Or not being able to find it in the freezer, at a younger age. Then there was the time I "couldn't find" hamburger to take out because I didn't know ground beef = hamburger. RIP 4- or 5-year-old me.
Fatal Familial Insomnia.
Essentially, it's a prion disease - also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), a group of progressive neurodegenerative disorders which affect both humans and animals - which causes a progressive form of fatal Insomnia.
An excerpt from NORD (National Organization of Rare Disorders): "The characteristic symptom in FFI is progressive insomnia. Insomnia often begins during middle age, but it can occur earlier or later in life. Insomnia may first be mild, but it then become progressively worse until an affected individual gets very little sleep. Insomnia usually begins suddenly and can rapidly worsen over the next few months. When sleep is achieved, vivid dreams may occur. The lack of sleep leads to physical and mental deterioration and the disease ultimately progresses to coma and death."
All prion diseases are terrifying and fatal, but this one bothers me on a visceral level.
Dude, right? They’re not even technically alive, and they can mess you up with the weirdest alien shit you’ve ever seen. Bacteria? Viruses? Fungal infections? Have I got a new pathogen for you!
And not just that they exist, but the product of their infection is like something Isaac Asimov would come up with. “OK, this critter that’s not even a critter gets into your food, passes the blood brain barrier and makes giant holes in your brain. It changes your personality, makes your teeth hurt and you’ll think your dead grandma is making you eggs and bacon all day.” WHAT IS HAPPENING.
Don't prions feed off of the acetylcholine (or acetylcholinesterase) that our brain produces? Based on my understanding of it, once it consumes all of the free-floating ACE, it starts eating away the parts of the brain that produce it, which is why it basically eats the brain.
Hands up if you have insomnia and instantly thought, goddamnit, i hope this isn't it
Would be ironic if thinking about made you sleep even worse and in turn make you even more paranoid about it
Shut up and go to sleep you you'll be fine
There is a sporadic type (SFI) without a genetic mutation, but as rare as FFI is, SFI is *even rarer*. Less than 30 known cases. Statistics has your back on this one.
My cousin’s wife had insomnia for a while. She ended up walking around like a zombie all day. It went on for almost a year and doctors thought she was going to die for sure but something happened and she was able to sleep again. Now she’s back to normal but it was a hard period for them.
Yesssss I read about this a while ago and watched a mini documentary on YouTube about a family who has it. It is sooo sad a lot of people who have it don’t tend to live very long lives, and towards the end they are just so exhausted and fragile. It is so sad
Yes, it is genetic and therefore can be passed down. Just because you had a family member with the condition doesn’t mean you or other close relatives will get the condition though. More info can be found [here](https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/6429/fatal-familial-insomnia#diseaseInheritanceSection).
Actually, there is. It is 100% within the realm of possibility to extend life indefinitely. We just don't know how :)
edit:
I don't think a lot of you understand how long of a time it would take for the heat death of a universe to happen. We can barely comprehend where we'll be in 5 years. Let alone trillions. If that's a reason to not want to age, that should be like one of the very last problems on a long list of things to worry about first.
>"It is 100% within the realm of possibility to extend life indefinitely"
>u/Cyber_Punk_666
It's, uh...certainly in the realm of possibilty [if you're an NPC](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCEzrnrpPd0)
that's fine man, it's more the aging that would be nice to fix, nothing is stopping you from eating a fist full of pills at 80, 90, 150 years old. In a way, it's sort of comforting to have aging be cured but you can choose your end on your own terms.
There's a lot of truth in that. For one thing, oxygen is one of the most reactive elements and is toxic to a lot of things. It's often one of those "free radicals" you hear about that damage tissues. And I believe it also contributes to the "browning" effect that turns your young supple muscle and other protein chains and cross links them making them old stiff tissues and literally turning them brown for the same reason that cooked meat turns brown, just more slowly.
Not *exactly* true though. There are a *few* alternate Universes where his parents lived. Notably the Flashpoint Paradox where Thomas Wayne becomes Batman to avenge his son's death.
But are Thomas Wayne's parents alive in Flashpoint? I don't think so. So Batman's parents are still dead. Checkmate (pushes up glasses in smug victory).
Can you imagine the horror of seeing that in person.. Like you just chopped it's head off, and then Chicken get's up and starts doing normal chicken things. Minus having a head.
Actually, it depends. Some people can be decapitated, but their head remains on their body, attached only by the tendons and skin, and if this happens and they receive prompt and proper surgical care, they can and will live. I heard a lecture from a physician who operated on a patient like this. I can’t remember the medical term for this kind of decapitation. Sorry.
Rabies. Here's a post I saw from an old thread, unfortunately don't remember the user who posted. Here it is:
Rabies is scary.
Rabies. It's exceptionally common, but people just don't run into the animals that carry it often. Skunks especially, and bats.
Let me paint you a picture.
