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February 26, 2006

Malaria Malaise

The Doc told me this morning that I have malaria.

This is a real pain. Not least because I'd taken Lariam (aka Mefloquine - 'the best' so I'd been told before the trip) religiously every week throughout the seven month journey through East Timor and Indonesia. Lourdes was taking a natural prophylactic called 'Neem Leaf Extract' (that I secretly thought was a load of nonsense - look who's laughing now!). And Chris stopped taking Doxycycline a third of way through the trip (he complained it was making him feel dull-witted - no comment!) and for a couple of months wasn't protected at all. Everyone else on the trip, including April, Kenny and Phil all got bitten far worse than me. So what rhyme or reason is there to all this malaria prevention business?

I'd been feeling pretty rubbish since arriving in Singapore over three months ago. But I figured it was just my body getting rid of the Lariam, which can take a while, sometimes even months. Then three weeks ago I started to experience episodes of fever and headaches. Two days I was delirious with a temperature of 109F and it occured to me there must be something more at play.

The treatment is a concrentrated dose of Malarone, taken over three days. I haven't had a chance to discuss it properly with the Doc yet so I still don't know what species it is (ideally not the cerebral one that's the killer) or whether the disease resides in one's body forever or gets knocked out first time around by the massive dosage of Malarone. But the idea of course is to get well enough to get out on this next leg. At least I know what the problem is now and can look forward to hopefully getting my health and energy back as soon as possible.

jason

Posted on February 26, 2006 12:37 AM

Comments

Posted by: Crister at March 1, 2006 7:50 PM