Do my kids need a rabies shot?

[springmama]

Somehow a bat got in the house again. A few weeks ago, a friend linked me to a discussion on a message board regarding bat bites and rabies because this has happened before. Apparently you can be bitten without knowing it and a few people have died of rabies after unknowingly being bitten by a bat. Incubation is a few weeks to a year and with as many bats as we had in our house last time, I think it's pretty safe to say our risk of exposure is pretty high, so I'm taking the kids in for rabies shots tomorrow.

 

The problem is this- I called our pediatrician about this when I read the info that my friend sent me. She blew me off and said that if my kids had been bitten, they definitely would have felt it. However on several state's health department web sites (not alabama, but that doesn't matter), I am told otherwise. Everything I read, even on the CDC website, says that if they were in the room with the child, there is a chance they have been bitten.

 

I have no idea what to do. Obviously, getting the shot would be a definite way to prevent rabies...even if they haven't been bitten it could still happen. I wonder if I take them all to the ER, will they blow me off there too? I do not want to be the crazy mother in the ER begging for rabies shots for my kids, just cause I *think* they may have gotten bitten, but I do not want to risk their lives either.

 

Of course I need to consider the risk of the shots. We don't vaccinate because of the risks involved, but there isn't much info on the risk of a rabies shot since most people don't get them anyway.

 

Apparently it's breeding season and if there are bats in the attic still, they are babies who have yet to learn to fly. By law we can't exclude them until the season is over. Nobody will know if we kill a whole family of bats, but I don't want a bunch of dead baby bats in my attic either. I'd prefer to keep them confined to the attic, wait for them to leave on their own and then do a better job of sealing it all up so they can't come back.

[ChristusG]

Tough call. I have heard the same thing about bats....that you could be bitten and not know it. I'd call the ER ahead of time and find out if they have the vaccine available, explain the situation, and be sure that they will definitely give it to your children before you go there. If they wont, I'd call another ER and get another opinion.

[springmama]

Tough call. I have heard the same thing about bats....that you could be bitten and not know it. I'd call the ER ahead of time and find out if they have the vaccine available, explain the situation, and be sure that they will definitely give it to your children before you go there. If they wont, I'd call another ER and get another opinion.

 

They have a standard "We don't give medical advice over the phone" answer when you call with any questions. I don't even know why they bother answering the phone.

[Tap]

Do you have a community health program that offers immunizations, especially a travel clinic? They may be of help to you for advice in this matter.

 

 

Maybe this office can help guide you

Edited July 16, 2010 by Tap, tap, tap

[springmama]

Do you have a community health program that offers immunizations, especially a travel clinic? They may be of help to you for advice in this matter.

 

If we do, I don't know about it or how to access this type of service.

[Tap]

If we do, I don't know about it or how to access this type of service.

 

Here is an email/contact link to the Alabama Community Health Immunization Division. They may be able to direct you to where you can go, or tell you if it is not an option for them.

[Tap]

 

Here is another page from the website that may have some info

[springmama]

Do you have a community health program that offers immunizations, especially a travel clinic? They may be of help to you for advice in this matter.

 

 

Maybe this office can help guide you

 

Thanks so much for this number! I'm waiting for a call back right now.

[ZeldaRules]

Very few people SURVIVE rabies. There have only been 6 cases of a human surviving rabies. Only one has survived it with no vaccine. The rabies shot is a series shot. I think you have to go in every 2 weeks for 6 or 8 weeks to get a shot. Ignore your doctor, do what YOU think is best for your children. No one else is a better advocate for your family than you are. This is a matter of life and death if someone was bit. You have a window to prevent infection. If you miss it, there is nothing they can do, and it is an agonizing death.

 

Find another doctor if she doesn't agree to help you. Take documentation about sleeping and being bit and not knowing it IF you think it will help and she will listen. If you don't think she will listen, go to someone you think will. The ER should be able to help you if she won't. Try urgent care if you can as well.

 

I hope everyone is okay.

[Perry]

Here is what the Advisory Council on Immunization Practices says:

 

Bat Exposures. Other situations that might qualify as exposures include finding a bat in the same room as a person who might be unaware that a bite or direct contact had occurred (e.g., a deeply sleeping person awakens to find a bat in the room or an adult witnesses a bat in the room with a previously unattended child, mentally disabled person, or intoxicated person). These situations should not be considered exposures if rabies is ruled out by diagnostic testing of the bat, or circumstances suggest it is unlikely that an exposure took place. Other household members who did not have direct contact with the bat or were awake and aware when in the same room as the bat should not be considered as having been exposed to rabies. Circumstances that make it less likely that an undetected exposure occurred include the observation of bats roosting or flying in a room open to the outdoors, the observation of bats outdoors or in a setting where bats might normally be present, or situations in which the use of protective covers (e.g., mosquito netting) would reasonably be expected to preclude unnoticed contact.

