The comments below reflect the personal experiences and opinions of readers and do not represent medical advice or the views of this website. The information shared has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or health condition. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical concerns.
Posted by Mom2twinz2 (Hot Springs, Ar) on 01/04/2017
Rabies Vaccine killed my cat
Went in for unusual bleeding/bruising in belly dec 5. Blood count ok. Told to come back dec 10 for re-check and to update rabies. Day after Christmas, dec 26, she's falling over, peeing in the floor, can't focus. Took her to vet. They did blood count, her hematocrit had dropped from normal 40's to 12.9!!! WTF! A week in ICU, a blood transfusion, up to 19 hct then back to 11.1 hct. Time to bring my baby home. She died in my arms tonight after fighting for her life for two nights at home. And she struggled for a couple of hours, fighting deaths door. She was my daughter's baby for 11 years, and my best friend and constant companion for the last 2 plus years.
I am so sorry to hear this too. It is sad and tugs at my heart. Maybe the dose was wrong for the age and weight?
Another thing that is possible...they may have eaten something that turned toxic because of the vaccines.
In the 70's I had two cats that I had dipped for fleas. They both became toxic because they had eaten some of a fern I had in my apartment prior to being dipped. I was fortunate that I was able to get them back to the vet for treatment and then had to hand-feed them back to health.
Today with changing ingredients in our pet food supply, binders & fillers in medicine/vaccines, any combination could be harmful and I feel should be questioned.
My longhaired black cat experienced paralysis days after receiving a rabies vaccine. First the one back leg then both - then the front paws which became stiff and it progressed to his ability to swallow within days. I lost him on December 30 last year. He was such a beautiful boy - I will never allow a vet to vaccinate my animals again!
Posted by Brian Wagner (Southington, Ct) on 05/24/2017
My 8 year old domestic short hair had a similar problem. Three days after the vaccine he lost the use of his back legs, had trouble breathing, vomited and tried to hide himself to die. This new vaccine killed him.
Both of my cats received their 2nd annual rabies vaccine. The younger cat, a 16-month old Maine Coon kitten is doing just fine. However, the 14-year-old tabby is not. He already has health issues, such as arthritis, asthma, and an enlarged heart and takes a corticosteroid and benazepril for 2 of those issues. He is now laying on my bed and is very lethargic. He is not normally very active because of his age, the meds he takes, his health issues and the fact that the prednisolone has rendered him very over-weight, but I can tell he is definitely not himself. Usually, when he is laying down and I touch him, he purrs loudly immediately. He is not purring, his eyes look distant and he is a bit warm to the touch. He is very lethargic. It has been about 12 hours after the shot. I live in a state that requires a rabies vaccine in order to license my pet. I think I will have to get some kind of document stating that my cat is reactive and should be exempt. I am not going to put him through this again. Last year, he was fine after his shot. Apparently, there is no way to tell how your cat will react from year to year. When I rescued him from the Humane Society, it was before the economic downturn and I was in a much better financial position. I do not have the funds to take him to the vet if his health deteriorates from the effects of the shot. I'm very, very upset. I feel like I paid money to have him poisoned.
Our cat had his one year rabies shot this afternoon.. tonight about 6 hours later..he won't use the litter box, blows out his nose at it. We tried to put him in it and he acted like it was water. Then he pooped and went pee on the bath mat.
Posted by Lori Johnson (Olympia Washington) on 07/11/2016
I too was forced to give my cat the rabies vaccine. Our state requires it. He is a white cat, which white cats are more sensitive to things than non-white cats. Both him and his white sister had reactions to kittens shots so I was reluctant to allow them to give him a rabies shot. 2 weeks after the shot he was lethargic and two days after that he stopped eating. Took him to the vet and all his blood work was way off. He went unconscious and was twitching. It was the most horrible thing to witness. He had to be put to sleep. I will never allow his sister to ever get a rabies shot. They can lock me up and fine me, it won't happen. Yes I know it's a rare occurrence but that doesn't matter one bit when you lose your baby.
