All right, all right, all right

[pegkerr]

I'm gonna get the shots.

Shit.

Edited to add: Three and a half hours in the ER, since my clinic didn't stock the vaccine. And I have to go back four more times. Argh.

Comments

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

There's at least one case of a (IIRC) 40- or 50-something in Germany last year who received a liver transplant from someone with rabies not developing rabies (when all the other recipients of internal organs died within days) due to, doctors think, this individual receiving rabies prophylaxis as a child.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, do you know why the shots used to be given into the stomach (or the abdominal area?) and were excruciatingly painful, and now they're not?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no idea.

Was not v. impressed by the hospital, btw. The nurse thought the shot was still supposed to be in the abdomen, until I told her I was pretty sure that was wrong. She went away and apparently looked it up, and said, yep, you're right--in the arm.

And the doctor seemed flummoxed when I said I thought I was supposed to get the immune globulin shot as well as the vaccine. After all that was the entire reason I was coming to the ER rather than the clinic--my clinic had the vaccine, but not the immune globulin. I got the distinct impression he had to go look up the procedure.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

I'm glad they were willing to go look it up.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Doesn't bother me the nurse definitely and the doctor apparently needed to go look up the procedure. Bothers me a lot that you had to point this out to them, though!

On the stomach to arm change -- a while ago somebody came up with a much better version of the stuff, so the procedure changed. It's fewer injections now, as well as much less painful. Yay progress!

I'd have thought your situation would be the simplest case for rabies vaccine -- early enough to not worry much, no clear indication of rabies in the animal that bit you (or clear evidence it even did). So why does your clinic have the rabies vaccine, indicating they're prepared to handle some case, but not the other stuff you needed for what I would have thought was the common simple case? That's bizarre! What is just the vaccine good for? Sorry, I know it's not your field and you don't know this answer, I'm just ranting.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Basically, they developed a better shot. I'm sure it was a major effort to a) make people more willing to get the prophylaxis and b) make the prophylaxis more easily available in third-world countries. The original was, I believe, intraperitoneal (into the abdominal cavity). Unfortunately, the intraperitoneal series is still the standard of treatment in some areas of some countries (because that's what they have on hand, or that's what they can afford), and it doesn't work as well.

Now the response is a double-whammy of the vaccine and immunoglobulin (and, I note, when the post-exposure prophylaxis is being administered, the thing fails if both the vaccine and immunoglobulin are not administered). Some authorities are concerned because the post-exposure prophylaxis in this form is only being manufactured by a single company in the US.

[em-h.livejournal.com]

It was my understanding that the immunoglobulin is not generally given to someone who is more than a certain period of time post-exposure, but you may well know more about this than I do. I had both, but I was treated very shortly after exposure. (Not at home so can't look up the research material I was reading at the time myself).

Peg, I'm really very sorry about the ER wait; it sucks that the health department can't send the vaccine to your doctor, which is what they did in my case. But I still think it's the right decision, no matter how much of a drag it is.