RE: Woke Up at 4am w/ a Bat on My Face - Reflections on Vaccines, Health and Love
I have not written about rabies and don't know much about it. Sorry.
It is not too common a problem up here in Canada.
I have written about Tetanus though. The hospitals like to pass out Tetanus shots like candy whenever someone goes to the hospital for any type of cut, even cuts where there is really no way in hell that someone could have gotten tetanus. And they will give you that same shot again in a couple of months if you cut yourself again because they say that you can't count on your old vaccine, you need a new one.
Basically they are saying that the shot doesn't work well enough to rely on it.
I write about that one here:
https://steemit.com/vaccines/@canadian-coconut/truth-about-tetanus-infection-and-the-vaccine
I can easily imagine that they give out the rabies shot way too often as well, if you can go by how they treat tetanus. I can't give you advice since I haven't researched it, and there could be some instances where it is really needed.
The risk of bad side-affects of the rabies shot may be very high (I seem to recall but would have to research more) ... therefore, one would not want unnecessary shots.
Ok ... I just did a quick Google search and it seems that there is a Rabies Immunoglobulin serum that is given when they really suspect Rabies. This looks similar to the Tetanus Immunoglobulin talked about in my article.
Did the hospital give you the immunoglobulin serum?
If not, they did not actually believe that you or your baby were at risk for rabies.
In the case of tetanus, if you have been infected with it already (through a cut or nail) it is too late for the vaccine to have any affect. A vaccine is for BEFORE exposure. If you have actually been recently infected you will need the tetanus immunoglobulin serum treatment.
The same would appear to hold true for rabies ...
... but like I said I would need to do much more research to offer you better advice.
Yes, as I mention above, they did give us both the immunoglobulin, calculating for our weight.
Thanks for your information, I look forward to digging into your very informative posts in the future.
oh okay then.
At least they believed there to be a real risk before they adminstered the vaccines.
It seems to me though that the vaccinations themselves may have been unnecessary, at least right now.
As the point of the vaccinations are for FUTURE exposures, and if you deal with your bat problem maybe there would be no future exposures.
And maybe the immunoglobulin works well enough by itself without the real need for vaccinations, as long as you have hospitals nearby that can administer the immunoglobulin.
Have you or your daughter noticed any new health concerns since the series of rabies shots? Don't ignore the symptoms if you have them. Very often a doctor will ignore vaccine side-affects. But if you and especially your daughter are reacting badly to the shots that you have had so far, you may not want to get the final shot in the series.
Pretty much every vaccine package insert will say inside of it that for a series of shots, if you have had any of the listed side-affects to not continue on with the series.
And since the immunoglobulin is the part that is dealing with this possible exposure to rabies, the vaccine seems to me not needed.
Please keep in mind, that there must be a reason the rabies vaccine is not routinely given to all the people in your area, when rabies is more common there than some places of the world.
The reason is probably either that the shots are simply too expensive,
or more likely the reason is that the shots are known to have a very high rate of side-effects and the benefit of giving them to everybody is not greater than the risk.
Enjoy reading my old posts!
If you get hurt and you never have been vaccinated tetanus you receive both active and passive immunisation. If you have been vaccinated before and just need a boost again then passive immunisation is enough.
I know this since i worked in a emergency department and did this dozens of times. And do you know how many serious (low fever is not serious!) vaccine side-effects I encountered (I only can tell about the first week after injury) - 0!