Do You Understand The Effects Of Dengue?

Dengue fever is caused by a virus that is transferred from person to person with the bite of a tiger striped mosquito. Dengue typically starts off with high fever, chills, headache, pain behind the eyes, and joint and muscle pain making the person 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 inflammation of the lymph nodes.

Dengue in its most common form has an incubation period of about 5 to 8 days from the onset of fever. It is worth noting that a person has fever for about four to seven days and it is common for most to recover without any major complications. However, long term effects and complications cannot be fully ruled out in all cases, with some taking many months to recover and having fatal recurrences.

This arises especially in areas where dengue is endemic and there are chances of repeated infections and relapses. The most serious of effects or complications could be dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS).

Dengue hemorrhagic fever known as Hemorrhagic dengue, Dengue shock syndrome, Philippine hemorrhagic fever, Thai hemorrhagic fever or Singapore hemorrhagic fever that leads to dengue shock syndrome proves fatal in about 1/20 cases that have a re-infection.

The severity of effect of dengue in the form of dengue hemorrhagic fever rests basically on one contracting a different virus after building immunity to one particular type of virus. The risk 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 person being not just restless and irritable, but also becoming sweaty and developing shock like symptoms. Tiny spots of blood and bleeding could occur on the skin with large patches below the skin and minor injuries causing severe bleeding. Some of the early symptoms that would be noticed are decreased appetite, fever, headache, joint aches, malaise, muscle pain, and vomiting.

Then you would notice more acute symptoms like restlessness 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 generalized 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 doctor could examine and find other symptoms like enlarged liver, low blood pressure, red eyes, swollen glands, and weak and rapid pulse. The treatment would include a cure of the symptoms and a transfusion of fresh blood or platelets to correct bleeding problems, IV fluids and electrolytes to correct electrolyte imbalances and oxygen therapy for treating abnormally low blood oxygen and hydration with intravenous (IV) fluids to treat dehydration. In addition care in an intensive care environment proves essential.

The caution lies in approaching your medical professional in time during recurrent attacks and in personal hygiene and cleanliness at home and in the surroundings. Use of full covered clothing, netting, mosquito repellent containing DEET, and avoiding travel when mosquitoes are prevalent would help to contain dengue.

Owen Jones writes pieces on various topics, but is currently concerned with the hand held bug zapper. If you are interested too, come over to our site at Electronic Insect Killer.