Dengue Fever: Symptoms, Phase, and Drugs for Natural Dengue Fever

Symptoms of dengue fever are often misinterpreted by other symptoms of the disease which also have a fever. Because, there are some symptoms that are similar to some other diseases, such as flu or viral or bacterial infections.

If you don't get immediate treatment, dengue can be fatal. The following are symptoms of dengue fever which should not be ignored by the patient.

What is dengue fever?

Dengue hemorrhagic fever is an infectious disease caused by a dengue virus carried by mosquitoes. Dengue fever was once called "break-bone" disease because it sometimes causes joint and muscle pain where the bone feels cracked.

Mild dengue can cause high fever, rashes, and muscle and joint pain. Whereas severe dengue fever, also known as dengue hemorrhagic fever, can cause serious bleeding, sudden drop in blood pressure and can even lead to death.

There are four dengue virus (DENV) serotypes, namely DENV-1, -2, -3, and -4, and infections from the virus cause various symptoms such as fever, dizziness, pain in the eyeball, muscles, joints, and rashes. People infected with the dengue virus often experience long-term fatigue.

Dengue virus can develop into a life-threatening thing (severe dengue), resulting in abdominal pain and vomiting, difficulty breathing, and decreased blood platelets that can cause internal bleeding.

Dengue is commonly found in tropical and sub-tropical regions, especially in urban and semi-urban areas. Until now there is no specific treatment for dengue fever. However, the dengue fever vaccine has been developed by WHO in April 2016. The vaccine serves to prevent the occurrence of the second phase of dengue fever.

Symptoms of dengue fever

Reporting from Web MD, symptoms of dengue fever begin around four to ten days after the patient gets a bite from the mosquitoes Aedes Aegypti and Aedes Albocpictus. In children who have never been infected before, the symptoms of dengue fever tend to be more severe than those of adults.

For this reason, patients and families need to know the differences in symptoms of dengue fever that appear with symptoms of other diseases so they don't ignore them. Here are some symptoms of dengue fever which should not be ignored by the patient.

1. Sudden high fever

Fever may often occur in many diseases. However, in the symptoms of dengue fever, fever occurs suddenly and many people do not know the difference between ordinary fever and fever caused by dengue fever.

The difference between the symptoms of dengue fever and other symptoms of fever is a fever that can reach 40 Celsius.

Fever that occurs due to flu and infection from viruses or bacteria is usually accompanied by symptoms of sneezing or coughing while symptoms of fever in dengue fever are not the case. Fever in dengue fever can occur for two to seven days.

2. Pain in muscles

After symptoms of dengue fever such as fever occur, the patient will feel pain in the muscles and joints. Symptoms of dengue fever are accompanied by a body shivering and sweating.

3. Severe headaches and pain in the back of the eye

A few hours after experiencing a fever, the next symptom that will appear is a severe headache. Usually pain occurs around the forehead. Severe headaches are also accompanied by pain in the back of the eye. This is a common symptom that often occurs.

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4. Nausea and vomiting

In some people, digestive problems can also occur, such as nausea and vomiting. In addition, the abdomen or back feels uncomfortable. These symptoms can occur for two to four days.

5. Fatigue

Fever accompanied by muscle pain and digestive problems that occur in patients with dengue fever can reduce appetite. Of course this causes the body to become exhausted due to lack of food intake and a weakened immune system.

Phases of Dengue Fever You Must Know

Entering the transition season with erratic weather makes you have to worry about dengue fever. Because the Aedes aegypti mosquito carrying dengue fever has the ability to fly as far as 100 meters so that the transmission process takes place very quickly.

In addition to knowing the characteristics of dengue fever mosquitoes along with symptoms of the disease, you also need to know the phase of dengue fever that is usually experienced when someone is infected with this virus. So, you can be more aware of this disease.

1. Fever phase

The most typical symptom when exposed to dengue fever is high fever. That's why the initial phase of dengue fever is called the fever phase. In this phase, the patient will experience fever suddenly until it reaches 40 degrees Celsius for 2 to 7 days.