 

 

Canada has changed it's policy and doesn't recommend routine vaccination when bats are found in the bedroom.

 

 

 

New guidelines suggest little chance of contracting disease when there's no contact

 

TORONTO - Over the last decade or so, thousands of people in North America have had to endure rabies shots after waking up to discover an uninvited roommate -- a bat.

 

But a new Canadian policy aims at taking a more judicious approach to such events, based on an analysis that shows the risk of contracting the fatal disease is vanishingly low when there is no known contact between a bat and a sleeping person.

In a nutshell, as many as 2.7 million people could need to be vaccinated in order to prevent a single person from developing rabies from a so-called bedroom exposure in Canada, a study led by researchers at the Quebec Institute of Public Health shows.

The analysis further reveals it would cost as much as $2 billion for the vaccine, and would require the manpower equivalent of between 293 and 2,500 health-care professionals working full time for a full year to prevent that one case.

It's not sustainable, nor is it good policy, suggests Dr. Gaston De Serres, a medical epidemiologist with the institute and Laval University who is first author of the study.

The analysis is based on a telephone survey in which 36,445 Quebecers were asked about bat exposures. The resulting paper was published last year in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

"When we did calculate what is the frequency of bat rabies due to bedroom exposure we should expect in our province, it was basically one case every 360 years," De Serres says.

With numbers like that, it might seem apparent that it doesn't make sense to vaccinate people who were in a room with a bat just because they weren't awake and therefore can't be absolutely sure they weren't scratched or bitten.

And after studying De Serres' analysis, Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization concluded just that. NACI, as it is called, recently issued a new guideline to cover these "bat in the bedroom" situations.

The old policy said rabies shots should be given whenever a bat was found in the room of a child, someone who is cognitively impaired or a sleeping person, unless the bat was caught and tested negative for rabies. The new one suggests people not try to catch bats, because studies have shown between two and five per cent of bats caught in homes are positive for rabies.

Furthermore, it suggests shots only be ordered if two conditions are met.

There's got to be a direct hit -- the bat touched or landed on the person. And the policy says health-care providers should consider vaccinating then only if it cannot be ruled out that a bite or scratch occurred or that bat saliva might have come in contact with a wound or the person's mucus membranes.

With children, the new policy exercises more caution than it does with adults, says Dr. Joanne Langley, NACI's chair. Children should be vaccinated after any direct contact with a bat.

 

I'd call your local or state health department for guidance.

[DianeW88]

Was the bat actually in contact with your child? Have you examined your child to see if you can find any kind of mark that looks like a bite? Is the bat still in your house and can it be quarantined and tested?

 

In the peds practice I worked in we did do a rabies vax if there was a known exposure to bats (really, that's the only thing we did a rabies vax for). If your child was not in the same room at anytime with the bat, I wouldn't worry about it. There have been recorded incidents of children being bitten in their sleep and then later dying from rabies. Rare, but they've happened.

 

The problem with rabies is the incubation period can extend up to a year after exposure. Most cases show up within three months, but you're not completely out of the woods until the one year mark. It is fatal in almost every case.

 

The vaccinations are given in a series of three or four shots. The first shot is given, then the second one is given a 3 days after that. The third one is usually one week after the second shot and if a fourth dose is needed, they usually do it a week after the third shot. They will also probably give your child a dose of rabies immu-globulin. I've never heard of a serious reaction to a rabies vax. There are the common ones...redness, swelling, and soreness at the vax site and maybe headache or nausea. However, if you have a confirmed exposure to rabies...the shot is absolutely necessary. The alternative is death if the illness is contracted.

 

Oh, and contrary to what most of us were told as kids....it is not given in your stomach. The first shot (the immuno-globulin) is given at the site of the bite and the other shots are given in the deltoid muscle. Kids can also get the shot in their thighs.

 

Hope that helps. If your doctor blew you off and your mommy radar thinks you need the vax....push for it. It's not a big deal and it is 100% effective against contracting the disease.