Posted by Suseeq (Sydney, Australia) on 07/12/2016
Lori, I am sorry for your loss. I only give my pets vaccines in the first 2 years of their life then no more. I don't believe in putting chemicals in their body I know you have rabies there in the US so it's probably unavoidable, but your loss is sad.
I took my healthy 12 year-old cat in to get the rabies vaccine December 2015 so that I could travel with her to Hawaii. Less than a week later, she was indicating pain in the right hip area where the vet had administered the shot. It was hard for her to get up and move around without being in pain. Steroids helped the pain a lot. X-rays showed nothing wrong. In the next few weeks and soon months, she lost use of her tail, and was no longer able to use her back right leg. She would often pee on herself while going to the bathroom and not be able to clean herself properly so we gave her lots of baths. By 3 months she was extremely lethargic and had to be carried around everywhere. After her worst day, Makita passed away peaceful in her sleep (March 2016). I regret getting her the shot to be with me in Hawaii. She had many more lives to live. The vet never revealed potential side effects. I am devastated.
I took my 8 year old cat in for her rabies and distemper shot. A week later, she is moving very slowly. Seems to want to sleep a lot, is hiding from me. I'm worried. I found this site, thought I would add my story.
I am so sorry for the death of your pets. Has something changed with the rabies distemper shots? 3 years ago she had no problem that I can remember.
Posted by Rockrose (Rockland, Maine) on 08/20/2015
My 19 year old Maine Coon cat recently received his annual combo vaccination (distemper and rabies). Over a period of days he gradually became weak, could barely stand up and lost interest in food. He vomited several times which wasn't that alarming because he was always prone to barfing. The weakness and anorexia were very unusual for him. I gave him fluids a little at a time with an eyedropper, an appetite stimulant and a tiny amount of antacid every day. He didn't eat much but would take tiny amounts of food from my hand. At first the only things that he would eat were treats. I offered him all kinds of food and finally he did show a strong interest in eating raw fish. So he got to eat raw salmon until he would eat other things. It took a few weeks for his appetite to return to normal. He'd lost weight and is now gaining it back very slowly. I believe that he had a toxic reaction to the vaccination causing his kidneys to be overwhelmed or shut down for awhile. I talked with a friend who lives in the same region about it. She told me that the exact same thing happened to her 8 year old cat a few months ago, with extreme weakness and lack of appetite starting the week after getting the combo vaccine with the illness continuing for a month. I wonder how common this sort of adverse reaction is in cats or perhaps if the 2015 vaccine is bad.
I took my 8 year old cat in last Friday to get his yearly shots, since then, he has been vomiting his food up, everything and everytime. I Know the vet will never agree that there is a reaction to the shots, but if an animal doesn't do this regularly and then they do it after a shot or medication, duh, that is the cause. What can we do????
My cat also had a similar reaction. The vaccine company, after multiple contacts, admitted that this was a "rare" but known side effect. My cat recovered, but now a year later, she has complete heart block secondary to scarring on the heart. I question whether this is related to the combo vaccination.
Do you have any details on the "rare side effect"? In July of 2016 I took my cat to vet for her vaccination and within a week she was vomiting constantly, bile. It took over a month for her to recover, I didn't think she would. I took her back to the vet right when the vomiting began to happen and the vet insisted it was not the vaccination and that she had a hair ball. She did an X-ray and saw something and decided surgery to remove the stuck hairball was best. The next morning she did emergency surgery and found no hairball.. did another X-ray..saw nothing. ($3,000 later)We ended up switching her to a hypoallergenic prescription wet food. She had been great all year, healthy. I had to take her back for her yearly vaccine last month. They only reason I did is because the vet would not prescribe her food if I didn't come for her yearly checkup. The vet gave my cat the rabies shot. She was lethargic after, which I expected. Now a month after the same vomiting is happening, started yesterday. She will not eat or drink, just vomiting up bile. She is 9 years old, and has never ever been sick, only the 2 times after her rabies vac.
