Feb 16th, 2012
Do You Know The Symptoms Of Dengue?
Dengue fever is the result of a virus that is transferred from person to person by the bite of a tiger striped mosquito. Dengue normally starts with high fever, chills, headache, pain behind the eyes, and joint and muscle pain making the individual look flushed with a rash appearing about three to four days after the onset of fever. The rash spreads to the rest of the body and shows up often as an swelling of the lymph nodes.
Dengue, in its most common form has an incubation period of about |five to eight days from the start of fever. It is worth noting that a person has fever for around four to seven days and it is usual for most people to recover without any major complications. However, long term effects and complications cannot be entirely ruled out in all instances, with some taking many months to recover and some having fatal recurrences.
This arises especially in areas where dengue is endemic and there is the likelihood of repetitive infections and relapses. The most significant of effects or complications are dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS).
Dengue hemorrhagic fever called Hemorrhagic dengue, Dengue shock syndrome, Philippine hemorrhagic fever, Thai hemorrhagic fever or Singapore hemorrhagic fever can lead to dengue shock syndrome and proves fatal in around 1/20 cases that have a re-infection.
The seriousness of the impact of dengue in the form of dengue hemorrhagic fever rests in essence on one contracting a different virus after building immunity to one particular sort of virus. The danger factors increase with having antibodies to dengue virus from a prior infection, being younger than 12, female, or Caucasian.
Look out for the effects of dengue hemorrhagic fever in the individual being not only restless and irritable, but also becoming sweaty and developing shock-like indications. Minute spots of blood and bleeding could occur on the skin with substantial patches below the skin and negligible injuries causing severe bleeding. Some of the early indications that would become noticed are decreased appetite, fever, headache, joint pain, malaise, muscle pain, and vomiting.
Then you might notice more acute symptoms like agitation followed by skin discoloration caused by the escape of blood into the tissues from ruptured blood vessels in mucous membranes especially in the mouth. There could also be a sweeping rash followed by flat round spots caused by internal bleeding in the skin from the capillaries.
This dengue situation could worsen and show up as a shock-like state, cold clammy extremities, and sweatiness. A GP could examine the patient and find other indications like enlarged liver, reduced blood pressure, red eyes, swollen glands, and weak and rapid pulse.
The treatment might include a cure of the symptoms and a transfusion of fresh blood or platelets to correct bleeding concerns, IV fluids and electrolytes to correct electrolyte imbalances and oxygen therapy for treating the unusually low blood oxygen level and hydration with intravenous (IV) fluids to rectify dehydration. In addition, supervision in an intensive care environment is normally essential.
It is vital to get to your medical professional in time during repeated attacks and to make sure of personal hygiene and cleanliness at home and its surrounds. Using fully-covering clothing, mosquito netting, mosquito repellent with DEET and avoiding travelling whilst mosquitoes are prevalent would help to control dengue.
Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with Electronic Bug Killer devices. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at electronic insect killer