 

Diane W.

married for 22 years

homeschooling 3 kiddos for 16 years

[springmama]

Was the bat actually in contact with your child? Have you examined your child to see if you can find any kind of mark that looks like a bite? Is the bat still in your house and can it be quarantined and tested?

 

 

 

My concern isn't so much about the bat that was in the house tonight. I'm pretty certain we caught him quickly and put him outside before he had a chance to bite anyone.

 

It's the 25 bats we found in the house six weeks ago. We removed all of them, but they were flying around my daughters room and/or hiding under toys. It was a huge disaster and we had to go through every one of her things to be sure we found all of them. It took about a week before we got them all out and even then she slept in our room.

 

At the time, I didn't realize there was a risk of being bitten without knowing it.

 

Now that I know that, I'm concerned that one of my boys have been bitten. Our boys (ages 2 and 5) sleep in a bedroom that is connected via bathroom to our daughters room, where the bats were originally found.

 

Theoretically, a bat or two could have gone into their room without me knowing it. I didn't realize how small of an opening they could get through, so they continued to sleep in their room throughout our last ordeal. I'm concerned that one of them was exposed 6 weeks ago. By now, the bite marks would have healed.

 

I just don't know what to do. My husband thinks I'm overreacting. Maybe I am. I just don't know.

[Matryoshka]

My concern isn't so much about the bat that was in the house tonight. I'm pretty certain we caught him quickly and put him outside before he had a chance to bite anyone.

 

It's the 25 bats we found in the house six weeks ago. We removed all of them, but they were flying around my daughters room and/or hiding under toys. It was a huge disaster and we had to go through every one of her things to be sure we found all of them. It took about a week before we got them all out and even then she slept in our room.

 

At the time, I didn't realize there was a risk of being bitten without knowing it.

 

Now that I know that, I'm concerned that one of my boys have been bitten. Our boys (ages 2 and 5) sleep in a bedroom that is connected via bathroom to our daughters room, where the bats were originally found.

 

Theoretically, a bat or two could have gone into their room without me knowing it. I didn't realize how small of an opening they could get through, so they continued to sleep in their room throughout our last ordeal. I'm concerned that one of them was exposed 6 weeks ago. By now, the bite marks would have healed.

 

I just don't know what to do. My husband thinks I'm overreacting. Maybe I am. I just don't know.

 

Oh, heck.

 

I wrote out a whole long post a while ago and the computer ate it. After reading that, I'll condense. We've had an ongoing problem in our house with bats getting in. Yes, most bats don't have rabies. But pretty much 100% of fatal rabies cases are from bat bites, because of that problem that you don't always know when you've been bitten - the marks can be too small to be seen (so hunting for them isn't enough).

 

With 25 bats in your kids' room? Oh my. I'd get the shots. Oh, wait, I did get the shots - in fact, my whole family has gotten them. :tongue_smilie: For dh and me, it was after the first time a bat got in and we'd released it before realizing the whole invisible bite possibility. For my kids, it was after a bat got in and the cat ate it (can't test the darn thing if its head is gone...). The shots are in the arm now - doesn't even hurt that much- no more than any other regular vaccine. They'll give you an immunoglobulin shot first (also not the end of the world).

 

25 bats... oh, I'm getting the willies just thinking about it (and I love bats... and I've even gotten resigned to sharing bits of my attic and walls with them... just not in my living area!!) :svengo:

 

Another thing to think about is if this is an ongoing problem... we managed to postpone the kids' shots for years by testing all the ones that flew around while we were sleeping - our animal control officer started to get cranky and asked us to get the shots already so the town could stop paying to test the critters. And it does give me peace of mind knowing they're immune now.

[springmama]

Thank you for all of the helpful information and advice. I'm still trying to figure out what to do.

[Pippen]

Have you called a pest control business to help find the source of the bats so you can get that closed off?

[springmama]

Yes, and man who came told me that we now have squirrels in our attic and they must have driven the bats out because they won't life in the same place at the same time. We thought the bats left on their own and my husband sealed up entry points but I guess he missed some.

 

The quote to seal up the house was outrageous so we figured we'd do it on our own. It shouldn't cost 3000 to have a bat problem taken care of.

[katemary63]

The quote to seal up the house was outrageous so we figured we'd do it on our own. It shouldn't cost 3000 to have a bat problem taken care of.

 

That quote is rediculous! What on earth did they say they were going to do?

 

Anyway, if I found 25 bats in my kid's rooms, I'd get them the shots.