My 7 month old kitten died last week after receiving his rabies booster. Immediately after the injection he started vomiting. The vet administered the anti injection but the kitten continued declining. They tried cpr 3 times but he did not recover and died.
The wonderful Theresa from Minneapolis, MN has been helping pet owners and their beloved pets around the world on Earth Clinic since 2013.
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Theresa from Minneapolis was born and raised in the inner city, always wishing she had been raised on a farm.
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This past summer I rescued kittens from my yard from a momma kitty having her third set. I trapped her and got her spayed. I ended up keeping the 5 kittens because the local shelters were all full. I adopted out 3 of them and still have two because there is such a glut of kittens out there this year, they say because we had a mild winter.
They are almost 6 months old now. They had not received the Rabies vaccine yet so I brought them to a low cost, in a pet store, weekend "clinic" of sorts to save money. Three days after the rabies and FVRCP were given, one kitten started walking funny. It seemed he did not have full control over his rear legs. He could lift them, but not control them on the way down and they would make a flop sound when hitting the floor. He could get up and go the the food, water and litter box. He did not vocalize anything. He purrs and plays, but he chooses not to move around so much. He can get up and down the stairs. Two days later, he seemed to be walking normally, but then two days after that he was walking funny again, but there was no flop sound anymore, as if he was compensating somehow or it was just a little better. We brought him to the vet who said it was neuromuscular. The sugar was normal, so it is not diabetes. They did not do an x-ray but based on palpation determined that it was not a skeletal malformation of some kind. They did, however, tell my husband to have him retested for Feline leukemia which he already tested negative for to the tune of 48 dollars which infuriated me.
The cost of an MRI for a cat is approximately 2000 from what I looked up online ...
The sibling female kitten started to have similar although less severe symptoms a week and a half after the vaccinations. She shows some weakness in just the left rear leg, but does a little hop when she moves that she did not do before.
These kittens were perfectly fine for the entire time I have had them, since they are 8 weeks old. Is there any way to know that this problem is from the vaccines? I really cannot spend 2000 on an MRI.
From the paper work, it looks like they had RabVac1 and the FVRCP Ch.
I am wondering if I should try to treat with prednisone and/or antibiotics? It is too much money to get a diagnosis and even then you may not get an answer ....
Five years ago, I had to move into low income housing. Prior to that, I was not letting my cat, named Mouse, get vaccinations since I first got her because I had another cat get cancer at the injection site and die from it. So my cat Mouse hadn't had a shot in a long time. Since she has been getting the required by law and FORCED on me shot because of where I live, she has been steadily losing weight. She went from almost twelve pounds five years ago, to seven and a half pounds now. And last week when I was forced to take her once again for the Rabies shot, I think she's lost more weight in the past week. She's experiencing all kinds of side effects from the shot now. She's been refusing water alot. And this is a cat who loves her water. She's barely been eating. I had to change her food and give her other things just to get her to eat. She's in pain all over since the Rabies shot. If you pick her up, she makes noise like she's in pain from it. The day after the shot last week, she was confused. And she's even tried to eat things that aren't food, like bits of cat litter. She's having trouble doing anything now and just wants to stay on my bed. Half the time, I'm carrying her to her food and water and this is since the Rabies shot. She's in too much pain to do much. And she's running fevers on and off, mostly on.
I'm praying the side effects will wear off and she'll at least want to eat and drink more. She drank a tiny bit of water this morning and then refused to touch it the rest of the day.
