Oh-Oh! The Newly Bitten

[divine coyote]

Hmm...

Obvious pain, as any bite. So you get that treated, washed off, antiseptic, antibiotic, and so on.. Then you get a horrible rash, like an allergic reaction.. Then probably a fever, and distorted vision. And probably pretty bad head aches. And well, of course it may vary for different people. Um, well then I would suppose the 'heavy' side effect would wear off, but not completely. You would still feel 'off', even like your head is swimming/disoriented or even like a 'lightness' or 'can easily move' through the air. Like you have no gravity. Or the fever never completely leaves.. I'm sure after the first or second shift or after truely accepting what they have become, these may fade.

[Scott Gardener]

So you get that treated, washed off, antiseptic, antibiotic, and so on..

Oh yeah... people have tried all kinds of things. Isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, a mixture of aconite and belladonna, lemon oil, and some rather unique other things. We've given those people who try these various remedies a special name. We call them "werewolves."

[Shadow Wulf]

No one is even shure if you'll have a fever in the first place, shure you'll feel odd. But perhaps the virus is so great that the white blood cell want even put up a fight as it being converted.

[Apokryltaros]

No one is even shure if you'll have a fever in the first place, shure you'll feel odd. But perhaps the virus is so great that the white blood cell want even put up a fight as it being converted.

That's silly. Of course the white blood cells would attempt to attack the virus, as though it was like any other foreign body in the system: they can't go "oh noes, it's too scary!" and run back to the lymph nodes, you realize.
Whenever a person has a fever, that means their immune system is attacking some sort of infection.
Plus, I wouldn't think that a person with a weakened immune system would be able to survive becoming a werewolf in the first place.

[Timber-WoIf]

Plus, I wouldn't think that a person with a weakened immune system would be able to survive becoming a werewolf in the first place.

why not?

[Apokryltaros]

People with weakened immune systems are never very healthy to begin with. Either they are unable to produce enough mature white blood cells, or the white blood cells they have are unable to fight off invading microbes.
That's why people with compromised immune systems tend to die from things like the common cold, or contract rare and delibilitating fungal diseases that healthy people will normally never hear of. I strongly doubt that they would have physiques capable of surviving a transformation into a werewolf.
Plus, have you ever seen someone with leukemia, or, worse yet, "bubble boy syndrome"?
Call it a hunch, but, something tells me that, dinars to donuts, a werewolf is probably going have a germ-infested mouth. Besides the causative agent of lycanthropy, a werewolf will probably introduce a lot of bacteria and other micronasties into the site of infection. Chances are good that if a person with a weakened immune system is going to die of a massive Staphylococcus aureus infection if they're bitten by a werewolf.
I mean, the double whammy of having all of your cells' genomes being rewritten while a raging, secondary infection goes unchecked isn't a very health-inducing situation.

[Timber-WoIf]

but those are all weaknesses to viuses. so, because they are unable to kill off all of the lycanthropy virus, the virus ends up killing them? Doesn't make sense, because for the virus to be effective in anyone, i'd assume it's have to defeat the target's immune system.

it would make more sense if the flue/fever phase of the lycanthropy passed faster for people with weaker immne systems, because the battle between the viruse would be able to beat those peoples immune systems faster...

[Apokryltaros]

You don't understand.
If you don't have a functional immune system, you're not going to have a fever, at all, you're more likely to break out in dead.
People who have compromised immune systems tend to be in very poor health, in general, and they wouldn't survive being attacked by a werewolf, dying either from the shock of being bitten, or from a secondary infection from bacteria or fungus from the werewolf's mouth in the first place.
If you have a crappy immune system, you're not only going to not be able to fend off werewolf virus, but, you're also not going to be able to fend off candidiasis, staph-bacteria, or strept-bacteria. I don't think that if such an ill person would survive having to go through the biological upheaval of becoming a werewolf while trying to fend off a bad case of fungemia (when fungus grows in your blood stream), especially if the werewolf virus is attacking the immune system in the first place.

[Shadow Wulf]

No one is even shure if you'll have a fever in the first place, shure you'll feel odd. But perhaps the virus is so great that the white blood cell want even put up a fight as it being converted.

That's silly. Of course the white blood cells would attempt to attack the virus, as though it was like any other foreign body in the system: they can't go "oh noes, it's too scary!" and run back to the lymph nodes, you realize.
Whenever a person has a fever, that means their immune system is attacking some sort of infection.
Plus, I wouldn't think that a person with a weakened immune system would be able to survive becoming a werewolf in the first place.

