Dengue is a viral disease, spread by mosquitoes which causes a high temperature, headache , muscle and joint pains and usually a rash. It occurs in almost all of the warm water diving locations around the world. Now compare those symptoms with a mild attack of “The Bends” and you have a dilemma. (read on as it gets worse).
If you haven’t dived for 24hrs, then the Bends is unlikely. However if you wake up ill, in the night, after a days’ diving, that’s not helpful. !
The height of the temperature is probably the most deciding factor. Dengue will really make you sweat, and that temperature will climb and keep going. Whereas The Bends, it just makes you feel lousy. Dizzy, short of breath, worn out. That feeling when you have a heavy cold and you just want everyone to go away and leave you alone.
They both attack your joints and muscles. The Bends usually hitting the larger joints with varying intensity from deep ache to excruciating. This doesn’t help though as Dengue was known as ‘Breakbone fever’, enough said!!!.
Dengue is often diagnosed with the presence of a triad of 3 factors. Fever, rash, headache & other pains.(typical of the medical world to have a triad of 4 features).
We all know though that the Bends can give you a rash. Infact most of us divers get a bit of an itch at some stage in the holiday, and have had the Bends associated skin symptoms rammed down our throats that we all get a bit worried. Not so with Dengue. The rash here is ‘the nasty one’. That rash that we are taught to look out for in our kids, where you put a glass onto the skin and the purply pink/red rash doesn’t disappear. AAAgh meningitis. Yup the very same type of rash. Due to bleeding into the skin, rather than an inflammation of the skin it doesn’t blanch with the glass test.
So now you are really sweating (literally),you have a headache from hell and a rash, you are no longer worried about The Bends and Dengue, but do you have meningitis ?. Great just what you want in the middle of the night on a tropical vacation.
Now for the GOOD news.
Look at your illness objectively and you will see the different illnesses sort themselves out.
The Bends make you feel weird, almost anxious and your skin will be itchy and the fine rash (if there is one) is usually on the face and upper body .Those classic aches & pains with dizziness, short of breath, exhaustion with confused memory and mood swings. You need a partner to get you off your butt and receive treatment. You won’t care, and will be worried about causing a fuss about nothing.
Meningitis will hit you like an express train: fever, headache, pain on bending your neck , your eyes won’t like the light and you become floppy, unwell. The blotchy rash of glass test fame means that the bug is in your blood, and boy do you need help fast.
Dengue comes on about a week after being bit, so unlikely to occur while you are on holiday, but typically when you get home. It starts with the typical hot & cold chills before the temperature goes sky high. You get a headache, and muscle pains from the start then everything aches including your eyeballs when you try to move them. Oddly your pulse stays low ( it normally races with a high temperature), and your eyes look ‘ill’, a pinkish look typical of an infectious illness. All sorts of things can then happen. You may get better in a day or two only to succumb again. Sweating but feeling frozen, and then ’ that’ rash covers you from toe to neck, but not your face. Do not take aspirin, or ibuprofen type drugs as they make the problem worse. Fluids is the mainstay of treatment and your doc will keep an eye on you. This viral illness is usually self-limiting, but like all things it can turn nasty, in-fact very nasty especially in kids.
