Argentina has suffered a dengue outbreak since the beginning of the year 0:51

(CNN Spanish) --

The country reached a historical maximum of registered cases of dengue in one week, according to the Epidemiological Bulletin of the Ministry of Health.

Official statistics report that this season's outbreak is larger and more persistent than in previous seasons.

Beyond the graphics and numbers, a first-person experience of the transit of this disease.

My name is Verónica Pagés, I am a journalist for CNN en Español and I am coming out of a serious case of dengue.

In Argentina, so far this year, more than 134,200 cases have already been registered.

I wanted to share my experience with you.

It took them five days to give me anything resembling a diagnosis, because it was never 100% accurate.

The dengue outbreak in my country caused the reagents to disappear, so in the clinic where they treated me they added the laboratory data with the symptoms I had and that's it: suspicion of dengue.

The closest I came to knowing what was wrong with me.

• Argentina registers an increase of 86% in dengue cases compared to 2023

I started day 1 with a headache and what we call in my country “having my body half cut.”

Something that incubates, something that usually goes away with an ibuprofen and a little rest.

There was ibuprofen and not so much rest.

During the night I was woken up by devilish chills, I couldn't stop shivering and the temperature of this Buenos Aires summer couldn't be the reason.

I grabbed the thermometer as best I could and it jumped to 38.9 degrees.

Feeling my way, I took another ibuprofen (I repeat it because I was doing things wrong).

In the morning I felt better and was encouraged to get on my bike to go to work.

A sunny day to take advantage of.

Shortly after arriving I commented, as well as when passing by, that I wasn't feeling so good, but the whirlwind and adrenaline of work took me forward without any major problems.

The issue was when the whirlwind and adrenaline subsided, and the discomfort became devastating.

The headache had deepened in his eyes, the stiffness in his back was now paralyzing, and the chills had returned.

A colleague told me not to take ibuprofen (another one) because if it was dengue it could be counterproductive, due to blood clotting.

Dengue? I thought.

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The doctor at work told me the same thing: “dengue.”

And she recommended that I go to a clinic to have my blood drawn and to please not take anything other than paracetamol.

I had almost no strength and I used it to get on the bike back home and collapse into bed.

She absorbed me.

It is the clearest image I have.

I couldn't even lift my head to turn it.

It was impossible to change position.

I left going to the clinic for the next day.

When I woke up I was still feverish.

I didn't take it again.

He knew perfectly well when the thermometer was going to shoot.

My daughter took me to the clinic.

Five or six people preceded me, nothing serious.

They call me, I go in, three minutes, I come out: “The doctor says it's pharyngitis, and that if I continue to have a fever it should come back in three days.”

And only take paracetamol every 8 or 10 hours.

It was three days of mimesis with the mattress.

Fever, sleep, paracetamol, fever, sleep, paracetamol.

Little food and less water.

Everything tasted bad to me.

All.

I couldn't swallow anything without tasting a horrible rusty taste.

It didn't matter, I just wanted to sleep, fade away until I felt good.

The third day came and the fever had not gone away.

Back to the clinic.

The guard, in which a few days ago there had been five or six people, was impossible.

All the chairs occupied, people sitting on the floor.

A devastating scene.

One hour, two hours, three hours of waiting.

Just when I was about to throw in the towel to go home and continue sleeping... they called me.

When the doctor sees me enter (another doctor, not the one who had diagnosed me with pharyngitis), she tells me “come here,” and takes me to a room much more equipped than the one I had been treated to days before.

“What's wrong with you,” she asks me.

And I start with the pharyngitis thing.

“I opened my mouth.

This is not pharyngitis.

I'm almost sure it's dengue.

“Dear, you are dehydrated.”

They took my blood and after a while they came back with the quasi-confirmation.

Collapsed platelets and white blood cells.

How to protect yourself from dengue mosquito?

4:52

There I learned that these are key data for doctors to start talking about dengue.

That and the fever, the body pain, the total lack of appetite and the dehydration... were all the information the doctor needed to know to tell me that she was hospitalizing me.

And I stayed almost four days with a serum line to hydrate myself.

“As soon as your white blood cells and platelets start to recover, you're out,” she told me.

It took four days.

Meanwhile, she slept almost all the time, she could barely pay attention to a conversation with a family member or friend who came to visit me.

I could put up with television from time to time.

And other symptoms began to appear: a hellish itch in the palms of the hands.

He scratched me with such desperation that I thought he was going to hurt me.

Pain in some joints and rashes on the legs.

Not even sleeping could get rid of those itches and pains in my body.

The doctor and the nurses – all divine – tried to reassure me saying that everything was as expected, that it was going to happen.

The last day at the clinic, they removed the IV with the IV because I swore I was going to drink three liters of water, even though it tasted like rust.

And I complied.

All to free myself from that path that made it difficult for me to sleep, to go to the bathroom, to move even a little.

The provisional discharge came on the fourth day, I waited for her like a child waits for his birthday or Christmas.

But dengue had not finished with me.

I left with the promise to return every two days to draw blood and check myself;

with the promise of eating well and drinking plenty of water.

I said yes to everything.

But in the first check-up, other values ​​from the blood test that the doctor highlighted with his fibron jumped: the hepatogram.

“It doesn't happen to everyone, but it seems like it does to you.

"Don't be scared, it's not serious, but you have dengue hepatitis."

I almost started to cry.

Really?

And I remembered my dad, years ago, bedridden with hepatitis for more than a month.

The doctor quickly read my face and said “no, it is not that type of hepatitis, but you do have to continue a few more days of rest, healthy food, water and no physical activity.

Not much more.

"You're going to be fine."

They have already passed several checks and the hepatogram is approaching the normal range.

It hasn't arrived yet, but it looks like it will be there in another week.

That's my liver.

Me, much better, but with a fatigue that does not stop.

I've already started to lead a somewhat normal life.

But things that I didn't even notice before now exhaust me deeply.

Today, almost three weeks after that day 1, the doctor says that I am doing well.

And I want to believe him.

Dengue