12
UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 1ST FEBRUARY, 2015
“I remember stepping off
the bed and thinking, oh this
pain in my feet was probably because of the skipping
I did the night before; but as the day progressed my
knees started to hurt, my lower back, and thenmy wrists,
at which point I realized it was not the skipping, but
something else.”
Thiswas on September 12, 2014, the day that transformed
Sherry’s life, and one she will never forget.
“The following day when I went towork, simply usingmy
fingers at the cash register was so painful and then I lost
power inmy hands. The pain was terrible – no fever – but
a rash all over my body, no itchiness. I felt as if my bones
had turned to jelly.”
The fever came, as did the itchiness: a persistent tingling,
especially on the palmof her left hand.“It was always red
and felt as it if it was on fire and painful,” she says.
It is now the middle of January, just over four months
since the first appearance of the virus appeared and she
is describing what it has meant for her.
Every day, she says, every single day there has been pain,
“sometimes worse than others, especially my knees and
feet, wrists.” Her feet have been swollen, her hands and
fingers too, and there have been days when her eyes have
felt like they would fall out.
It has improved a little but the pains are still there, though
not as intense; and it has not been a straight line towards
what she hopes will be a full recovery.
“For example on Old Year’s day when I was on my feet all
day, everything was all swollen, legs, feet, eyes, nose, lips
hands, wrists, everything.”
She’s noticed that whenever she’s had a particularly
strenuous day, and she has been on her feet a lot, the pain
is more intense and the swellings return. She also had a
particularly frightening episode of lightheadedness, more
intense and unsettling than anything she had ever had
before, making her feel not only that she was going to
faint, but that she was having a stroke or something like
that. (I’d had a similar experience and had discovered at
least three others who had as well.) Her blood pressure
had also been fluctuating quite frequently.
Sherry is 44, an energetic mother of three daughters
ages 22, 18 and 14, who divides her time between her
duties as a manager at the pharmacy her family owns,
housekeeping and managing her children’s demands.
She is fairly fit she says, because of all the running around
she does.
Today, she is at a doctor’s office, seeking some relief from
the unbearable pains in her feet, the alopecia she has
discovered in her head and traces of blood in her urine. I
have asked to be present.
The doctor asks a lot of questions, takes her vitals and
begins prodding and poking at the pain sites.
“Where does it hurt the most?”
“My feet.”
Is the pain worse on mornings before you get out of
bed?”
She says she feels stiff and arthritic and it takes a while
before she can warm up. She tells him that more lately
her hands and fingers feel like they are losing sensation,
as if her blood circulation has stopped and her hands feel
cold, heavy and dead.
He began tossing around thewords‘carpal tunnel’(carpal
tunnel syndrome is associated with numbness, tingling,
weakness and other problems in your hand because of
pressure on the median nerve in your wrist), suggesting
that surgery could easily fix that.
It turns out his specialty is orthopedics, and although
he says that for the past few months he has been seeing
more than a hundred patients every month presenting
similar symptoms, he insists that this is carpal tunnel
syndrome.
It raises the question I promptly ask. Several people
are complaining of similar feelings and sensations, if it
is related to the virus, won’t it clear once the virus has
gone? There seems to be no answer to this; at least, none
is proffered.
Many doctors are predicting chronic arthritis and
rheumatoid arthritis and reactive arthritis that may be
corrosive and erosive and may trigger other conditions.
Some say that it will all pass over time.What kind of time?
The answers vary widely. It might be days, weeks, months
or years. Although older people seem more likely to feel
more prolonged effects, it is not yet clear what determines
the duration.
In themeantime, the doctor is treating the alopecia areata
(hair loss) with a steroid injection, and then he will do
something similar to her foot, though this is a very painful
procedure. Three days later, the site of the injections is a
purple patch, but the pain has eased, she says.
He shows her some exercises to do repeatedly during the
day, mostly stretches, and recommends that she rests a
lot more than she does.
An hour has passed and the visit has ended. The bill is
$1,000.
Is it the Chikungunya virus? He will not say it is, he will
not say it isn’t. He does not believe that all the cases that
share the symptoms are Chikungunya. There are viruses
presenting with similar symptoms, he says. It could be
any one of them.
Another unconfirmed case.
HowChikV
changed my life
By Vaneisa Baksh
The
Chikungunya
Effect
UWI
TODAY
SPECIAL REPORT