I am heartbroken, upset over it. I had asked the vet if he would give her a waiver and not give her the shot, but he refused. This is a fifteen year old indoor cat that never goes outside. There is zero risk of her getting rabies. And the horrific side effects from the shot are not worth anything in this world. His excuse for not giving her the waiver was that he would only assign a waiver if he personally witnessed a reaction in his office. He's so EVIL. First of all, if that happened, he would have already killed your pet or harmed them with the shot. Second of all, in many pets, reactions take time to happen. Usually hours after the shot. All this vet is interested in is his wallet. He doesn't care whose pet he harms or kills as long as he's making that money.
I want this barbaric law repealed. There is absolutely no reason on this earth for indoor older pets to get a shot of any kind. Vaccines have never been proven safe or effective. The vaccine industry is the biggest fraud on this planet. Vaccines produce an antibody that often does nothing. You will still get sick with whatever you or your pet were vaccinated for. The side effects of many vaccines are permanently disabling. It's not worth anything on this earth.
The building I live in, because it's a HUD building, if I don't do the Rabies shot, they will literally evict me. I had to do it. If I didn't, they would tell me to get rid of my cat, or they would call someone to take her from me by force. And I'd still get evicted for breaking the lease. I am literally held hostage to force vaccinate my cat every year. They don't care if my cat is harmed by the vaccine. They don't care if I can afford to take her. All they want is those papers proving she was injected.
Our cat was given Pfizer's Vanguard Rabies vaccination and went into anaphalactic shock. She threw up about 25 times and had copious diarrhea, but because the vet called Pfizer and Pfizer said that they'd never heard of an adverse reaction to the vaccine, our vet assumed she was simply traumatized by her vet appointment. It wasn't until her face swelled up that we decided Pfizer had misrepresented the truth, and it took two very expensive appointments (including an emergency appointment at two in the morning) to stabilize her. I'm certain that Pfizer has heard of other adverse reactions to this vaccine (after all, _I_ have, and I'm no clinician), so to me they're responsible for our cat's delayed treatment and suffering.
My half Maine Coone cat was administered the Rabies Vaccine and when he came home he was lethargic. For the next 48 hours he had such bad diarrhea that at one point I heard an explosion type sound in the litter box area and found an explosion of bloody diarrhea. He had previously had solid stools and has since. I knew that he had a reaction to the vaccine. He is a very healthy cat.
Posted by Deirdre (North Attleboro, Ma) on 01/01/2012
I have an indoor 3 yr. Old Burmese cat. He had his yearly vaccines including Rabies on 12/8/11. He seemed ok for a couple of days and then his appetite when downhill and his spark was gone... He stopped stalking the other cats and acting like the head honcho (His normal behavior). I observed him for a while, hoping things would change and fed him whatever I could get him to eat; chicken, tuna (I usually give him Innova Reduced Fat can in the a.m. And same thing at night, but the dry formula)... He never has trouble with meal time. He was drinking his water, but he still was not his usual spunky self. My vet was on vacation so I brought him to a new vet.(12/21/11)..he checked him out and said he appears fine, but he did have a 1 lb weight loss (in just 2 weeks! ... Maybe a scale difference?) He did observe what appeared to probably be a scratch above his eye(from one of my other kitties), he syringed a sample of the fluid and found nothing. I have the same concerns and bring him back on 12/21/11 the Dr. Does a full senior blood profile (including thyroid, just to cover ALL the bases. ) He also does a urine test.... He finds nothing at all. It is now 12/30/11 and I notice another spot of hair loss over his other eye.... Definitely not a scratch, completely bald, but with little prick marks on the skin??? My cat is not scratching constantly and is not being attacked by the other kitties. His appetite is still the same... I may get one meal of chicken or tuna into him a day and he will only eat off the floor and not out of his dish. He is NOT himself, but I am managing to keep him roughly fed & hydrated. It is now 1/1/12 the Vet is closed and I will be calling him first thing in the a.m. Do any of these combined symptoms sound familiar to anyone? I hope my cat is not getting Alopecia from having been to the Vet 3 times in the last month and getting blood & urine tests :-( I am suffering as long as my lil guy is suffering... Any advice would be welcomed, thanks!
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