 

My Dad's wife's dog was attacked by a racoon. She saw the animal's fight but the racoon ran off before she got to them. She took her dog in the house and cleaned him up. Thank God she mentioned it to someone who knew that she had been exposed. She had no idea that cleaning a wound would expose her to rabies. She called her Dr. who gave her the shots.

[gingersmom]

I would definitely get my kids a rabies shot.

 

What did you decide to do?

[Remudamom]

Sort of an aside, all four of our guys had to begin the series because of a sick bovine they were treating, and because of the fact they got slobbber on their hands while treating. Steer died, and while the vet was trying to figure out why it died the guys had to get started. It's expensive and initially painful. And hard to get the shots in our area anyhow. Two weeks and lots of tests on the animal's brain and we got negative results, but couldn't wait in case they were positive.

 

From what I understand, vets get the series and then have booster shots.

[springmama]

I am going to go ahead and get them.

 

I should clarify that the 25 bats we found were not all in the same room as my child, since we figured out they were there before my daughter went to bed that night and she slept in our room on the main level of the house. My boys sleep in a room that joins my daughters room.

 

My worry is that they crawled under the door and bit one of the boys or that one or two came into my dds room prior to us finding them, or after we thought they had all moved out.

 

This is where the grey area is. Some say unless we saw the bats in the room with our sleeping child, then they are safe but just because we didn't' see it, doesn't' mean it didn't happen. with that many bats in the next room, I find it hard to believe that some didn't make it into the boys room at some point.

 

both of my sons can sleep through anything- fireworks, diaper changes, clothing changes.

[Remudamom]

Good call.

[FaithManor]

We've had bats in this house before, when we first moved in. They nest in the trees outdoors. If we were vaccinated everytime we came in contact with a bat, we'd be in the ER for weeks on end every summer.

 

The main thing is whether or not bats in your area are carrying the disease. Call your state DNR or state Health Department. They KNOW and track all cases of identified rabies, test questionable animals, etc. They can tell you if you are at risk and they know this far better than your local doctor will ever know. Most doctors are absolutely not up on this at all.

 

In our area, we are encouraged to report all sick or dead bats found. Animal control will pick up the injured or dead bat and send it to Lansing for testing. In our county, not one rabid bat has been found in over five years. However, we are having a terrible time with rabid raccoons and skunks. These animals scare me far more than the bats. Lapeer County Michigan is having such a bad time that livestock species that are normally not vaccinated for rabies are being vaxed. They had to put a horse down this past March who contracted rabies from tangling with a rabid coon in the pasture. The dead coon was found a couple of days after the horse was found to have puncture wounds, but it was too late already for the horse. Six people living on the farm had to take the rabies series plus all of the other horses and the chickens had to be vaxed.

 

Your risk of transmission from a bat is actually quite low. Not that you shouldn't be vaxed, but just that you shouldn't have anxiety about it. With bats, once they contract rabies, they die within hours because of their high metabolic rate and tiny body stature. It is not the same type of virus as say West Nile which a bird can carry for a while before getting sick. Bats die very, very rapidly after contracting the disease. So in most cases, the bat can no longer fly once it contracts the virus. A bat on the ground that appears to be injured or sick is where the risk is! Dh always uses gloves and long sleeves when dealing with a bat and he did find a sick one once. He called the DNR and placed it outside in a box to await its fate. Unfortuntely, the DNR couldn't get there right away and when he checked, the bat was gone. It had been too week to fly so that means another animals came along and ate it (probably a coon) and so we had some cause for concern about the local animals but nothing that could be done about it. If your bat was acting like a normal bat, it was probably healthy. But, probably and a deadly disease, isn't necessarily a comfort so please don't take that as a "don't get vaxed" directive. You need to make that choice for yourself but try not do stress about your choice.

 

Faith

[FaithManor]

Oh, I just realized that you had a large number of bats in the room. That would concern me as well because it represents a colony and wanting to live in a room with humans is a little too bizarre for me. Most bat colonies would not want to be in a regularly used area of a house. That's a little too odd to not get attention.

 

You made a wise call in getting the shots.

 

Faith

[Cindy in FL.]

I definitely agree with getting the shots. The potential consequences are just too high.

 

Cindy

[Perry]

Six people living on the farm had to take the rabies series plus all of the other horses and the chickens had to be vaxed.

 

 

 

Chickens? Birds don't get rabies. Weird.