The appearance of a high fever in cases of dengue is often accompanied by a reddish face, reddened skin, whole body pain, muscle pain, and headache. However, if the fever lasts for more than 10 days, then the possibility of the fever is not a symptom of dengue fever.

In several other cases, symptoms of throat pain and infection, pain around the eyeball, anorexia, nausea and vomiting were found. These symptoms cause a decrease in the number of white blood cells and platelets which directs the doctor to diagnose dengue fever.

The symptoms of dengue fever make it difficult for sufferers to undergo daily activities, such as being unable to go to school, doing office work, and other routine activities.

To prevent other negative things, people with dengue fever are recommended to multiply drinking water to help lower body temperature and prevent dehydration. Patients must also be monitored because this is vulnerable to entering a critical phase.

2. critical phase

After passing through the fever phase, patients with dengue fever will experience a critical phase. Well, this phase is usually 'tricky' because the sufferer feels healed and can do activities again. Because the critical phase is characterized by a decrease in body temperature to 37 degrees Celsius to normal temperatures.

In fact, if this phase is neglected and does not immediately get treatment, the patient's platelets will continue to decline dramatically and can result in bleeding that is often not realized.

Therefore, patients must be quickly handled by the medical team because this critical phase lasts no more than 24-38 hours.

During the transition from the fever phase to the critical phase, the patient enters the highest risk for blood vessel leakage. Early indications of vascular leakage can be seen when people with dengue fever experience continuous vomiting, nosebleeds, enlarged liver organs, or intolerable abdominal pain.

3. The healing phase

When a dengue patient passes the critical phase, the person with dengue fever will again feel a fever. However, this is nothing to worry about. Because, this condition is a healing phase where platelets will slowly rise and return to normal.

Patients will experience a return of body fluids slowly at 48-72 hours afterwards.

Starting to enter the healing phase, the health of patients with dengue fever will gradually improve marked by increased appetite, decreased symptoms of abdominal pain, and improved diuretic function. The patient's white blood cell count will return to normal followed by recovery of platelet counts.

The main key to reducing the likelihood of complications or death in patients with dengue fever is to provide an intake that can increase platelet count when entering the critical phase. How to? One of them is by consuming guava.

Guava contains trombinol which is able to stimulate trombopoietin more actively, so that it can produce blood platelets which trigger more platelet formation or new blood platelets.

Because patients with dengue fever need an easily digestible intake, then guava should be processed into juice first. The water content in the juice is also good for preventing dehydration so that it can speed up the healing of dengue fever.

The danger if dengue fever does not get immediate treatment

These symptoms need to be considered and must immediately receive treatment as soon as possible. Because if a red rash appears on the skin, not only on the face but also can appear on the palms or underfoot or other body parts, then this means that dengue fever has entered a critical phase.

This can cause serious problems if not treated immediately, such as the occurrence of rare complications characterized by damage to the lymph and blood vessels, bleeding from the nose and gums, circulatory system failure, and enlarged liver.

The symptoms can get worse and cause severe bleeding, shock, and death. This condition is called dengue shock syndrome (DSS). People who have a weak immune system are also more at risk of having more severe conditions when they are infected with dengue.

To treat when exposed to dengue fever, a virus that attacks blood platelets (platelets) and causes the amount to decrease.

Now, to help overcome platelet loss, you can eat guava fruit containing trombinol and quercetin. Guava fruit is also able to accelerate the formation of new platelets and stop the growth of the virus. Not only for dengue fever, guava fruit juice can also speed up the healing process of ordinary fever.

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Natural Ingredients That Can Treat Dengue Fever

Dengue fever is a disease caused by dengue virus infection and is transmitted to humans through the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Dengue fever can make platelets or white blood cells in your body drop dramatically, and make internal bleeding that can damage organs or healthy tissue cells.

But unfortunately, there is no sure cure for dengue fever. Usually, your doctor will recommend you take drugs such as acetaminophen or aspirin to treat some symptoms such as fever, pain relief, and to relieve bleeding.

Even so, there is nothing wrong for you to try some natural or herbal medicines to speed up the process of healing dengue fever. Let's see, a natural dengue fever medicine that you can use below.