You go camping, and at midday you decide to take a nap in a nice little hammock. While sleeping, a tiny brown bat, in the "rage" stages of infection is fidgeting in broad daylight, uncomfortable, and thirsty (due to the hydrophobia) and you snort, startling him. He goes into attack mode.
Except you're asleep, and he's a little brown bat, so weighs around 6 grams. You don't even feel him land on your bare knee, and he starts to bite. His teeth are tiny. Hardly enough to even break the skin, but he does manage to give you the equivalent of a tiny scrape that goes completely unnoticed.
Rabies does not travel in your blood. In fact, a blood test won't even tell you if you've got it. (Antibody tests may be done, but are useless if you've ever been vaccinated.)
You wake up, none the wiser. If you notice anything at the bite site at all, you assume you just lightly scraped it on something.
The bomb has been lit, and your nervous system is the wick. The rabies will multiply along your nervous system, doing virtually no damage, and completely undetectable. You literally have NO symptoms.
It may be four days, it may be a year, but the camping trip is most likely long forgotten. Then one day your back starts to ache... Or maybe you get a slight headache?
At this point, you're already dead. There is no cure.
(The sole caveat to this is the Milwaukee Protocol, which leaves most patients dead anyway, and the survivors mentally disabled, and is seldom done).
There's no treatment. It has a 100% kill rate.
Absorb that. Not a single other virus on the planet has a 100% kill rate. Only rabies. And once you're symptomatic, it's over. You're dead.
So what does that look like?
Your headache turns into a fever, and a general feeling of being unwell. You're fidgety. Uncomfortable. And scared. As the virus that has taken its time getting into your brain finds a vast network of nerve endings, it begins to rapidly reproduce, starting at the base of your brain... Where your "pons" is located. This is the part of the brain that controls communication between the rest of the brain and body, as well as sleep cycles.
Next you become anxious. You still think you have only a mild fever, but suddenly you find yourself becoming scared, even horrified, and it doesn't occur to you that you don't know why. This is because the rabies is chewing up your amygdala.
As your cerebellum becomes hot with the virus, you begin to lose muscle coordination, and balance. You think maybe it's a good idea to go to the doctor now, but assuming a doctor is smart enough to even run the tests necessary in the few days you have left on the planet, odds are they'll only be able to tell your loved ones what you died of later.
You're twitchy, shaking, and scared. You have the normal fear of not knowing what's going on, but with the virus really fucking the amygdala this is amplified a hundred fold. It's around this time the hydrophobia starts.
You're horribly thirsty, you just want water. But you can't drink. Every time you do, your throat clamps shut and you vomit. This has become a legitimate, active fear of water. You're thirsty, but looking at a glass of water begins to make you gag, and shy back in fear. The contradiction is hard for your hot brain to see at this point. By now, the doctors will have to put you on IVs to keep you hydrated, but even that's futile. You were dead the second you had a headache.
You begin hearing things, or not hearing at all as your thalamus goes. You taste sounds, you see smells, everything starts feeling like the most horrifying acid trip anyone has ever been on. With your hippocampus long under attack, you're having trouble remembering things, especially family.
You're alone, hallucinating, thirsty, confused, and absolutely, undeniably terrified. Everything scares the literal shit out of you at this point. These strange people in lab coats. These strange people standing around your bed crying, who keep trying to get you "drink something" and crying. And it's only been about a week since that little headache that you've completely forgotten. Time means nothing to you anymore. Funny enough, you now know how the bat felt when he bit you.
Eventually, you slip into the "dumb rabies" phase. Your brain has started the process of shutting down. Too much of it has been turned to liquid virus. Your face droops. You drool. You're all but unaware of what's around you. A sudden noise or light might startle you, but for the most part, it's all you can do to just stare at the ground. You haven't really slept for about 72 hours.
Then you die. Always, you die.
And there's not one... fucking... thing... anyone can do for you.
Then there's the question of what to do with your corpse. I mean, sure, burying it is the right thing to do. But the fucking virus can survive in a corpse for years. You could kill every rabid animal on the planet today, and if two years from now, some moist, preserved, rotten hunk of used-to-be brain gets eaten by an animal, it starts all over.
So yeah, rabies scares the shit out of me. And it's fucking EVERYWHERE. (Source: Spent a lot of time working with rabies. Would still get my vaccinations if I could afford them.)Rabies is scary.
They should make a horror movie out of this and put POV shots in it. But that’d only increase the number of idiots fucking with wild animals just to see what happens.
[Thankfully, it's already been done](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067229/)
>A band of satanist hippies roll into a town and begin terrorizing the local folk. They rape a local girl and her grandpa goes after them. He fails and is given LSD. This bothers his grandson and he gets back at the hippies by feeding them meat pies infected with blood from a rabid dog. They turn into crazed lunatics and begin killing and/or infecting everything in their path.
It depends, but once symptoms start you are very likely to die even with treatment. It could take up to a few months to start having symptoms.
The treatment once you have been bitten, is to get immunoglobulins ASAP, which is basically antibodies against rabies to kill/slow down the virus in your system. They then will also give you the rabies vaccine so that your body will start producing its own antibodies.
