Strap: Let me assure you that a majority of patients have mild or asymptomatic disease and a shock syndrome happens in rare cases. The only way to keep yourself away from dangerous thresholds, therefore, is to keep your fluid balance by drinking more than your normal intake of water, between 3 and 5 litres, says Dr Rommel Tickoo, Director, Internal Medicine, Max Hospital, Saket, New Delhi
As news of the unusual monsoon and waterlogging floods our newswires, it would be wise on our part to prepare for and prevent a dengue outbreak. Few patients are already coming into our hospital and a couple of days ago, I had a serious case where the patient had a very low platelet count of 10,000, a haemoglobin concentration of 20 g/dL and was dangerously close to a dengue shock syndrome. The patient was saved just in the nick of time because he came to the hospital at the right time.
The reason I mention this case is because most people do not realise that lower platelet counts are not always the sign of an emergency and are a misleading parameter. The most important factor in establishing criticality of infection is haemo concentration. This basically means an abnormal increase in blood haemoglobin levels because the plasma in the blood is leaking, leading to fluid accumulation in the abdomen and lungs. Which means the blood is losing its matrix because of severe dehydration, and if not treated aggressively with intravenous fluids to increase the blood volume, the body can go into shock.
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