A question for those of you who know about rabies

[Potoooooooo]

I recently read about a Native American treatment for rabies and I was how effective it would be. It involved wrapping the victim in multiple layers of animal hides , then building fires all around him and placing hot embers on top of the hides. It was claimed that if the body sweated out enough water, the victim would recover. Why I am curious about this is, that I read another report from a doctor who theorized that the old practice of cupping http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupping_therapy might have had a chance of preventing rabies of it was done to the wound soon after the victim was bitten. He theorized that the vacuum that was produced could have sucked the virus out of the bite before it had a chance to spread. Would this work with the Native American cure as well.

 

[Perspicuo]

Suction isn't the only force applied in some forms of cupping, also heat should be considered a factor. Probably not effective anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupping_therapy#Effectiveness

The Native treatment you describe seems to be related to the purposeful use of pyrexia.

 

[Zeluvia]

When I was younger I got really sick and was running a high fever. A friend suggested sweating it out, and I got an electric blanket, turned the waterbed heater on high, and sweated my ass off for about five hours, drinking water constantly and making sure I didn't go over 105. It worked. The fever broke and I was fine. Since then I always have gone with a fever instead of arguing with it. I think it works very well on colds and flu, but not sure how well it would deal with rabies.

 

[bilby]

When I was younger I got really sick and was running a high fever. A friend suggested sweating it out, and I got an electric blanket, turned the waterbed heater on high, and sweated my ass off for about five hours, drinking water constantly and making sure I didn't go over 105. It worked. The fever broke and I was fine. Since then I always have gone with a fever instead of arguing with it. I think it works very well on colds and flu, but not sure how well it would deal with rabies.

"It worked" is not a valid conclusion, given a single data point. This kind of anecdotal 'evidence' is the reason why there is so much bullshit quackery out there masquerading as medicine.

The best you can say from the evidence you have is "It didn't kill me", which is really not sufficient to justify recommending it to others as a possible cure.

 

[steve_bnk]

Remember those people who died a few years back in the cultish sweat lodge ceremony?

The question is if bacteria and virus that infect humans can not tolerate higher temperature as well as human cells. I'd have to look it up.

If you are sick and you bake yourself without fluids I believe you can induced a stroke or damage your kidneys. The blood thickens.

The problem with a one time personal experience is you never know if you would have recovered quickly without the added temperature.

There are folk remedies that actually work.


People used garlic as a poultice for wounds long before modern chemistry. It has anti microbial properties.

 

[Bronzeage]

The purpose of a fever is to make the body inhospitable to infectious agents. It is theoretically possible to fight some infections by keeping body temperatures higher than normal, but high fevers can damage the body, too, so it is a dangerous therapy. It might be better than nothing. If any kind of effective antibiotic or antiviral treatment is available, that is definitely better.

One of the problems of folk remedies is the disease may not be properly diagnosed, so the victim appears cured of something they never had.