The symptoms of rabies start showing up as the virus slowly reaches the central nervous system of the human body. The initial symptoms of the disease resemble that of a common flu. Patients may show signs of fever, cough and frequent headache. In certain cases severe body pain and pain in the joints are predominantly seen. The symptoms aggravate day by day if left untreated. However in all the cases the symptoms may not be seen immediately. The average period is from 12 weeks to even two years in rare cases where the amount of virus entered into the blood stream is very low and thereby it takes a long time to achieve its dominance.

The disease however starts with a basic symptom of malaise. Malaise is a general feeling of being unwell or experiencing discomfort. The discomfort is due to a foreign micro presence in the blood stream. After these initial symptoms starts occurring within week's nervous dysfunctions and a sense of increased irritation can be found in the patients. The patients also experience some kind of a mental confusion. After this point the nervous irregularities turn out into spasms and nervous breakdowns that make the patients unconscious and at times even push them into a state of coma or paralytic disorder.

The nervous disorder usually occurs due to the virus entry into the central nervous system through the peripheral nervous system. As the virus enters into the central system, the antibodies of the body work full time to counter balance the invaders attack. It is this counter measure that causes a raise in body temperature and frequent spasms in the body. In some cases severe nerve contractions may occur.

As the disease incubates further it enters into a dominant stage from where there is no possible treatment. Fatality is almost certain. The disease's entry into the dominant stage can be found out by extreme nervous contractions and paralysis of the muscular system. Due to this the person will have difficulty to breathe and even to swallow food. Swallowing is a muscular contraction process; the rabies virus causes muscular dysfunction which causes difficulty in swallowing too. One of the major symptoms that are seen in all rabies infected patients is "mania". Mania is a state of mental discomfort or malfunction that is caused as a result of severe changes in the bodies' condition or even due to severe mental stress; however it is wise to consider the former reason in this case than the latter.

One more symptom that is seen in rabies patients is hydrophobia. It is nothing but the fear of water. Experts in the medicinal field say this occurs only in the final stage of the disease and it is visually seen only in certain cases. The patient tends to develop an aversion towards water or to be more precise, liquids. Food or stimuli that are in the liquid form tend to aggravate their mental condition. As a result of this the person dies due to lack of water or thirst.