| Alex314 |
09-11-2015 02:14 PM |
What I am going to describe is very different than what everybody else on this thread has experienced. But I am including it here just in case someone going over this thread has had similar experience.
I am a 58yr old male. In March of 2013 I was bitten by a dog. There was a small delay in starting the vaccination for rabies but I finally got it. It was probably between 10 and 14 shots (I don't remember exactly). I didn't experience any reaction as most people on this thread have. But about the same time (I don't know for sure if it was before or after the dog bite and vaccinations, I started having a slight difficulty pronouncing some consonants. At first I didn't pay much attention to this and that's why I don't know exactly when it started. But it was for sure in the first semester of 2013. My symptoms continued to get worse and while at first my doctors said it was just stress, about one year later I got a diagnosis of bulbar-onset ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). If you haven't hear about it, that's a motor neuron disease also known in the US as Lou Gehrig's disease and some people know about it due to the ice bucket challenge which is done to collect funds to look for a cure.
Looking on the web I have not found any connection between rabies vaccination and ALS. It is possible that it was just a coincidence, and given the fact that the mechanism by which ALS is triggered is still unknown, I don't want to discard the possibility that that was the trigger, perhaps in conjunction with other factors. There are other events in my life that may have been the cause or contributed. For example I had a head concussion in my twenties and I have been occasionally exposed to some chemicals like herbicides and pesticides. Also there is the possibility that the dog bite was what triggered it and not the vaccine. But the fact that my ALS symptoms started not far from the time I got the dog bite and vaccinations makes me still suspect about it. Something interesting is that apparently due to the fact that there are some people that are fanatically against vaccination in general, the medical community often does not what to consider the possibility of any vaccine having any negative effect. I registered and filled all the questionnaires in the National ALS Registry (USA), and while they did ask about exposure to chemicals, head trauma, etc. there were no questions about vaccination, medication or use of recreational (mostly illegal) drugs. As those are things that enter the body, they could all be a trigger for ALS. On a final note, as you can see if you read this whole thread, most of the time when a rabies vaccine causes neurological symptoms, it is not ALS. I am saying this to avoid causing unneeded anxiety if you have been vaccinated for rabies and later develop some neurological symptoms. If on the other hand you don't develop sensory symptoms but experience weakness in your limbs or slurred speech, difficulty swallowing and muscle twitches, you should consult with a good neurologist and get an EMG done.
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