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.

This is really good advice op.

I sympathise because I once became convinced we had bed bugs. Despite assurances from pest controllers and no actual evidence other than I had seen one tiny beetle like creature in my bed which even I rationally knew wasn't bed bug shaped, but somehow it gad got stuck in ny head and I couldn't let it go, I was quite unhinged and obsessively cleaning the house and goggling picture of bedbugs for weeks.

A You haven’t had a “bite”
B There is something to be done. Accept this is anxiety speaking and seek help for that. Or you will continue to worry and fret and affect your whole family.

Op I see you didn’t post this picture fhay looked like yours, is this as you know it doesn’t look like yours at all? Honestly?

How are you this morning, I think you need to make an appt to see your gp for your anxiety, there is no way that was a bat bite or any other kind of bite, but you spiralled hard even though logically you must have known this.

as said we have bats, they often come in the house, the first thing is they stay away from you, the second is you bloody know when they are in the house, they swoop like bat man trying to get out. As long as a window is open they leave very quickly, when I see one I just open all the windows, leave the room and shut the door.

in addition the uk is officially free of rabies in bats as the prevalence is so low, ifs like one in 2oo

to put it into context there has been 5 deaths in the whole of Europe, including the uk since 1977. 5o years. And you’ve not been bitten, which means you’ve zero chance of having rabies,

It looked like mine.
But I don't want to find it again. I am trying to not spiral today.
I know the odds are very low that even if I have a bite the bat had the virus, but it ism't 0% chance and that scares me.

There is no way that a flapping bat could have come in to your room and bitten you without you waking up. They flapping on your hand would have woken you up, even if the flapping in your room didn’t. And your dog would have gone wild.

This is not about a bat bite ultimately - this is down to extreme health anxiety. You really need to make an appointment for treatment because this is life-limiting. The checks have been done by doctors, the skin is not punctured, the site of indents is bizarre for where a bat could bite.

There is only so much reassurance and attention you can get from a thread on Mumsnet. Your next step is to get help for your anxiety.

You poor thing x
I’ve read all your posts , so your GP actually saw you ?
If she’s convinced it’s not a bat bite , and she’s also contacted some specialist in that field then you can be reassured you’ll be ok x
I was away up in the Western Highlands of Scotland quite a few years ago .
We found pipistrelle bats in the cottage , they kept clinging to the heavy curtains in the large back room ( was one of those kitchen / dining / family rooms ) and the weather was really warm so we had the big patio doors open
It wasn’t a dog friendly cottage so our dog was in kennels for the few days we were away because if dog was there I don’t think the bats would’ve dared enter ! Or we would’ve known all about it if they’d come in !
Husband and SIL also found a dead one in a decorative bowl and ran off leaving me to get rid of it ( thanks guys )
We are all fine and that was years ago xx

OP if you weren’t eligible it’s because an infected bat did not bite you. The doctors are very cautious they wouldn’t just refuse you treatments if there was any chance you were going to develop the disease.

You don’t have rabies. So stop crying you’re only hurting yourself.

Doesn't look like the skin was punctured by teeth. It looks like pressure indentations from holding something tight or laying on an object like a charm bracelet.

Are the indentations still there now?

But there is no way round the fact you were not bitten, by anything,

has the indents lessened?

Posters trying to reassure you OP mean well but it isn’t what you need. You need to see this as the problem it really is, which is not about bats/rabies and is about anxiety. I used to spiral like this and the best thing anyone ever did for me - a stranger online who responded to my request for reassurance about a health issue - was to tell me very bluntly that they wouldn’t engage with me and give me what I was asking for because it wouldn’t help me and would make me worse. At the time I felt upset but looking back that was the thing I needed. So I’m saying it to you again, now.