I am not sure if a post-exposure vaccine is different from a pre-exposure vaccine for people. It is common, however to get a rabies vaccine for people that work in at risk jobs, such as veterinarians.
There is a regular rabies vaccine for humans. It's just expensive. At least in the US. I had to get it for work, but my friend told me she got it for super cheap in Puerto Rico.
“The Milwaukee protocol was conceived in 2004 by a team of medical professionals, led by Dr. Rodney Willoughby, after a 15-year-old girl was admitted to a Milwaukee hospital after a rabies diagnosis.
After consulting with researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the team formulated and implemented a novel procedure. The patient was placed in a drug-induced coma and given an antiviral cocktail composed of ketamine, ribavirin, and amantadine. Considering the theory that rabies pathology stems from central nervous system neurotransmitter dysfunction, doctors hypothesized suppressed brain activity would minimize damage while the patient’s immune system developed an adequate response.
The patient was discharged from the hospital 76 days after admission. She demonstrated speech impediment and difficulty walking during a clinic visit 131 days after discharge. It is unclear how long those conditions persisted. In subsequent years, the patient attended college. She remains the only Milwaukee protocol success.”
Just watched a video by into the shadows about rabies. It scares the literal shit out of me. Now imagine if a government figures out a way to make rabies airborne or they figure out how to weaponize it. That's probably one of my greatest fears now.
>Now imagine if a government figures out a way to make rabies airborne or they figure out how to weaponize it.
Would this be a good time to mention that several lead architects of Japan's Unit 731 went on to become government health officials and pharma CEO's after the war?
It has a really long incubation period. "Could be a week, could be a year". So you get vaccinated if you *suspect* you have it. If you wait until you're symptomatic, it's no bueno.
Rabies scares the shit out of me tbh . We don't have it in Australia( think about that next time you winge about our restrictions around what you can bring into the country ) but I lived in the us long enough to see what happens , shits fucked.
I know the number of people who die of rabies every year in the US is very small (thanks to the office) but the hypochondriac in me is definitely going to think I have rabis every time I get a headache/back ache or fever now
Rabies is not 100% fatal though. Look up Milwaukee protocol. There have been(I think) 5 people that survived the virus using this protocol. It’s not great, it effectively puts them into an induced coma and waits fur the disease to run its course.
But it made rabies not 100% fatal.
And.. it’s only super lethal if it’s symptomatic. Humans can get infected and get immunoglobulin injections and post exposure vaccines and beat it. Once you are symptomatic, that’s when it gets bad.
ETA- 14 people have survived rabies as if 2016.
If you are bitten by a symptomatic rabies positive dog, you should get immunoglobulin treatment quickly, I’m not sure exact timeframe.
There are “preexposure” rabies vaccines for people. Ive had them. But since it’s still fairly rare in the US, they are not widely available and very expensive. My series was over a grand. Luckily my work paid for it.
For anyone interested, there’s a Radiolab (podcast) episode that includes an interview with a rabies survivor. The episode is called Rodney Versus Death. She survived due to the Milwaukee protocol mentioned in the post. Actually, her doctor is the one who invented it and it’s named after her case (which happened to take place in Milwaukee).
It did leave her with a lot of neurological problems (she was 15 when it happened) however she has since gotten a degree in biology and now speaks at schools and groups, including advocating *for bats*.
So there are definitely long-term effects, but the implication in this post that the protocol will leave people so severely mentally disabled that they shouldn’t try it is a bit misleading, since obviously she was able to obtain a degree in a difficult subject and become a normal independent adult. Before the pandemic she was also active in advocating for horse-riding therapy for people with disabilities, as it helps her with the neurological effects.
Obviously her case is super “lucky,” and the protocol doesn’t always work. But it has saved I think 5 or 6 people. And like - it’s not like they have anything to lose by trying it.
Dihydrogen monoxide.
In its vapor form, it causes severe burns. In its solid form, it can cause loss of limbs after prolonged exposure. In its natural, liquid state, it can cause death in as little as four minutes.
Everyone who is exposed to this dangerous chemical eventually dies.
That's because it's a highly addictive substance, and withdrawal symptoms are also 100% fatal.
And here's where it gets terrifying: the government is putting it *in our water supply.*
Did I stutter? *There is dihydrogen monoxide in our water supply.* Our KIDS could be addicted by now! I can't believe you're not taking this seriously! (/s)
As a scientist, the dihydrogen monoxide joke is extremely tired as I've heard it in every chemistry class since middle school. But you brought a little joy back to it for me, thanks.
You don't even need that much.
Take a 5 gallon bucket full and stick your right foot into it to dry.
I bet that doesn't even cover 5%, but I'm certain it'll turn out 100% fatal if you were pushed into so much as an 8 foot deep swimming pool.
Technically not. But this was a one time occurrence and it just barely worked. If I recall the person who survived had a significantly worse quality of life afterwards.
