Anyone have a phobia of rabies?
Posted , 3 users are following.
Recently, my son picked up an old half-eaten apple from the yard and put it to his mouth to eat it. I grabbed it and threw it away, and didn't think about it. But the next morning, I developed the thought-What if a rabid animal had mouthed the apple while it lay in the yard? What if my son is now infected? I understand how irrational this fear is. No one gets rabies from an inanimate object that has been exposed all day to sunlight and air. I didn't even see any animal. I don't even know that the apple touched my son's mouth. The anxiety comes and goes now, and for the most part, I understand it just to be a nonsense thought. But sometimes my imagination kicks up and terrifies me.
0 likes, 4 replies
amelia43385 jasper71098
Posted
jasper71098 amelia43385
Posted
I think it's just that, because it's such a dire disease, our anxieties like to focus on it. I picture my anxiety almost like a person who is just trying to frighten me. It short circuits all logical conclusions, like knowing that the dog is vaccinated. I have to remind myself that these fears are illusory.
borderriever jasper71098
Posted
I need to ask if you live in the UK. Here we do not have Rabies, the only cases we may get is from an infected person who has picked it up outside the country. All British pets are checked over before and after they return after holidays.
If you are outside the UK and you are concerned about your Child see your Doctor.
Generally speaking if not bitten or cut rabies I understand is rare. The conditions infection is quite variable in its infection rate and time. I was bitten in Spain thirty years ago and was taken to hospital, They inestigated the animal in Ronda and all was ok
We do have Rabies in Europe, proper although now cases are becoming less and less.
jasper71098 borderriever
Posted
No, I live in the US. We do have rabies cases, but only about 3 per year, and something like a third of them seem to be from infections that occurred in other countries.
I'm not rationally concerned. While it is theoretically possible to get rabies from infected saliva contacting the mouth, the apple was exposed to air and sunlight all day, I saw no animal, and there are no documented cases of transmission occurring this way. Rabies doesn't persist in the environment. I called the CDC and the man with whom I spoke agreed that any risk was highly unlikely.
Before I really developed an anxiety disorder a few months ago, I wouldn't have given this situation a second thought. But now my mind latches onto such things.