Cubicle Throwdown

tales of a serial expat

This Island is Trying to Kill Me (Or: That Time I Got Dengue)

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This is not the first time Roatan has tried to kill me.

There was the entire first year that I was here and had allergic reactions to the sandflies and mosquitoes, had several staph infections in the bites on my legs and earned the somewhat unsavory local nickname of ‘Sore Legs’ from the islanders….

There was the time I fell down a concrete ramp…

There’s been a few more I haven’t mentioned due to legal issues and/or my mom’s sanity.

But this one has been the worst. You guys, I got dengue.

Dengue fever is one of those shitty tropical diseases that you can get in (surprise) tropical countries. It’s transmitted through mosquitoes, so I guess I should really just be happy I made it well over two years before getting it.

Here is the list of symptoms that I have officially compiled from all of the internets:

  • sudden onset of high fever/chills
  • joint and muscle pain (dengue is often called ‘breakbone fever’ due to the pain)
  • headache 
  • pain behind the eyes and when moving eyes
  • nausea/vomiting
  • rash

So all really super cute stuff. After you get bit by an infected mosquito, in 4-10 days you will start to show symptoms. Usually it passes in a week if you don’t have complications (like it turning into dengue hemorrhagic fever which to me kind of sounds like Ebola and I’m pretty sure you die). But it’s the worst week ever. And you get all kinds of residual goodies to deal with, like being weak and having no energy for months.

I woke up one day with what I’ll call just a ‘touch’ of a hangover… no big deal, I sat on the couch and begged a friend to bring me some soup. After I ate, I was watching TV and felt better by the afternoon. Around 5pm I stood up to make dinner and BAM! My knees gave out and I fell back on the couch and immediately started sweating. Now, sweating is not normally a cause for alarm here since I do it pretty much constantly, but I could actually feel the fever starting and rising, all out of nowhere. I figured I hadn’t done a good job of killing the hangover so popped two extra strength Tylenol and went to bed.

Four hours later I woke up, teeth chattering and delirious. I fumbled around in the dark for some towels and sarongs to get under (I don’t own a blanket!) and put on basically everything I owned and tried to go back to sleep. I knew I was sick with something, I just didn’t know what it was yet.

The next few days were an awful blur of Googling symptoms, whimpering pitifully to myself while contemplating shooting off whatever body part was having a painful moment, ginger pills to help with the nausea, and alternately wearing everything and throwing everything off. I’ve had a few episodes of fever here on Roatan but nothing like this. It seemed never ending. I realized I was really ill when after 3 days I hadn’t eaten anything. ANYTHING. For someone who normally eats 8-10 times a day and can put big football players to shame at the dinner table, this was really disconcerting to me. Also the fact that nothing sounded appealing – every time I saw a restaurant commercial on TV or thought about a cheeseburger I would start to gag. For someone whose world revolves around food, this was a very sad time.

I had zero energy and even had to crawl from my bed to the bathroom for two days. I had to give myself full-on pep talks to get out of bed to get water, and I had to do it with my eyes closed or with sunglasses on because the pain in my eyes was unbearable. If I closed them and put my fingers on my eyelids, I could feel that my eyes were swollen and protruding. It was sexy. I also got terrible dizziness and looked like I was drunk because I couldn’t walk straight. If I bent over or got my head underneath my heart somehow, I got vertigo so bad I would black out. It was not a nice time to be living alone with most of your friends off the island visiting their respective homes.

Here’s the best part about dengue – there’s absolutely nothing you can do for it! Just take Tylenol (acetaminophen) to try to keep the fever down, rest and drink plenty of liquids. And lay around being the most miserable human ever.

My friends who had already had dengue told me I had to wait until the fever was at least on day 5 before I could go to the clinic and get the test done. I finally made it to day 5 and went off wobbling to the clinic. The doctor examined me and said, “yep, dengue” and sent the bloodwork for testing. It came back positive, and thus was the first time I’ve ever Googled my symptoms, thought I had something terrible and was actually right!

