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.

Did you wake up with the marks, just wondering if you’ve slept with your hand curled and the nail has dug into the skin and then as you’ve moved in your sleep it’s made another mark.
I sometimes wake up with a mark in the same place from my nail digging into my palm.

Has anyone recommended getting Derry on the case?

This was the first thing that sprung to mind 🤣🤣

Update

Doctor said it doesnt look like a bat bite. She said they see them sometimes and they are very superficial and mine are indented. She said bats arent strong enough to leave such idents and if one did bite that unusually hard I would have known about it ,even if fast asleep. She rang a special rabies team in London who agreed with her - asked if I was intoxicated etc when asleep, asked if I had seen a bat in the house, and seemed satisfied when I said no to both.

I think if I had woke to a bat in the house they'd have offered me the jab regardless of any mark or not, but as I have no proven close contact, im not high risk enough to be offered the jabs.

So we will see. I will check in in a few months if I'm still alive (:

Thanks everyone who has been supportive.im still going to worry but I will try put it to the back of my mind.

Try my suggestion of holding your dog lead in the other hand when walking and see if any marks appear.

You won’t worry if you seek treatment for your anxiety.

Have a great US trip OP, and glad you were deemed low risk!

It for sure isnt the lead. I dont know what it is and she didnt either but she did say they are indents

Bats are just so adorable.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Omls6qDPGsU?is=MrpFyrZn3Kybft81

my thought is that it’s your fingernail digging in when you are gripping the lead not the lead itself

I think the only possibility that's left is
Batman!

Spider bite?

So grateful for all I’ve learned about bats from this thread 🦇

Even in the USA you're looking at hundreds rather than thousands of dollars.

My DS1 was bitten by a stray dog*. Insurance paid 100% for the series of shots. And those without insurance would likely qualify for Medicaid which would also pay 100%.

*Our pediatrician actually handed him a little 'rabies vaccination tag' on a chain when he got his last shot. This was years ago and he still has it.

It doesn't even look like a skin puncture? More a pressure mark?
I dont honestly think that bats based in the UK bite humans. They are not vampire bats which are abroad.
And you'd wake up and see or hear the bat if it was in your house and biting you.

The only reason a bat would bite you in the UK is if you were trying to pick it up or poke at it. Assuming you weren’t doing that in your sleep, you’ll be absolutely fine.

I've been bitten by a bat abroad in my line of work. I had the jabs.
It looked nothing like your mark. The problem with Google....anything is possible

I wouldn't of even of thought to get the jabs.

Sorry to hear that. Did it break the skin

Glad you're OK, OP. I do still wonder what it is though!
I'm not sure it's any kind of bite; surely it'd break the skin? And spider bites tend to itch like mad.

I am still very confused. Every bite I have had has broken the skin/ entry point and I tend to get red and itchy

Yes it did, or I wouldn't have got jabs.

Can all the amateur medics stop talking about broken skin and educate themselves:

”Bat bites often do not leave a visible mark. Because bats have extremely small, sharp, needle-like teeth, any marks that do appear are usually microscopic pinpricks, light scratches, or minor red dots that can fade or disappear within minutes”

Op it’s clearly just indents,I understand you suffer from anxiety, but this isn’t one you need to worry about.

That’s an odd place for a bat to bite. You don’t sleep with your hand flat out, do you? Surely it would bite a flat part of you?

That's for your thread OP! We're constantly told that bats "are cute" and we need to preserve them while NOT being told of the risks of handling/being exposed to them. Anyone who sees an ill or erratic bat needs to stay clear.

PS: I think you're fine though, you've seen the experts and you didn't encounter a bat in your room. I'm pretty sure they would have given you the shot if there was even a chance. That's better than when I woke up with bats flying over my head :(