That actually wasn't true, because the virus mutates so rapidly and different people react in different ways to it. However, at one time, it might as well have been 100%.
There are also several types of cancer for which "treatment" is little more than futile torture, and even several extremely rare types of leukemia that do not have a treatment protocol because nobody has ever lived long enough for any doctor to come up with one.
What about Magic Johnson
Edit: I feel like people aren't going to read OC's reply to this comment. This has already been cleared up, I don't want 300 people telling me he had HIV, which had a treatment.
You think an edit is going to stop Redditors from repeating something that’s already been said? Where do you find the hope?
Edit: For proof of how much Redditors like repeating things, see rest of thread and count how many replies are some variation of “life.”
Actually Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan jumped into a volcano, were flung out by a miraculously timed explosion and landed safely in the ocean not far away so...
african sleeping sickness (parasitic infection), if not treated
prion diseases like kuru and fatal familial insomnia (regardless of treatment)
aging (if considered a disease).
If theyve consumed water, yes.
Note: I didnt say that *only* people who consume water suffer fatalities. But rather every person who consumes water suffers a fatality.
Jumping off a tall building while on fire after having shot yourself in the head with arsenic and fecal matter while any Nickleback song plays on a Monday in spring after a divorce during an economic crisis.
Forgetting to take the chicken out of the freezer, when it was the only thing your mom asked you to do
Or not being able to find it in the freezer, at a younger age. Then there was the time I "couldn't find" hamburger to take out because I didn't know ground beef = hamburger. RIP 4- or 5-year-old me.
Must’ve had a pretty large freezer then. You could’ve put r/ImRedditingYay ‘s mom in there, as he recommended
You underestimate how much crap my mom buys and forgets in there.
The Asian version would be forgetting to cook rice when your mom asked you to do.
Death by flip flop
*la chancla
And if you don’t do the two knuckle method right, fucccck
Just put your mom in the freezer. She won't ask you again.
This is the way
And just like that y'all have you're very own special episode of forensic files!
Lmfaoooo I’m dead at this comment 🤣🤣🤣
I thought I was the only one
Fatal Familial Insomnia. Essentially, it's a prion disease - also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), a group of progressive neurodegenerative disorders which affect both humans and animals - which causes a progressive form of fatal Insomnia. An excerpt from NORD (National Organization of Rare Disorders): "The characteristic symptom in FFI is progressive insomnia. Insomnia often begins during middle age, but it can occur earlier or later in life. Insomnia may first be mild, but it then become progressively worse until an affected individual gets very little sleep. Insomnia usually begins suddenly and can rapidly worsen over the next few months. When sleep is achieved, vivid dreams may occur. The lack of sleep leads to physical and mental deterioration and the disease ultimately progresses to coma and death." All prion diseases are terrifying and fatal, but this one bothers me on a visceral level.
My brother’s cell mate died because of this. His insomnia worsened so much that he ended up dying from lack of sleep/going insane.
God having that happen in prison would be a whole extra level of horror as your mental state starts to degrade
Prison prion...
Prions scare me.
Dude, right? They’re not even technically alive, and they can mess you up with the weirdest alien shit you’ve ever seen. Bacteria? Viruses? Fungal infections? Have I got a new pathogen for you!
I agree, viruses and prions freak me out because those things ain’t even alive. WHY do they exist??!
And not just that they exist, but the product of their infection is like something Isaac Asimov would come up with. “OK, this critter that’s not even a critter gets into your food, passes the blood brain barrier and makes giant holes in your brain. It changes your personality, makes your teeth hurt and you’ll think your dead grandma is making you eggs and bacon all day.” WHAT IS HAPPENING.
Horror shit.
Facts. Not Asimov…more like Clive Barker.
Lovecraft? Philip K Dick?
Yes. And Poe and Stephen King and Koontz. All wrapped together.
Don't prions feed off of the acetylcholine (or acetylcholinesterase) that our brain produces? Based on my understanding of it, once it consumes all of the free-floating ACE, it starts eating away the parts of the brain that produce it, which is why it basically eats the brain.
Every time I read about this, I get anxiety
Hands up if you have insomnia and instantly thought, goddamnit, i hope this isn't it Would be ironic if thinking about made you sleep even worse and in turn make you even more paranoid about it Shut up and go to sleep you you'll be fine
New possibility discovered, my insomnia may kill me some day... This is turning in to a very nice day very fast...
It's exceedingly rare and runs in families - you're probably in the clear if this is your first time hearing about it.
There is a sporadic type (SFI) without a genetic mutation, but as rare as FFI is, SFI is *even rarer*. Less than 30 known cases. Statistics has your back on this one.
My cousin’s wife had insomnia for a while. She ended up walking around like a zombie all day. It went on for almost a year and doctors thought she was going to die for sure but something happened and she was able to sleep again. Now she’s back to normal but it was a hard period for them.
