Why does rabies make people hydrophobic?
In: Biology
*Why* is because it makes your saliva thicker and stickier. That’s what causes the foaming of the mouth associated with rabies. The thicker saliva holds more virus, so it spreads better.
*How* partially involves just eating holes in your brain that make you irrational and dislike water. It also causes loss of control over your muscles and often painful muscle spasms. This very much includes muscles in your throat.
It begins with difficulty swallowing, so you kind of feel like you’re choking when you try to drink water. As it progresses, the spasms make it impossible to swallow. It’s also very painful. So trying to drink water makes you feel like you’re choking and drowning, while you’re also becoming more paranoid, delusional, and irrational.
Eventually, just *looking* at water causes your throat to spasm in anticipation of drinking – by this point you’re horribly thirsty, your body demanding that you drink the water in front of you, but your rotten brain is panicking at the choking and painful spasms in your throat.
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