1. Guava juice

Guava fruit has trombinol which can stimulate trombopoietin more actively, so it can trigger the formation of new blood chips. Then, because dengue fever patients should eat foods or drinks that are easily digested, you should first process guava into soft juice.

The water content is also good for preventing dehydration.

Guava is rich in quercetin, a natural chemical that can be found in various types of fruits and vegetables. Quercetin can suppress dengue virus growth in the body of patients with dengue fever. So, don't miss the benefits of guava to fight viral infections naturally.

2. Angkak

There have been many various studies conducted to prove the importance of angkak as a natural dengue fever medicine. Please note, Angkak is one type of brown rice from China which is fermented with Monascus purpureus yeast.

A study from IPB in 2012 showed that administration of Angkak capsules can increase platelets in white rats made thrombocytopenia (low platelet levels in the blood).

As we know that patients with dengue fever have low platelet levels which make the disease worse. With the provision of Angkak which can help increase platelet levels, patients with dengue fever may recover faster.

3. Echinacea

Echinacea is one type of herbal plant commonly used to treat fever and flu in the North American community.

According to the Pakistan Journal of Clinical and Biomedical Research, echinacea can trigger additional protein and interferon production, as a reaction to bacterial and viral attacks. 

Therefore, echinacea is able to improve the immune system by optimizing the ability of white blood cells to deal with viral infections, including dengue virus.

4. Papaya leaves

Two researchers from India have reviewed reports of research that has been done and found that papaya leaf extract can help increase platelet numbers in the blood of someone who has dengue hemorrhagic fever.

This is presumably because papaya leaves can help stabilize the walls of the blood platelets so that they are not easily destroyed by the dengue virus.

You can use 50 grams of papaya leaves as a medicine for natural dengue fever by washing it first using water to clean it. Afterwards, mash the leaves until smooth, but do not become a powder. Then, you can mix water and squeeze the water of the papaya leaves. Drink papaya leaves 3 times a day.

5. Eat fruits or vegetables that are rich in vitamin C

Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, has several important roles in the body. this helps in repair, growth and development of body cell tissue. Importantly, vitamin C can strengthen the immune system by increasing antibodies and producing white blood cells.

You can consume fruits such as guava, lemon, oranges, papaya, strawberries, kiwi and mangoes to help with the healing process of dengue fever. While vegetables rich in vitamin C that can be consumed when exposed to dengue fever are, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and pumpkin.

How to prevent symptoms of dengue fever from happening?

1. Clean your bathtub once a week

Water is a breeding ground for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Female mosquitoes lay eggs on a wall filled with water, mosquito larvae will then get food from microorganisms that live around it. During this time, mosquito larvae will release their protective skin and multiply until they reach the final stage.

When the mosquito larvae are strong enough, the larvae will then turn into pupae. At the pupa stage, no food is needed. Pupa will only experience a change in shape to eventually become an ordinary mosquito ready to fly.

This entire cycle lasts 8-10 days at room temperature. Cleaning your bathtub at least once a week can break the life cycle of Aedes aegypti mosquito.

2. Close your household furniture that holds water

Water basins, flower vases, buckets and other containers that can hold water have the potential to become a place for nesting mosquitoes. Be diligent in cleaning these places at least twice a week to reduce the risk of mosquitoes carrying dengue fever.

3. Use mosquito netting

Mosquito gauze is useful to prevent the entry of mosquitoes from outside the home. You can install this mosquito net on your door and window.

4. Don't stack or hang clothes too long

Occasionally consider your coat hanger behind the door. Dirty clothes that accumulate can be a favorite place to catch mosquitoes. Indeed a pile of dirty clothes is not a place for mosquitoes to breed, but is a favorite place for mosquitoes to perch. This is because mosquitoes like the scent of the human body. If you really need to save the clothes that have been used again, place the clothes in a clean and closed place.

5. Use mosquito repellent or mosquito nets

When you are traveling, don't forget to use mosquito repellent lotion, especially on body parts that are not covered by clothing. But not only when traveling, you still have to protect yourself from mosquito bites while sleeping because the dengue mosquitoes are active at night until before dawn.

Besides using mosquito repellent lotion, using mosquito nets while sleeping can also help avoid mosquito bites and prevent dengue fever.

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