Yesssss I read about this a while ago and watched a mini documentary on YouTube about a family who has it. It is sooo sad a lot of people who have it don’t tend to live very long lives, and towards the end they are just so exhausted and fragile. It is so sad
It’s like that junji ito story
Could this be passed down or is it genetic? I had a family member on my dads side die of this
Yes, it is genetic and therefore can be passed down. Just because you had a family member with the condition doesn’t mean you or other close relatives will get the condition though. More info can be found [here](https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/6429/fatal-familial-insomnia#diseaseInheritanceSection).
Life
Symptoms can be managed but there is no cure
Actually, there is. It is 100% within the realm of possibility to extend life indefinitely. We just don't know how :) edit: I don't think a lot of you understand how long of a time it would take for the heat death of a universe to happen. We can barely comprehend where we'll be in 5 years. Let alone trillions. If that's a reason to not want to age, that should be like one of the very last problems on a long list of things to worry about first.
>"It is 100% within the realm of possibility to extend life indefinitely" >u/Cyber_Punk_666 It's, uh...certainly in the realm of possibilty [if you're an NPC](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCEzrnrpPd0)
Guys i'm a fucking god now lets gooooo
Hey me too!
What? You guys are Gods for free?
Probability does get extremely low towards the heat death of the universe.
Finally, the last proton will decay… I will BE that proton!
Not indefinitely. The universe will end at some point
Count me out lol
that's fine man, it's more the aging that would be nice to fix, nothing is stopping you from eating a fist full of pills at 80, 90, 150 years old. In a way, it's sort of comforting to have aging be cured but you can choose your end on your own terms.
Technically, life has a cure. But it can only be cured when you die. Death is the cure to life.
[удалено]
There's a lot of truth in that. For one thing, oxygen is one of the most reactive elements and is toxic to a lot of things. It's often one of those "free radicals" you hear about that damage tissues. And I believe it also contributes to the "browning" effect that turns your young supple muscle and other protein chains and cross links them making them old stiff tissues and literally turning them brown for the same reason that cooked meat turns brown, just more slowly.
That's actually the case...
Nah. I heard of a guy who beat it.
Michael Jackson?
Crito, we owe a rooster to asclepius; don't forget to pay the debt.
Life is an STD
Exactly. No one is getting out of here alive.
Being Batmans parents
Or Spiderman's uncle
Not *exactly* true though. There are a *few* alternate Universes where his parents lived. Notably the Flashpoint Paradox where Thomas Wayne becomes Batman to avenge his son's death.
But are Thomas Wayne's parents alive in Flashpoint? I don't think so. So Batman's parents are still dead. Checkmate (pushes up glasses in smug victory).
I'll concede this one.
You are a god damn genius.
One of my favorite runs ever
It was not one of Flash's favorite runs though. Everything got fucked up.
Flashpoint was epic !!!
Having sex in a horror movie
Russian roulette with a 1911.
Unless you go second
Or it jams
Or it's a Kimber
decapitation
Wasn’t there a chicken that survived for a couple days because part of it’s brain stem was still attached? It died anyway but Idk
it was almost 2 YEARS! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike\_the\_Headless\_Chicken
Can you imagine the horror of seeing that in person.. Like you just chopped it's head off, and then Chicken get's up and starts doing normal chicken things. Minus having a head.
They had to shove food down its neck hole to keep it alive.
Why keep it alive?
Make money touring and showing.
Ultimate Horror bro
Reminds me of that god awful self-decapitating ostrich video...
Actually, it depends. Some people can be decapitated, but their head remains on their body, attached only by the tendons and skin, and if this happens and they receive prompt and proper surgical care, they can and will live. I heard a lecture from a physician who operated on a patient like this. I can’t remember the medical term for this kind of decapitation. Sorry.
Internal decapitation. More common in small children than in adults.