Reassurance won’t help you. You could have a hundred posters all carefully explaining to you all the exact reasons why you haven’t been bitten by a bat and why even if you had, you won’t die. Indeed, you’ve had that in this thread. Why don’t you feel better? Because it’s not what you need. You understand deep down that most people wouldn’t be worried like this about this situation, and that knowledge tells you that this is anxiety talking rather than a real problem with a bat bite. What you do with that knowledge now is up to you. If you want to get better, stop perpetuating the questions and seeking more answers which won’t ultimately help you and book an appointment with your GP to discuss next steps to tackle your anxiety. You can carry on spiralling here and have another few weeks of hell but then you’ll feel better because you actually won’t develop rabies symptoms- but it’ll be a temporary relief before your anxious brain latches on to the next problem. I’ve been there. Im
not going to list all the diseases that over the course of my health anxiety I was convinced I had because I don’t want to trigger the fear of them in you but believe me when I say I lost months to it. I can look at “happy” family holiday photos from a few years ago where I look like I’m smiling and having a great time and I can tell you which fatal disease I was secretly sobbing about in the bathroom as I was convinced I had it. I would do exactly this kind of thing in terms of seeking reassurance online and have well-meaning people tell me how unlikely it was I had whatever disease I was panicking about. None of it helps. You need to tackle the anxiety.

It’s easy to say but if there was any chance at all you’d been bitten you’d have been given the jabs. The NHS has its problems but it’s not going to send anyone away to die of rabies.

Your chance of having rabies is ZERO you were NOT bitten by a bat

I know how anxious you must be feeling, a few years ago I inadvertently picked up a bat in my house, didn’t realise it was a bat just saw a small furry thing in the corner of the room on the floor, anyway I called the bat conservation society as wasn’t sure what to do and she told me about the risk of rabies and asked if it had bit or licked me, which I don’t believe it did however I did have a previous small cut on my finger so an open wound was accessible to saliva, she advised I contacted my GP for advice, he practically laughed at me on the phone and inferred I was being ridiculous and told me to forget about it as “we don’t have rabies in the UK” As you can imagine I wasn’t very impressed so I decided to go to my local travel clinic and get the rabies post exposure vaccines just in case. If I was you this is what I would do for your peace of mind, plus it gives you protection even if you haven’t been bitten for future travels.

I know you are going away but you can start the treatment here and if you tell them you travel issues they may be able to advise how to proceed. Also the rabies virus has to travel up the nervous system to reach the brain, that is why if someone is bitten or scratched on the head the treatment needs to be to be much quicker than if bitten on a limb, even in the highly highly unlikely chance you have been bitten by a rabid bat rabies is unlikely to develop so quickly so you could get the vaccine when you come back. Give your travel clinic a call and see what they advise.

You aren’t worried because there is something legitimate to worry about. You are in danger of spiralling because you are suffering from a mental health condition. Posting here won’t reassure you. Kindly people on here trying to help you can’t do so. You’re unable to look at this logically. You need to seek help for your mental health and stop reinforcing the fear by posting about it.

Nope. Over 48 hourd and theyre the same...So I dont think they can be indents

There is only 1 clinic ive found that offers private PEP and its in London, I have no way of getting there before I leave

You are due to leave to go away on Friday - which is now only 2 days away.

YOU need to make a decision

if you really really really think you have been bitten by a bat - which the majority of us on MN do not believe you have, the GP doesn't think you have and the specialist doesn't think you have

then you now either get yourself to London today / tomorrow

and / or

you have the jabs/additional jabs in USA

or

YOU cancel the holiday

' 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.'

are the jabs really tens of thousands in USA ?

I wouldn’t offer the OP any further suggestions as she is irrational and refuses to take on board expert opinion.

Once you have made your decision re jabs / the holiday

I would get myself back to my GP urgently re the mental health.

I would also consider if I were well enough to travel.

Life isn't a 0% chance.

You could get struck by lightning
Get runover
Die in a plane crash
Be hit by a falling tree

The likelihood of you being bitten by a bat was tiny. The likelihood of that bat having rabies is tiny.

Only 1 person has acquired rabies in the UK in the last 120 years, and he was a bat handler. In that 120 years, there have been roughly 150m people in the UK. You are FAR more likely to die in the things I've listed above.

You almost certainly weren't even bitten by a bat.

Can you post a currenr picture please? A genuine one taken now?

OP has been told multiple times now by first hand experience and professionals.

The very best thing you could do OP, is make an urgent GPs appointment to address your irrational anxiety.

They may suggest something like propranolol just to take the edge off.

You are fixated on these marks and it’s not helping you to keep googling.

Make the GP appointment and then do something to distract your mind.

.