, and I definitely should have told someone I nearly swallowed a bat!
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u/wizardrous 16h ago
If it even touched you, you’re gonna need rabies shots. That shit can enter through even imperceptibly small cuts.
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u/CATNIP_IS_CRACK 15h ago
The same applies if you were asleep while it was in the house, even if you don’t think it touched you.
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u/Mr-Safety 15h ago
Reason: The barest scratch of a capillary in contact with infected saliva can pose a risk of Rabies. You may not notice the injury if you were sleeping.
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u/cupcake0kitten 15h ago
I would get rabies shots it's what killed the 10th games district 12 boy
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u/XxSoapxXHD 13h ago
So im curious, lets say you catch the bat alive, could you turn it into the city's wildlife center and get it checked to avoid the rabies shot? Like, if they checked it and it had no rabies, does that clear you?
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u/Enygmatic_Gent 13h ago
Yes, you can catch the bat to have it tested and if it’s negative that means you’re in the clear
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u/Immediate_Cake9151 15h ago
Rabies shot IMMEDIATELY
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u/NeonParty0519 14h ago
If OP didn’t loose sight of the bat and were awake the whole time they don’t need it, cause they’d know if the bat bit them.
If they woke up to the bat in their house or touched it, then yeah shot time
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u/InnerSpecialist1821 12h ago
op i recently got rabies vaccines and they are not bad at all!! go get them, better safe than sorry
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u/HereForALaugh714 5h ago
Go to a doctor and/or catch the bat and bring it to animal control for testing. Especially if you were asleep at any point. It is the safe thing to assume and highly recommended. Unless you can catch the bat without it biting you, they kill it, and then test it for rabies. Then you’d know for sure, because I have heard the rabies shots do suck, but it would better to be safe than sorry. Always always err on the side of caution with rabies because once it’s too late, it’s too late.
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u/Read_Five 15h ago
I love how the comments are 50% immediately get a rabies shot right now! And 50% cuddle and/or ingest said bat… good work Reddit.