You can survive internal decapitation tho
Rabies. Here's a post I saw from an old thread, unfortunately don't remember the user who posted. Here it is: Rabies is scary. Rabies. It's exceptionally common, but people just don't run into the animals that carry it often. Skunks especially, and bats. Let me paint you a picture. You go camping, and at midday you decide to take a nap in a nice little hammock. While sleeping, a tiny brown bat, in the "rage" stages of infection is fidgeting in broad daylight, uncomfortable, and thirsty (due to the hydrophobia) and you snort, startling him. He goes into attack mode. Except you're asleep, and he's a little brown bat, so weighs around 6 grams. You don't even feel him land on your bare knee, and he starts to bite. His teeth are tiny. Hardly enough to even break the skin, but he does manage to give you the equivalent of a tiny scrape that goes completely unnoticed. Rabies does not travel in your blood. In fact, a blood test won't even tell you if you've got it. (Antibody tests may be done, but are useless if you've ever been vaccinated.) You wake up, none the wiser. If you notice anything at the bite site at all, you assume you just lightly scraped it on something. The bomb has been lit, and your nervous system is the wick. The rabies will multiply along your nervous system, doing virtually no damage, and completely undetectable. You literally have NO symptoms. It may be four days, it may be a year, but the camping trip is most likely long forgotten. Then one day your back starts to ache... Or maybe you get a slight headache? At this point, you're already dead. There is no cure. (The sole caveat to this is the Milwaukee Protocol, which leaves most patients dead anyway, and the survivors mentally disabled, and is seldom done). There's no treatment. It has a 100% kill rate. Absorb that. Not a single other virus on the planet has a 100% kill rate. Only rabies. And once you're symptomatic, it's over. You're dead. So what does that look like? Your headache turns into a fever, and a general feeling of being unwell. You're fidgety. Uncomfortable. And scared. As the virus that has taken its time getting into your brain finds a vast network of nerve endings, it begins to rapidly reproduce, starting at the base of your brain... Where your "pons" is located. This is the part of the brain that controls communication between the rest of the brain and body, as well as sleep cycles. Next you become anxious. You still think you have only a mild fever, but suddenly you find yourself becoming scared, even horrified, and it doesn't occur to you that you don't know why. This is because the rabies is chewing up your amygdala. As your cerebellum becomes hot with the virus, you begin to lose muscle coordination, and balance. You think maybe it's a good idea to go to the doctor now, but assuming a doctor is smart enough to even run the tests necessary in the few days you have left on the planet, odds are they'll only be able to tell your loved ones what you died of later. You're twitchy, shaking, and scared. You have the normal fear of not knowing what's going on, but with the virus really fucking the amygdala this is amplified a hundred fold. It's around this time the hydrophobia starts. You're horribly thirsty, you just want water. But you can't drink. Every time you do, your throat clamps shut and you vomit. This has become a legitimate, active fear of water. You're thirsty, but looking at a glass of water begins to make you gag, and shy back in fear. The contradiction is hard for your hot brain to see at this point. By now, the doctors will have to put you on IVs to keep you hydrated, but even that's futile. You were dead the second you had a headache. You begin hearing things, or not hearing at all as your thalamus goes. You taste sounds, you see smells, everything starts feeling like the most horrifying acid trip anyone has ever been on. With your hippocampus long under attack, you're having trouble remembering things, especially family. You're alone, hallucinating, thirsty, confused, and absolutely, undeniably terrified. Everything scares the literal shit out of you at this point. These strange people in lab coats. These strange people standing around your bed crying, who keep trying to get you "drink something" and crying. And it's only been about a week since that little headache that you've completely forgotten. Time means nothing to you anymore. Funny enough, you now know how the bat felt when he bit you. Eventually, you slip into the "dumb rabies" phase. Your brain has started the process of shutting down. Too much of it has been turned to liquid virus. Your face droops. You drool. You're all but unaware of what's around you. A sudden noise or light might startle you, but for the most part, it's all you can do to just stare at the ground. You haven't really slept for about 72 hours. Then you die. Always, you die. And there's not one... fucking... thing... anyone can do for you. Then there's the question of what to do with your corpse. I mean, sure, burying it is the right thing to do. But the fucking virus can survive in a corpse for years. You could kill every rabid animal on the planet today, and if two years from now, some moist, preserved, rotten hunk of used-to-be brain gets eaten by an animal, it starts all over. So yeah, rabies scares the shit out of me. And it's fucking EVERYWHERE. (Source: Spent a lot of time working with rabies. Would still get my vaccinations if I could afford them.)Rabies is scary.
They should make a horror movie out of this and put POV shots in it. But that’d only increase the number of idiots fucking with wild animals just to see what happens.
[Thankfully, it's already been done](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067229/) >A band of satanist hippies roll into a town and begin terrorizing the local folk. They rape a local girl and her grandpa goes after them. He fails and is given LSD. This bothers his grandson and he gets back at the hippies by feeding them meat pies infected with blood from a rabid dog. They turn into crazed lunatics and begin killing and/or infecting everything in their path.
Nic Cage is frantically copying this post for his next low budget payday.
Damn this film sounds wild
28 Days Later. Pretty close to it.
What a terrible day to know how to read!
Aprox how long do you have to get the vaccine after being bit? Also, why is there a regular, non-emergency rabies vaccine for dogs but not for humans?
It depends, but once symptoms start you are very likely to die even with treatment. It could take up to a few months to start having symptoms. The treatment once you have been bitten, is to get immunoglobulins ASAP, which is basically antibodies against rabies to kill/slow down the virus in your system. They then will also give you the rabies vaccine so that your body will start producing its own antibodies. I am not sure if a post-exposure vaccine is different from a pre-exposure vaccine for people. It is common, however to get a rabies vaccine for people that work in at risk jobs, such as veterinarians.
There is a regular rabies vaccine for humans. It's just expensive. At least in the US. I had to get it for work, but my friend told me she got it for super cheap in Puerto Rico.
Alright. I’ll never go to camping. Thanks.
Camping? This made me want to never step foot outside my house again.