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

Yes, and man who came told me that we now have squirrels in our attic and they must have driven the bats out because they won't life in the same place at the same time. We thought the bats left on their own and my husband sealed up entry points but I guess he missed some.

 

The quote to seal up the house was outrageous so we figured we'd do it on our own. It shouldn't cost 3000 to have a bat problem taken care of.

 

Maybe if you get 3 to 4 quotes from different pest control guys you might get a much better price.

 

I have found on multiple occasions when getting quotes that I saved myself quite a bit of money:001_smile:

[FaithManor]

Yeah, I know its weird about the chickens. They gave them some sort of shot. But, maybe the coon tested positive for something else as well and the vaxes were for that. The report was unclear other than it said the birds were vaccinated. So, it would be interesting to know if they found something else on the farm besides just rabies because I have never heard of birds getting rabies. Unless, the family couldn't understand that bats are mammals and not birds and were just insistent that they were scared of their chickens. It's unfortunate, but we have people in our area that can not be convinced that bats aren't birds.

 

Faith

[springmama]

Okay please pray. No pediatricians in the area have the shots on hand. The health department doesn't have it either. The closest ER doesnt' have it. I made contact with a Dr. who works for the health department who told me he'd be glad to walk our pediatrician through the ordering process so that they can have it on Monday.

 

Please pray that our doc agrees to do this. Also, please pray that it's not too late. It's been 6 weeks since our first exposure and I'm just now realizing the importance of this shot. If one of my kids gets sick over the weekend I'm going to freak out.

[Remudamom]

We got ours through our local hospital's ER, but we went to church with the guy who runs the pharmacy, and he was instrumental in getting the shots for us quickly.

[Tap]

Okay please pray. No pediatricians in the area have the shots on hand. The health department doesn't have it either. The closest ER doesnt' have it. I made contact with a Dr. who works for the health department who told me he'd be glad to walk our pediatrician through the ordering process so that they can have it on Monday.

 

Please pray that our doc agrees to do this. Also, please pray that it's not too late. It's been 6 weeks since our first exposure and I'm just now realizing the importance of this shot. If one of my kids gets sick over the weekend I'm going to freak out.

 

I am happy that you at least have a game plan now. I will pray for you and your family. :grouphug:

[springmama]

They got their first shots! Thank God! Poor kids legs hurt now but they will be fine.

[Laurie4b]

Somehow a bat got in the house again. A few weeks ago, a friend linked me to a discussion on a message board regarding bat bites and rabies because this has happened before. Apparently you can be bitten without knowing it and a few people have died of rabies after unknowingly being bitten by a bat. Incubation is a few weeks to a year and with as many bats as we had in our house last time, I think it's pretty safe to say our risk of exposure is pretty high, so I'm taking the kids in for rabies shots tomorrow.

 

The problem is this- I called our pediatrician about this when I read the info that my friend sent me. She blew me off and said that if my kids had been bitten, they definitely would have felt it. However on several state's health department web sites (not alabama, but that doesn't matter), I am told otherwise. Everything I read, even on the CDC website, says that if they were in the room with the child, there is a chance they have been bitten.

 

I have no idea what to do. Obviously, getting the shot would be a definite way to prevent rabies...even if they haven't been bitten it could still happen. I wonder if I take them all to the ER, will they blow me off there too? I do not want to be the crazy mother in the ER begging for rabies shots for my kids, just cause I *think* they may have gotten bitten, but I do not want to risk their lives either.

 

Of course I need to consider the risk of the shots. We don't vaccinate because of the risks involved, but there isn't much info on the risk of a rabies shot since most people don't get them anyway.

 

Apparently it's breeding season and if there are bats in the attic still, they are babies who have yet to learn to fly. By law we can't exclude them until the season is over. Nobody will know if we kill a whole family of bats, but I don't want a bunch of dead baby bats in my attic either. I'd prefer to keep them confined to the attic, wait for them to leave on their own and then do a better job of sealing it all up so they can't come back.

 

Your pediatrician does not know what she is talking about. If you google rabies bat cases in the US, you'll find there are ADULTS who had exposure to bats whne they were awake who were not aware of any bite and yet they died of rabies. Scientists aren't sure how rabies is transmitted from bats because of this. In general, the rule is that if there has been a bat exposure (while sleeping for adults or even awake for kids or any close proximity for any age) then they do the shots. The human immunoglobulin shot is painful, but the rabies shots are tiny needles. You just have to get them on a rather frequent schedule for a while.