Dengue – I was lucky….

[...Living & Travelling in Dominican Republic with less than 1,000$/ month...]

Dengue !

It all started on Tuesday evening. After eating some pizza I felt kind of strange. Totally exhausted,tired and weak. I lay in the bed and I can't barely move...I have no power to move my hand...Like it appeared later - pizza is not the problem here. It's dengue, tropical disease.
I went to bed early, around 11 pm. Next day, after woke up, I feel terrible. High fever and I am so weak that I cant walk. Almost. Feeling ? Pain in all muscles in my body and strong pain (like I never had). During whole day I have high fever - around 40 Celsius degrees ! I cant walk. If I try to walk - i move like 90 years old guy..Slow..And each move gives me pain. I never experienced something like that, and I may say that I never felt THAT bad in my life after any illness that I already had.
So today I will spend whole day in bed. No other possibility. Maybe I will manage to ride on bike 500 meters and buy me some dinner. I hope so at least.
I woke up next day. Feeling much better now. It's Thursday and it seems that all symptoms are slowly fading away. I still feel weak (and I will feel weak for the next 2 weeks), but its much better now. I can walk ! Miracle 😉

So in total it was 48 hours of illness. Something like flu, but without coughing and with really strong pain of head and muscles. And with really high fever, too. In the next days I have to go to bed very early - like around 10 pm..I am very sleepy at this time, like my body would call me for "more rest" and relax. So I listen to my body and I'm doing it. If I go to bed later (like after midnight) or if I wake up in the night for some reason - that terrible pain of head (like migraine) returns. Thank god that its not so strong like during dengue....
So how do I discovered that it was actually dengue ? I went to the doctor to actually get know what was wrong with me for those 48 hours, and after some blood tests he told me that it was dengue for 99 %... Anyway - please note that I was at doctor AFTER disease as..When I was really sick and ill, I was so weak that I couldnt walk.
Anyway -  I was lucky. There are 4 known types of dengue virus, 2 hard and two "soft". Luckily I got one of the soft type. The hard type requires INSTANT visit in hospital, as it could lead to death if not hospitalized.
Ah these bloody mosquitos in tropical countries...And all these diseases that their spread around...Dominican Republic has a lot of dengue cases and in last year - there is also chikungunya virus...So besides guarantee of great weather you have also SMALL chance of getting infected with one of these nasty things....

[...Read the full version of my guide to the real Dominican Republic...]