Does The Rabies Vaccine Work?
Does the rabies vaccine work? That’s all you need to know when you find out you’re infected.
A Chance for a Cure?
Just as with any vaccine you might receive, the rabies vaccine is a shot which includes inactive rabies viruses. This means they aren’t going to hurt you. When the vaccine is shot into your body, your white blood cells ‘see’ the viruses and then you begin to make antibodies to fight off the infection. This causes your body to do the hard work of getting itself back to health. In most cases, you will suffer no more than a sore arm and a slight fever after having the shot in your arm. Not too bad for having a nearly always fatal disease strike you. You should go out and get a lotto ticket once you’ve gotten the clean bill of health – that’s how lucky you are.
When to Get the Shots
If you’ve been bitten by a rabid animal or an animal you can’t observe to see if it is rabid or not, you need to go ahead and get the rabies vaccine immediately. When administered within ten days of being bitten, you will be able to see a nearly 100% chance of being completely cured. Sure, there are some who aren’t as lucky, but this is often because it’s been more than ten days after the rabies exposure or the strain is too rare to be helped by the vaccine.
Now, if you’re not sure if the animal was rabid (your ex probably was, even if they weren’t always foaming at the mouth), you can watch the animal for ten days and if nothing happens to them, you might not have to seek rabies treatment. However, it never hurts to be safe than to be sorry (read:dead).
The shots might be administered in your arm, or you might get them around the site of the actual bite in order to make sure the rabies virus is going to be killed off.