life's like this - avianto's journal

According to Wikipedia:

Dengue fever (IPA: /ˈdɛŋgeɪ/) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) are acute febrile diseases, found in the tropics and Africa, with a geographical spread similar to malaria. One major difference, however, is that malaria is often eradicated in major cities, whereas dengue is often found in urban areas of developed tropical nations, including Singapore, Taiwan and Brazil. Caused by one of four closely related virus serotypes of the genus Flavivirus, family Flaviviridae, each serotype is sufficiently different that there is no cross-protection and epidemics caused by multiple serotypes (hyperendemicity) can occur. Dengue is transmitted to humans by the Aedes aegypti (rarely Aedes albopictus) mosquito, which feeds during the day.

According to me:

Dengue fever is a very frustrated sickness. Not only you will need constant supply of fluids, either using intravenous theraphy or drinking a lot, more than 2 litres a day, you also will have to stay still most of the time in bed and do nothing. It will take more than 3 days to feel better and it will take more than a week to really recover but after that you will still feel really weak. No direct medication available too, the only way to fight the virus is using the above methods and wait for your own body to fight back the disease.

No Direct Medication?

True. Only supportive therapy. During my hospitalization because of dengue at the late January 2008, I didn’t get any specific medication to counter the dengue virus. The only official medicines were vitamin, paracetamol (as analgesic) and a medicine to counter my queasy. Intravenous therapy was also part of the medication to prevent dehydration and blood coagulation.

One of the distinguished feature of dengue was the rapid drop of thrombocytes from their normal value between 150.000 - 400.000 per mm³ (Mine was dropped to 45.000 on the day the first blood test was taken and keep dropping until the lowest 13.000 before they hiked up again). So the major aim of the therapy is to boost the amount of thrombocytes back into their normal range.

The Danger

Dengue fever could be very dangerous if the detection was too late. Dengue started with a very high fever for 2-3 days and the fever rapidly dropped on the 3^rd day. Most of the fatal cases happened because during the drop of the fever, the thrombocytes were dropping too, very rapidly and because of the lowest amount of thrombocytes, if there were any bleeding happened - the bleeding was having a hard time to stop (thrombocytes responsible to stop the bleeding) and it could be very fatal.

So, if you were having a high fever, please do a blood check when the fever stopped. It could be only a normal fever but if it was dengue fever at least you’ll find out soon enough to get a proper treatment.

Traditional Methods

There are some traditional methods, which not medically proven yet but really does not hurt to try, to boost the amount of thrombocytes. There is a traditional Chinese medicine called Angkak, the highest recommendation from everybody, which said will boost the amount of thrombocytes very rapidly. Guava juice also said to boost the amount of thrombocytes. Honey from dates also one of the traditional medicine recommended. Isotonic drink, not a traditional method but a convenient, also helps to prevent dehydration. Which one is actually proven to be the best? I have no idea since I used all of the above methods to rapidly boost the amount of thrombocytes.

I was hospitalized for 6 days and these were the amount of my thrombocytes for each day: 45.000 (dropped to 37.000 on the first day), 13.000, 15.000, 34.000, 67.000 and 122.000. When the thrombocytes passed the 100.000 barriers, I was allowed to went home but still need to rest and drinks a lot of fluids (but no intravenous therapy needed anymore, what a relief).

For a week after my release from the hospital, I was still drinking all of the traditional methods mentioned above. After a week, I was checking up to the doctor again to see how was my current health. Well, the thrombocytes were counted as high as 413.000, the doctor said it was called the ‘bouncing effect’ since previously the thrombocytes was pressurized to reduce themselves, now with the pressure factor gone, they were boosting up themselves beyond the necessary amount.

Health

So yeah, I was officially healthy again. But the medical advice still the same: Slow down a bit and get a lot of rest for at least a month because my body still need to adjust itself before it will tune in a full gear.

I missed a lot of deadline and currently tried to catch up all of those without extorting myself. It was difficult but well, it’s time to move back into normal life, right?

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