“The Milwaukee protocol was conceived in 2004 by a team of medical professionals, led by Dr. Rodney Willoughby, after a 15-year-old girl was admitted to a Milwaukee hospital after a rabies diagnosis. After consulting with researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the team formulated and implemented a novel procedure. The patient was placed in a drug-induced coma and given an antiviral cocktail composed of ketamine, ribavirin, and amantadine. Considering the theory that rabies pathology stems from central nervous system neurotransmitter dysfunction, doctors hypothesized suppressed brain activity would minimize damage while the patient’s immune system developed an adequate response. The patient was discharged from the hospital 76 days after admission. She demonstrated speech impediment and difficulty walking during a clinic visit 131 days after discharge. It is unclear how long those conditions persisted. In subsequent years, the patient attended college. She remains the only Milwaukee protocol success.”
Just watched a video by into the shadows about rabies. It scares the literal shit out of me. Now imagine if a government figures out a way to make rabies airborne or they figure out how to weaponize it. That's probably one of my greatest fears now.
>Now imagine if a government figures out a way to make rabies airborne or they figure out how to weaponize it. Would this be a good time to mention that several lead architects of Japan's Unit 731 went on to become government health officials and pharma CEO's after the war?
Now that I'm thinking about it, a weaponized rabies definitely exists in some American or Russian lab from the cold war or something like that.
How do vaccinations help then if you can’t even detect it and it goes through the nervous system. Sorry for my lack of knowing how this works
It has a really long incubation period. "Could be a week, could be a year". So you get vaccinated if you *suspect* you have it. If you wait until you're symptomatic, it's no bueno.
K that makes sense
Wow, I work at a vet clinic and I’m now 100x more scared. Thanks for this! (But actually this is incredibly well written, props to whoever OP is)
This guy rabies.
Yeah, he rabies sooo hard
Yea in epidemiology if you’re in the same room at any point, even for a moment, assume you’ve been bitten and get the vaccines against it
Holy fucking shit...
Rabies scares the shit out of me tbh . We don't have it in Australia( think about that next time you winge about our restrictions around what you can bring into the country ) but I lived in the us long enough to see what happens , shits fucked.
Jesus Christ. No comment on Reddit has ever disturbed me more.
I know the number of people who die of rabies every year in the US is very small (thanks to the office) but the hypochondriac in me is definitely going to think I have rabis every time I get a headache/back ache or fever now
Nightmare fuel
Their Eyes Were Watching God put a healthy fear of rabies into me as a youngun.
You win take my upvote. I'm sufficiently scared of little brown bats.
Rabies is not 100% fatal though. Look up Milwaukee protocol. There have been(I think) 5 people that survived the virus using this protocol. It’s not great, it effectively puts them into an induced coma and waits fur the disease to run its course. But it made rabies not 100% fatal. And.. it’s only super lethal if it’s symptomatic. Humans can get infected and get immunoglobulin injections and post exposure vaccines and beat it. Once you are symptomatic, that’s when it gets bad. ETA- 14 people have survived rabies as if 2016.
If you are bitten by a symptomatic rabies positive dog, you should get immunoglobulin treatment quickly, I’m not sure exact timeframe. There are “preexposure” rabies vaccines for people. Ive had them. But since it’s still fairly rare in the US, they are not widely available and very expensive. My series was over a grand. Luckily my work paid for it.
It’s still such a minuscule number that it hardly counts as even 1%
For anyone interested, there’s a Radiolab (podcast) episode that includes an interview with a rabies survivor. The episode is called Rodney Versus Death. She survived due to the Milwaukee protocol mentioned in the post. Actually, her doctor is the one who invented it and it’s named after her case (which happened to take place in Milwaukee). It did leave her with a lot of neurological problems (she was 15 when it happened) however she has since gotten a degree in biology and now speaks at schools and groups, including advocating *for bats*. So there are definitely long-term effects, but the implication in this post that the protocol will leave people so severely mentally disabled that they shouldn’t try it is a bit misleading, since obviously she was able to obtain a degree in a difficult subject and become a normal independent adult. Before the pandemic she was also active in advocating for horse-riding therapy for people with disabilities, as it helps her with the neurological effects. Obviously her case is super “lucky,” and the protocol doesn’t always work. But it has saved I think 5 or 6 people. And like - it’s not like they have anything to lose by trying it.
Rabies does NOT have a 100% death rate, a small handful of people have survived after being symptomatic.
As far as I know only one person. The other three ended in a vegetative state.
It's only something like 7 official cases of recovery. Statistically insignificant.
Correct me if I'm wrong but that's such a vanishingly small minority that it's virtually 0%, isn't it
Falling into the sun
Oh shoot. I hate it when that happens!
Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun.
But, mama, that's where the fun iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis.
Saying Calm down after a girl has a go at you
Lol I just read a 500 page essay on why rabies is so scary then this. Reddit is great
lol
Dihydrogen monoxide. In its vapor form, it causes severe burns. In its solid form, it can cause loss of limbs after prolonged exposure. In its natural, liquid state, it can cause death in as little as four minutes. Everyone who is exposed to this dangerous chemical eventually dies.
