I need to be told I'm being ridiculous. Rabies/ bats?

[Anxiouspotat0]

Hi.
So, I go abroad on friday for two weeks.
Yesterday I woke with a weird.mark on my hand. I google lensed it to be told it looks like a bat bite. I measured it and it is the right size. IGoogle of course recommended a full course of post rabies exposure vaccines as bats arre the only.animal in the UK that cam carry a rabies like virus.

Here's the thing. I walk the dogs of an evening. There are sometimes bats around flying overhead but I.am confident I would have noticed one stopping to land on my hand (apparently they don't bite mid flight and have to anchor theirselves). It's the hand I hold the dog lead with. To my knowledge (I am confident) one never got anywhere near close. Which leaves one flying in through a window and biting me in my sleep (google says you'd always find a bat in the room, there is 0 evidence of any bat) I also have dogs that bark if a spider farts so if a bat was in tbe room surely they' have woke me up.

I'm waiting for the GP to get back to me (111 told me to send them a photo) .Obviously rabies is 100% fatal and not something to mess with. BUT if I do the jabs which are 4 jabs over 28 days, I will have to either not go away (it is incredibly important to me, it isnt a regular.holiday and I can't reschedule it) or source 1/2 jabs in the US which insurance would not cover. Tens of tbousands of debt which I cannot afford. All on the slight chance a bat somehow entered my home, bit me, and left with0 trace, and when only 0.5% of tested bats even carry the virus even if it was a bat bite.

I don't even know if the NHS would recommend thr jabs given I was never directly near a bat or found a bat in a room, but I'm just stressed as hell, please be gentle. But I'm hoping to be told that you regular unanxious people would just assume a spider bite or anything else and go about their lives without worrying about rabies. I am a super anxious person as you can surely tell.

Thanks if you made it this far.

Jeanna survived over 20 years ago now. And while there has been a tiny number of survivors since it’s pot luck whether the protocol will work and largely not in the victims favour. Rabies is still virtually 100% fatal. If you say 99.99% it’s not any better really. I would never take a chance with rabies. (But yes the risk in this country is minuscule)

Not for this situation.

The advice for bat bites, when you are aware of a bat touching you ...is to go for treatment even if the skin isn't obviously broken. There is severe danger even if the skin isn't obviously broken..if you are aware you've been touched by a bat.

But you can also die from the vaccination if you have a reaction to it.

I think the risk of getting poorly or dying from the vaccination, getting to the clinic etc outweighs the chance of contracting rabies in this country.

What a bizarre thread. Literally batshit😂

Ask the GP and take their advice. It's not worth not doing so. I suspect you have had something in your hand that has left that indentation but is it worth the risk?

Have you checked behind the radiators, wardrobes and anything else up against the wall?

I grew up in a rural area. I remember one day we were sat in the kitchen eating dinner, all windows and doors shut, when a bat suddenly appeared and started flying round and round. Cue Mum and I shrieking and running out of the room while Dad dealt with it. We later figured out it must have flown in the night before while the door was open and had been roosting behind the cooker. Mum remembered the cat had seemed agitated earlier staring fixedly at that corner.

I highly doubt you've been bitten by a ninja bat who left no trace whatsoever. They aren't usually subtle when they come in, they panic trying to get out.

However, rabies has a 100% fatality rate so if there is any doubt in your mind at all that you may have come into contact with one, you need to get the vaccines. Once you develop symptoms, it's already too late so I'd be inclined to get the jabs.

I have hundreds of bats living in and around my property. I wander the land every night at dusk and I’m surrounded by them. Not once have I been bitten or indeed landed on, although they do swoop very close.

Any rabid bat would bite, that's the virus strategy to spread: Multiply in the salivary glands, prevent the infected animal to drink and swallow their saliva (that would dilute the virus), hence the foaming mouth, and BITE BITE BITE so it's transmitted.
It can also be transmitted with a scratch btw.

Whilst i 100% do not think the OP has been bitten by a bat, there was recently a high profile case of a lady who died of rabies after being scratched by a kitten on holiday. Terrifyingly, the scratch did not break the skin.