What I meant to put down was mabey you want get that high of a fever, mabey the virus spreads so fast and converts the human cells to werewolf cells, cause I always see in movies where they will get a little sick or just start feeling dizzy every once in a while.

[Timber-WoIf]

You don't understand.
If you don't have a functional immune system, you're not going to have a fever, at all, you're more likely to break out in dead.
People who have compromised immune systems tend to be in very poor health, in general, and they wouldn't survive being attacked by a werewolf, dying either from the shock of being bitten, or from a secondary infection from bacteria or fungus from the werewolf's mouth in the first place.
If you have a crappy immune system, you're not only going to not be able to fend off werewolf virus, but, you're also not going to be able to fend off candidiasis, staph-bacteria, or strept-bacteria. I don't think that if such an ill person would survive having to go through the biological upheaval of becoming a werewolf while trying to fend off a bad case of fungemia (when fungus grows in your blood stream), especially if the werewolf virus is attacking the immune system in the first place.

then it's not the werewolf virus that kills the person. I was thinking you were saying that the virus and initial changes would directly lead to the person's death. But if the virus were administered in a more controled manner, then would survive, right?

[Renorei]

If you don't have a functional immune system, you're not going to have a fever, at all, you're more likely to break out in dead.

I really wish this board had a reputation system. I would sooooo + rep you right now.

[Apokryltaros]

If you don't have a functional immune system, you're not going to have a fever, at all, you're more likely to break out in dead.

I really wish this board had a reputation system. I would sooooo + rep you right now.

Thank you.
Also, don't eat your dieffenbachia plant.

[Morkulv]

Any virus can kill a person.

[Apokryltaros]

Any virus can kill a person.

Technically speaking, not all viruses can kill. For one thing, the virus needs to be a kind that can attack human cells, so that, if you were to inject tobacco or bean mosaic virus into a person, the worst that could happen is a bad rash at the injection site.
Plus, there is at least one kind of virus that becomes active only when a cell turns cancerous. The virus can infect normal cells, but can not harm them. Should its host cell mutate into a tumor cell, the viral genome activates, and the virus replicates inside of the tumor cell, until it runs out of nutrients, dies, bursts open and liberates the new virions to infect more, preferably tumor cells.
Scientists have also been able to engineer viruses that selectively attack specific kinds of tumor or cancer cells by allowing these viruses to bind to proteins found only on the surfaces of certain tumor or cancer cells.

[Morkulv]

Not true. Although it is true that there are a lot of good virusses, any human can be allergic to them. So if you are on of those unlucky persons, the virus can kill you. Even if the virus is good for others.

[Apokryltaros]

Viruses don't provoke allergic reactions: they do provoke an immune response, though, but they don't provoke allergic reactions.
Viruses don't come in large enough amounts to provoke a fatal allergic reaction. To kill someone with an allergic reaction to T14 Bacteriophage virus, you'd need to inject them with 10 milliliters worth, which would be about like 650 billion virions, and even then, there's a greater chance of the person getting an embolism, rather than a fatal allergic reaction.
While, yes you can get things like rashes from viral diseases, but that's not because you're allergic to the flu, or smallpox, or tobacco mosaic virus, it's because the rash or open sore is a symptom of the disease, and because the virus specifically attacks certain kinds of cells near the skin.

[Morkulv]

[Scott Gardener]

To say that an allergy to a virus makes any virus theoretically lethal is, well, I suppose technically true, but by that logic, then so is just about anything. Every drug on the market is already labelled as potentially life-threatening, even the ones we use for treating allergic reactions! (Yes, I've actually worked with patients who are allergic to Benadryl. Kind of like wondering what happens to you on the full moon night after you've been bitten by a werehuman.)

Most viruses in fact don't affect humans; we generally only notice the ones that do.

A person with a weakened immune system: What happens kind of depends on your take of lycanthrope physiology. If you go by a "soft magic" system, in which werewolves regenerate by special powers and so forth, then getting lycanthropy might indeed cure the immune deficiency. But, to get a more exact idea what would happen, it might help to study more in depth how the immune system works in the first place.

Brief nutshell version:

White blood cells can be divided into three groups: lymphocytes, neutrophils and macrophages, and more obscure ones that don't seem quite as essential offhand.