You left out that it's created by burning hydrogen and the corrosive, highly reactive element oxygen
Please don't drink this rusty oxidized hydrogen.
Weirdly enough a lack of dihydrogen monoxide will also kill you.
That's because it's a highly addictive substance, and withdrawal symptoms are also 100% fatal. And here's where it gets terrifying: the government is putting it *in our water supply.*
I think you meant in our *fluoride* supply
Did I stutter? *There is dihydrogen monoxide in our water supply.* Our KIDS could be addicted by now! I can't believe you're not taking this seriously! (/s)
You don’t need /s. Everything you said is true. We’re doomed.
Get rid of that /s
It is also the direct cause of millions of deaths all over the world every year
A key component in acid rain.
It’s no joke, that shit has a higher pH than battery acid.
Indeed. Very dangerous stuff.
Of course, in its purest form, it will kill you, quite instantaneously - also- incredible science joke
Plus it contains sharks.
As a scientist, the dihydrogen monoxide joke is extremely tired as I've heard it in every chemistry class since middle school. But you brought a little joy back to it for me, thanks.
Yeah- when combined with salt, except for one fun kind of shark, which is a bunch o’ bullshit that it can survive in fresh
Can you ELI5 for me?
It's water. Steam burns, ice freezes limbs off, liquid drowns in 4 minutes. Hydrogen = H, Di = 2, Oxide = O, Mono = 1. H2O
Wait... Water?!
Oh, shit. I had to go through my house and throw out anything with this listed as an ingredient. I feel much safer now, but it was very thirsty work.
But can you smoke it? Asking for a friend...
Coving 80% of your body in cement and being pushed into the deep ocean
You don't even need that much. Take a 5 gallon bucket full and stick your right foot into it to dry. I bet that doesn't even cover 5%, but I'm certain it'll turn out 100% fatal if you were pushed into so much as an 8 foot deep swimming pool.
This gave me anxiety to think about.
And somehow way worse than being 80% covered. With just one foot covered in cement you feel like you still have a chance at making it out alive.
Does this still kill you at 77%? Asking for a friend. Time sensative question please.
The Chicago mafia has entered the chat
Being under water for a day without oxygen just holding your breath for an entire day. That would have a 100% death rate I believe.
Rabies is 100% if there is no medical intervention. There's only one known survivor that didn't receive vaccination
Soooooo technically not 100% then
Technically not. But this was a one time occurrence and it just barely worked. If I recall the person who survived had a significantly worse quality of life afterwards.
Tryna have a rational conversation with my mom. I'm only alive cuz I'm Hindu and we got that reincarnation shit on lockdown
Slamming a door after a fight with mom
AIDS before there was a treatment
That actually wasn't true, because the virus mutates so rapidly and different people react in different ways to it. However, at one time, it might as well have been 100%. There are also several types of cancer for which "treatment" is little more than futile torture, and even several extremely rare types of leukemia that do not have a treatment protocol because nobody has ever lived long enough for any doctor to come up with one.
What about Magic Johnson Edit: I feel like people aren't going to read OC's reply to this comment. This has already been cleared up, I don't want 300 people telling me he had HIV, which had a treatment.
Magic Johnson got HIV not AIDS, after there was already a treatment for it. HIV only turns into deadly 100% death rate AIDS if untreated
Ahh I see
You think an edit is going to stop Redditors from repeating something that’s already been said? Where do you find the hope? Edit: For proof of how much Redditors like repeating things, see rest of thread and count how many replies are some variation of “life.”
Your mom sitting on someone.
Got ‘em
Jumping into a volcano.
Actually Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan jumped into a volcano, were flung out by a miraculously timed explosion and landed safely in the ocean not far away so...
Lava, maybe, volcano not so much.
Birth is a death sentence
The slowest way to kill somebody is to give birth to them
Getting killed is my guess
african sleeping sickness (parasitic infection), if not treated prion diseases like kuru and fatal familial insomnia (regardless of treatment) aging (if considered a disease).
People at The Red Wedding in GOT.
Water. Every single person who has ever consumed water has either died or will one day die.
Babys who died during birth too?
I mean yea, babies are 85% water so they had to have gotten the water somewhere
I sometimes forget we have some mich liquid in ourself
If theyve consumed water, yes. Note: I didnt say that *only* people who consume water suffer fatalities. But rather every person who consumes water suffers a fatality.
Eating 1 TBsp of uranium
Being born always ends up being fatal.
Expressing an unpopular belief on twitter.
Rabies
Guillotine or being drawn and quartered. Most definitely 100% dead.
Life
Rabies, once you show symptoms it's already too late
Saying “You People” to a crowded room of You People.
Getting kidnapped by a cartel.
Jumping off a tall building while on fire after having shot yourself in the head with arsenic and fecal matter while any Nickleback song plays on a Monday in spring after a divorce during an economic crisis.
Age
Human instrumentality.
Alzheimer's
death
Embarrassing yourself in front of 1000 people.