I went home and thankfully my fever started to go down, although I had some interesting new symptoms such as a disgusting red and white rash all over my stomach, chest and tops of my legs, which is apparently a hallmark sign of dengue:

Also the itchiest palms of hands and soles of feet ever. This was soooo uncomfortable and I woke up one night having rubbed my hands raw. I got hungry again but everything I ate made me sick. (Had some serious empathy for pregnant ladies after all this nausea.) I had a day where I threw up everything I ate, but after further investigation that might have been due to chicken salad gone off rather than the dengue. I’ll give that one the benefit of the doubt. I was desperate to get some relief from the dengue symptoms so I drank some ‘bush medicine‘… so whatever this thing below is… and it seemed to help:

Finally after 9-10 days the symptoms all subsided and I felt normal again, although my energy was seriously sapped and any little bit of physical activity left me exhausted. I still can’t dive for a few more weeks and I am trying to take it really, really easy on my body so that it can heal properly. I’ve heard of people who went out on drinking binges or started exercising again too soon after dengue and their symptoms all came back, and I am not interested in finding out if that will happen to me!

If you get dengue: you really do need to go to the doctor. Even though there is no treatment for dengue (just taking acetaminophen to try to keep the fever down) your doctor will need to keep an eye on your platelet levels in your blood. If they dip too low, you’ll need to be treated at a hospital ASAP. It can be really dangerous to let them get too low, so make sure you get your blood work done. I was lucky that mine stayed in the normal levels throughout the time I was sick, but the doctor was very surprised about this so I guess that isn’t normal.


Guys, make sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter … there’s lots of extras posted there that don’t make it onto the blog. I also have Google+ if anyone even uses that? And I’m on Bloglovin’, so you can follow me there too! Plus it makes me wear bug spray more, because subsequent dengue infections are apparently way worse than the first time. So there’s that.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Vacay Girl says

    I knew I hated mosquitoes but daaaang! I surely hate them now. I am so sorry you had to go through that dear. That sounded horrible. I'm such a mosquito hater that I spray myself and even carry a travel size bottle of repellant in my purse. I still manage to get attacked when I let my guard down. Ich! I hate them so.

  4. Heather says

    Yikes! That sounds terrible! I was so terrified of getting Dengue or malaria when I was in SE Asia that I literally bathed in DEET every morning. Sounds like I made the right call. Glad you're feeling better!

  5. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    I didn't realize dengue was as common as it is here, and malaria too! I guess chikungunya is sweeping the Caribbean by storm as well. The beaches are beautiful, but there are some downsides to living in paradise 🙂 Thankfully this passed without too many lasting effects!

  6. Rodrigo says

    I've had my eye on Roatán for a long time, but I now see it might not be as perfect as I thought it to be! I didn't know there was dengue there, for starters.

    I feel for you and hope you're done with it for good.

    P.S.: Your sarcasms are hilarious!

  8. Paper Boat Sailor says

    Oh brave soul! Any disease transmitted by mosquitoes is such a drag, and dengue is one of the worst, and can sometimes be fatal! Having grown up in India and familiar with these pesky monsters I always carry repellent sprays with me when travelling to tropical countries, or cold ones too (they came in handy with the damn midges in Scotland as well).

  10. Heather @ TravelingSaurus says

    Ugghhhh dengue is everywhere these days! I hope you are feeling better…I'm super paranoid about mosquitoes when I travel but I feel like its just gunna happen sooner or later. Take care!

  12. jillacox says

    Hope you're feeling better! I got it when I was in Thailand a few years ago. No. Fun. At. All.

  16. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    Dang, did you get it in India?! Most of the articles I found online about it were from India, seems to be a pretty big problem there.

