Malaria, specifically vivax

[loopymushroom]

Hey all! I'm delighted to have found this community, it's exactly what I was after!

Setting: Pseudo-mediaeval fantasy, climate about that of central Europe. I'm assuming malaria is not uncommon and is pretty recognisable to a physician, as the city is about a mile away from a sizeable stretch of marshy mosquito-infested peat bog, and it was once

Comments

[anonymous]

I grew up in West Africa and had malaria regularly, as everybody did, just like getting flu regularly when you grow up in UK. So I can tell you what it feels like, though I don't know what type of malaria you mean by vivax malaria.

First off, nothing makes you feel more ill. You feel mentally weird from about two weeks before you have proper symptoms, maybe a bit paranoid, a bit spiteful, a bit cranky. Then you start having really horrible dreams. Once you are properly ill you have odd sensory hallucinations - you see things crawling or you have a tickling sensation in your fingertips or over your skin, these also intrude into your dreams.

The day you're going to be properly ill, you might have an agonizing headache which will end with you being sick, having a very high temperature and shivering. This usually happens in the evening. Headache + being sick + high temperature and chills, at this stage anyone living in a malarial area will know what is wrong. Well, then you're ill, you'll be in bed feeling weak and nauseous and highly peculiar in the head, while periodically running a temperature so high people panic trying to bring it down by fanning, cold sponging and possibly immersion in a cold bath. The type of malaria I had would bring a high fever twice a day but particularly in the evening. Inbetween you feel ill, nauseous and listless but might try getting up, thinking you were better. BAD IDEA.

You won't eat with malaria, it's as if everything is knocked sideways, as if life has turned yellow and knobbly and wiggly. I can't imagine wanting a cigarette in such a state. I don't think you'd be coughing either. About sleeping deeply, actually no, you're more in a sort of fretful, dreamlike, hypersensitive feverish state. If you were to go into a deep sleep it would be a sign the fever was passing. But you could easily lie there with your eyes open, seeing things and thinking you were dreaming. What would worry an onlooker would be you would be twitching, fluttering your eyes, looking at things that aren't there and maybe talking about them too ("mummy, there's ants walking on my eyeballs"), rolling eyes back in your head, burning up etc.

I've never had malaria without being given strong medication. I've had it several times while taking preventative medication. I've no idea how long a bout would last without medication. Sometimes it drags on in people and they drift around feeling very ill and having night sweats.

Afterwards you feel WEAK. I remember running downstairs and having to sit down at the bottom and be helped back to bed. And you lose weight like woah! and while you are ill your eyes go yellow.

Hope this helps. It's an odd disease and the weird feeling and the sensory oddness are a big part of it. I think that's got something to do with the parasites multiplying! Nothing else has ever made me feel so ill. But if you live where it's endemic, you just take it as normal.

[loopymushroom]

That's really helpful, thank you so much! :D The sensory oddness sounds similar to the experience I had with morphine, so good to know I might be able to draw on that. Thanks for sharing!