Lymphocytes handle antibodies. Each lymphocyte is designed to make a particular antibody. Contrary to popular belief, it's not that antibodies are customized to fit germs. Rather, the body designs antibodies that fit just about every conceivable shape of molecule. Then the thymus gland in early childhood screens out and orders the death of every lymphocyte that makes antibodies that could attack the body itself. Everything left over goes into a bank of "reserves" that get called into action whenever a particular unwanted molecule shows up. If an unwanted molecule is found in the body, the lymphocytes that make that particular antibody rapidly multiply and churn out large numbers of that particular antibody. The body also "remembers" through the herd actions of lymphocytes which lymphocytes have been activated before, so that particular things that showed up once, which could show up again, can get responded to first. For this reason, you probably have a much larger number of "reserves" against various flu viruses than you do against kuru, the rare disease you can generally only get by eating brains. Against viruses, lymphocytes are first line.

There are also sub-types of lymphocytes. The two most significant are hunters and messengers. HIV quite literally works by killing the messenger. It's specifically designed to draw attention to itself, and the messenger lymphocytes pick it up, with the idea of breaking it down and showing off its parts, only to get infected by the virus itself, make more viruses, and destroy itself.

Neutrophils and macrophages work by eating foreign material. They're basically amoeba-like, the body's bouncers and hired thugs. They actually do a lot of the work in fighting bacterial infections.

The obscure group includes things like eosinophils, which are great at causing allergies and mediocre at killing large parasites like worms, but make for great scientific papers, and monophils, which help round out the CBC printout on your doctor's blood labwork.

In my world, it depends on the individual reason for the weakened immune system. If it's congenital, you're screwed, because the lycanthrope virus doesn't pack a replacement set of how to make lymphocytes, though it does provide some interferon-like properties, which might help postpone long-term effects of diseases like hepatitis. If it's acquired, like, say, HIV--which again is probably the first thing that pops to mind when one mentions immune deficiency, thanks to a good education campaign--then you stand a good chance. If you've got HIV but still have a good supply of non-infected messenger lymphocytes, then the lycanthrope virus-like entity will get to them first, prevent HIV infection, and then kill off all the infected messenger cells. You'll have a brief period of decreased immunity, followed by a complete cure. One slight problem: HIV also can infect neurons, so you could also conceivably suffer encephalitis, cerebral edema, and a quick death.

[Apokryltaros]

If you've got HIV but still have a good supply of non-infected messenger lymphocytes, then the lycanthrope virus-like entity will get to them first, prevent HIV infection, and then kill off all the infected messenger cells. You'll have a brief period of decreased immunity, followed by a complete cure. One slight problem: HIV also can infect neurons, so you could also conceivably suffer encephalitis, cerebral edema, and a quick death.

Or, worse, a slightly quick and unpleasant descent into dementia, loss of motor-functions and then death.

[Syzygy]

...For this reason, you probably have a much larger number of "reserves" against various flu viruses than you do against kuru, the rare disease you can generally only get by eating brains...

Kuru got my curiosity.

The TSEs (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies), including kuru, involve abnormal clumps of protein that accumulate throughout the brain, destroying brain tissue and leaving spongy holes.

Ugh. Spongy holes. Now I seriously regret being curious.

[Apokryltaros]

...For this reason, you probably have a much larger number of "reserves" against various flu viruses than you do against kuru, the rare disease you can generally only get by eating brains...

Kuru got my curiosity.

The TSEs (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies), including kuru, involve abnormal clumps of protein that accumulate throughout the brain, destroying brain tissue and leaving spongy holes.

Ugh. Spongy holes. Now I seriously regret being curious.

Prions destroy neurons in that the prions accumulate on the surface of the neurons, eventually smothering them to death. As the neurons degenerate and die, little holes in the nerve tissue accumulate, and eventually become larger holes.

Kuru occured among the Fore tribe in Papau New Guinea. It used to be a tradition in the tribe for relatives to eat the flesh of deceased loved ones, with women and children being served the brain matter.
Kuru manifests first as a difficulty in moving, as well as occassional bouts of inappropriate laughter. Eventually, the symptoms progress to loss of motor functions, and eventually coma and death.
This problem got worse because the husbands of the afflicted would blame their wives' illness as being a curse placed by some enemy, often a rival or a member of a nearby tribe, and then kill the hexer in retribution.

[Syzygy]

And to top it all off it is always fatal.

[Apokryltaros]

And to top it all off it is always fatal.

What did you expect with congenital diseases that produce infectiously defective proteins?
Sugar flowers and lollipops?

[Syzygy]

Umm, good point. I should try thinking once in a while.

[Lupin]

And to top it all off it is always fatal.

What did you expect with congenital diseases that produce infectiously defective proteins?
Sugar flowers and lollipops?

More importantly, what's a sugar flower?