What are the symptoms of dinghy fever?

Answer 1

Dinghy is a misspelling of the word Dengue. Dengue Fever is what you had. It is very much like malaria. I got it in Vietnam from walking a round in rice paddies with cracks between my toes. The paddies were fertilized with human & pig feces. (1967-1969)

As I was a private contractor working for Dupont (what part of Orange, you can guess) I spent $3K with doctors who told everything from yeast infection to bad case of athlete's feet.

Finally I found a doctor that recognized what was going on. I would have a incident every three to four months. It would start with a painful knot in my groin, then my leg would get very hot and turn red much like blood poising. My leg would turn red like a burn. These incidents would last 36-48 hours.

First, I got very very cold and chills. It is also know as bone break fever as you shiver so hard you can actually do damage. I lived in Florida and had an Arctic sleeping bag. It could be 90 degrees and I would be in the bag and still shivering so hard I could hardly stay on the bed.

When the chills broke I would turn into a human water sprinkler. It was not uncommon to loose 10-12 pounds of body fluids. It is important to drink a lot of fluids or your kidneys will shut down. I keep several large bottles of Cranapple and Apple juice on hand. I would sweat so much that we would have to wash and dry the sheets, sleeping bag and mattress pad and then air the mattress.

Good News! When you get over 50 the incidents are much farther apart. Bad news is that after years of this, the veins in your legs do not work well and there is damage to your lower legs.

The only thing I have found that helps is Tetracycline (requires a script). Other stuff is a waste of money.

There are three types of Dengue Fever (pronounced in one syllable, the last ue is silent). Two of them are fatal with in a week. Count yourself lucky!