This thread is bizarre. We don't have rabies in the uk?

You are being ridiculous and the likelihood of it being a bat bite is small and the likelihood of that bat having rabies even smaller - google says only 0.3% of tested bats in the UK have rabies and it’s only found in 2 species. It’s not found in the most common pipistrelle bats.

That said, I have health anxiety and I have had awful anxiety around rabies before whilst travelling in a country with a high number of human cases. In your shoes I would probably try and have the treatment because I wouldn’t be able to switch my anxiety off otherwise and it would ruin my holiday more than paying for the treatment would. However, I do recognise my anxiety is not normal - most people probably would be able to focus on the most logical outcome which is that there is no evidence this is a bat bite, it’s more likely to be a mark from something else that just coincidentally looks a bit like a bat bite, and there’s certainly no evidence you’ve been in contact with a bat, let alone a rabid one.

Do you knit? I have an indentation at this very moment on my hand in that place from where my fingernail pokes my palm when I'm knitting. Admittedly I only have one, but I guess it's possible you hold the wool/needles differently.. You also seem to have a fainter mark on the next palm line down and slightly right (going towards your wrist) which I also have from the same cause. I never noticed them until I looked just now, but I presume they are always there. I don't know but presume crochet would do the same.

It's no wonder no one can get a gps appointment if this is what people are phoning up with! You haven't seen a bat, been around a bat yet dr google tells you the random mark on the palm of your hand is a bat bite (how the hell would a bat bite you there if you are holding a dog lead??) and you are now convinced you need rabies treatment. Honestly your gp must roll their eyes when they see your name! Do you ring up your gps everytime you find a spot or have an ache?

My pinky fingernail goes into that spot if I make a fist - I believe your nail is making that mark when you are holding the dog lead - try using your other hand for a few walks to see if the mark appears on that hand.

I am something of a bat expert and have been doing population counts etc for about 30 years off and on. I have been bitten a few times in the UK when handling them (they’re usually fine but the odd one is super brave/angry!). Oh I’ve also been bitten by a vampire bat

They just don’t leave a mark like that at all - the skin indentation is totally wrong as they simply dont have/use the jaw force to create it. There’s almost no sign in fact (though you definitely feel it at the time) and afterwards the punctures are almost invisible.

even the vampire bat (which I didn’t feel and bit me on the toe when I was asleep) left just round red marks. @LauraNorda picture looks much more like a bat bite than yours to be honest!

obviously can’t ever be certain (and not from one picture) but I’d happily bet my house on that not being a bat bite

I wouldn’t say that is a spider bite. My ds was bitten a few times by a spider (false widow) on his wrist when asleep. At first there were a few tiny red dots that he said were painful, didn’t look like a puncture, the whole area then turned red in about 20mins. He said it felt like his skin was burning. The skin started scabbing / weeping over the next 24hrs. It was very nasty looking!

No experience of bat bites though, good luck.

I thought there was no rabies in the UK

Don't be stupid. You'd know if a bat bit you. They're not sneaky like spiders....

Yes my son saw the bat before he went to sleep and thought it had flown away but slept with the window open, the next afternoon his hand was slightly swollen and that’s when he found the two marks.

It must have broken the skin as that’s the way the infection gets into the body??

That’s why rabid animals are more aggressive because the virus needs the animal to bite/scratch something else to get into its bloodstream and reproduce.

Maybe the person somehow got it in their mouth if they touched it and then put their fingers to their mouths, I don’t know.

I don't think the indents could be that deep from 'very fine' teeth. They look more like the sort of marks a blunt pencil would make. I would certainly risk it.

A tiny number of bats have Lyssavirus which is a similar virus to rabies. It’s also still fatal.

A tiny number of bats have Lyssavirus which is a similar virus to rabies. It’s also still fatal.

I hardly ever go GP. Normally im a wait and see person. This has only made me so anxious cause the outcome is 100% death on the tiny chance it is.

Currently in urgent care gp told me to go. Will update