Tata 1mg Capsules

BY DR. VARUN GUPTA

Once a person gets infected with the dengue virus, he/she can get symptoms within 1- 7 days. Symptoms include high grade fever with severe headache, pain behind the eyes, abdominal pain, body aches, rash and vomiting.  Fever usually lasts 5-7 days. Following are the important things you should remember if you or anyone in your family has dengue:

• Give the patient only paracetamol for fever and do cold sponging. Do not give aspirin, ibuprofen and other pain killers for fever
• Ensure that the patient takes 3-4 liters of fluids (water, juice, tea, milk or soup) a day
• Keep a close watch on signs of dehydration. Check the patient’s tongue and urine output.
• The tongue should appear moist and pink in color. Patient should pass adequate urine( every 3 hours)
• If patient can’t take enough fluids orally and his urine output is less, he/she should be admitted to a hospital for intravenous fluids
• The blood tests should be started when the fever starts
• In the early stages, the platelet count is usually within normal range but hemoglobin level may be high
• If the hemoglobin level is raised ( >14g/dL), a doctor should be consulted even if the platelet count is in normal range
• The platelet count begins to fall once the fever starts to come down
• Remember that even when the platelet count is falling, there is no need to panic. A count up to 10,000 is safe, unless patient has active bleeding.
• There is no role of platelet transfusions in a patient who has no active bleeding. Do not insist the doctor for platelet transfusion in the absence of bleeding.