    Thankfully it's rainy season so there is no diving work going on anyway, I have taken lots and lots of time to rest and I have been in bed by 9pm every night for 3 weeks now 🙂 I want to take it really easy because I have heard of too many people going back to diving or going out partying and having their symptoms come back, so I'm giving my body time to heal!!

    And yes, that rash – SO gross looking, so itchy. Did your hands and feet swell up and get itchy palms and soles too? I woke up one night after having rubbed my palms completely raw in my sleep. Not pleasant!!

  18. HippieInHeels says

    Ohhh girl, I hope you're better- mine lasted a month with other symptoms and really was hard to get over. I hope you take some rest! You need it. Isn't the rash like the most insanely itching thing ever?!

  19. Emily says

    Ugh, what a pain in the ass! Glad you're on the mend though and got through it all on your own. When I feel mildly ill I am a full on baby so don't think I would've been a trooper like you and made it through without some fawning over by others!

  20. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    Hahah not to worry Hayley – all pills pictured in that shot are 500mg acetaminophen! The ones in the baggie were left over from Clinica Esperanza the last time I had a fever… they use baggies instead of pill bottles because it's cheaper. The bush medicine is the dried out leaves you can see above…there is a picture in the post. You steep them and drink it. Not sure what it is or if it's a placebo effect (and I don't really care haha) but I felt a lot better after taking it. And yes, LOTS of my friends here have had dengue, it's very common on the island, especially this time of year when rainy season is starting and the mosquitoes are insane. Thankfully Michele and I are both feeling better 🙂 Miss you, when is the return trip?? xoxo

  21. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    Hi James, Heal & Draw is a different root than the leaves I had, but I am so glad to hear it helped with your rosacea! (But holy smokes, did you ever get ripped off…$100?!?!?! That's insane!) The heat and humidity here are a bummer for people who suffer from rosacea 🙁 Congrats on your rescue diver cert!

  22. Hayley Baines says

    Erika! When I first saw your post of meds to Instagram I was instantly suspicious of the mysterious white pills in the plastic baggie. Can't help it, it's the resident in me. I sincerely hope you're energy is returning. I remember your Canadian friend the yoga instructor had just recovered from Dengue when I was there, hope you can commiserate. Stay hydrated!!! Best xoxo

  23. James Hawkins says

    I am so very sorry Rika, you are such a sweetheart … PLEEEEEESE get better … you mentioned "Bush Medicine" … when I was in Roatan this June 2014 while I was staying at Dive Splash Inn in West End … I had a really bad case of Rosacea and my face turned red and yucky I met a strange "Bush Doctor" who roamed the main drag there … he spoke quite good English w/ out an accent … he "gave" (actually his elixir for my face cost me in the end about $100) which he said the locals called "Heal-and-Draw" (botanically: Soca ??) which cured my Rosacea …. The elixir was made from some jungle root … it was brownish & earthy smelling … I splashed it on my face for my symptoms … He said that some people drink this … I am wondering if this is what he gave me …. (sorry for my wordiness … I just thought you might want to know) … oh P.S. I just got my PADI Rescue Diver Certification …

  24. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    Thanks Steph!! I'm glad you didn't catch it – it's truly miserable 🙁 I've spoken to lots of islanders here about it and lots of them got dengue and malaria at the same time, so I guess I should count my blessings! And swine flu – so horrible as well…I got that coming back from Japan in 2009 right at the height of the panic about it. The only good thing was that all I had to do was say "swine flu" and I was granted a week off work, no questions asked 🙂

  25. Steph (@ 20 Years Hence) says

    I'm so sorry to hear that you had to go through this! If there is a downside to living in a tropical paradise, this has got to be it. I got massively ill a few times on the road (to be fair, I'm pretty sure I caught swine flue when we were living in Nashville, so I seem susceptible to this kind of thing…) and every time it happened, I was terrified I had malaria or Dengue, because apparently just being sick wasn't wretched enough. Given that Dengue seems to be spreading all over the world (and killing people too), I hope it's something they'll be able to vaccinate against some day.