We haven't had "HAY INTERNETS SHOULD I GO TO THE DOCTOR" thread in like FOREVER, so abide:
When my wife and I were in Morocco I was sort of afraid of getting sick. I washed my hands, only drank sealed bottled water and only consumed cooked foods. I was pretty careful. Towards the end of our trip, I woke up one day feeling really ache-y. We'd been lugging luggage (Har!) all over the country for the previous week so I didn't think much of it. We went for a walk and after an hour or so had to hail a cab- I was afraid I was going to pass out. Fever followed, along with sever muscle aches and diarreah. The worst passed in about 24 hours, but I was a little off for a week or two afterwards. This was in January. Last week, in May, I got the same thing again. The symptoms are as follows:
1- I start to feel very, very weak. I just get incredibly tired. I'm not usually a high energy guy, but I think nothing of walking, running or biking a couple of miles. I get winded, but never tired like this. I really felt like I couldn't walk another step, like my energy had just been pulled out of me.
2- A few hours after I start feeling like that I get a very, very high fever. 102, 103. Nothing helps except rest and fluid intake.
3- The next day I tend to feel "off', but the fever breaks around mid-day and I have to take it easy, but mostly feel okay.
4- For the next week or so I just feel kind of tired and a little weak. In the days immediately following I have severe muscle aches, I feel like I did 10,000 sit ups and ran 400 miles. My back, especially, kills, but it's a general muscle ache all over. This also tends to lead to splitting headaches and my neck muscles tense up.
5- Diarrhea. Not immediate, not especially copious, but any bowel movements for the next week or so tend to be very liquid, like my stomach is just smelting everything. That's gross and I am sorry. My stomach also tends to hurt for that period, but it feels like it does after doing a lot of situps- Just used. There are also gas pains, but they tend to vanish after a day or so following the illness.
After the first time I was up and about in about a week. I felt fine and there were no real lingering symptoms. I forgot all about it until last week. I did some furniture assembly at work and afterwards felt really tired. It was pretty minor compared to what I'd been up to, so I was surprised. The walk home from the train that evening was terrible, I barely made it. I slipped into PJs, cue fever, on and on. Last night I was afraid I was coming down again- I went to bed very early, popped some pain/fever pills and went to sleep. I felt fine this morning.
In both cases, there was a cue from physical exertion. The first time I got it followed a day of dragging maybe 60 lbs of luggage a mile uphill. This time it followed some heavy furniture assembly, but post-dated it by about a week.
I'm not super concerned, it seems to vanish pretty easily with bed rest, but the fact that it showed up in exactly the same manner more than once has me kind of wondering. Anyone else had something like this?
Anyway, last night I had a crazy fever again and a truly awful headache. Like brain splitting, skull shattering misery. So I decided to book a Doc's office visit. But when I told the lady I didn't have insurance she said, "Oh. That could be a problem". I have no idea how I'm going to afford this. But it seems better than DYING. I wish I could just score some meds- If it is malaria, it's pretty treatable.
