Typhoid fever - Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment

I am writing this topic because 1 month ago I had typhoid fever and I was not treated well in one of the Bangladesh non-government hospital. I was admitted into hospital after the fever but the doctors in the hospital repeatedly changed my medicine and their treatment was bad in the end. So to get cure myself I took help from a famous rural area's non MBBS doctor and it was great treatment. I am saying this because after I am recovered I did search lots with typhoid fever in google.

In this post I want to share my experience with typhoid symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.

Let's know what causes a man typhoid fever. Typhoid fever is caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar typhi. This typhi bacteria is then transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with faeces from an infected person and cause a man typhoid fever.

Symptoms of Typhoid:
- For the first few days a common influenza virus type fever you will feel. And your body temperature also will be between 99 to 101 degree Fahrenheit.

- But after someday you will feel your body temperature goes high and is between 102~104.5°F.

- After taking paracetamol type medicine, within 2 hours you may get excessive sweating.

- gastroenteritis is common of typhoid symptom.

- After 1 week nonbloody diarrhoea is very common. In fact you may need to go to toilet once for each 2 hours.

- In the first week you may have headache. Though I have never had headache but I had headache in this typhoid fever.

- Patient may also face abdominal pain.

- In fact an untreated typhoid fever is divided into four individual stages and each stage lasts approximately one week. In my case it lasted 3 week because I took medicine.

In the first week, if you test your blood then widal test comes negative. Blood cultures test are positive for Salmonella Typhi or Paratyphi. Fever does not rise much in the first week.

In the second week, there is high fever, 103~104°F is common. Diarrhoea occurs in this stage and stool has a characteristic smell. Stool is similar like pea-soup. The spleen and liver are enlarged in this phase. The doctor did X-ray and they told me my spleen is slightly became larger. But I feel pain whenever someone presses my belly. In second week the Widal test is strongly positive with antiO and antiH antibodies. Blood cultures are sometimes still positive at this stage.

In the third week, there may be very serious complication if you don't treat it.

In the fourth week, fever started reducing. If you don't take correct medicine death may occur.

Diagnosis of Typhoid
In the symptoms already stage by stage diagnosis is discussed. You can diagnosis typhoid by testing blood, bone marrow or stool cultures. Based on Widal test you can diagnosis typhoid fever.

Treatment of Typhoid fever
As with me I saw Azithromycin is best at treating typhoid. This may be specially true for Indian Subcontinent. If you are not from Indian subcontinent you can take fluoroquinolone drugs and ceftriaxone. However don't take ciprofloxacin, ampicillin, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and streptomycin as a first line treatment. But my hospital doctor gave me ciprofloxacin at first and that's why it took me more day to recover. Later I take Azithromycin with ciprofloxacin.

From internet I also saw medical life today became more easier. You can now control medical treatment wherever you are. For old man/woman if they have a FALL ALERT detector then it alerts emergency personnel that they have fallen and cant even push a button. If you are outside then even with GPS Tracking Bracelet with 2-way speakerphone you can ask for help. It can be used with mobile phone. There is so many Medical Alerts devices exist.

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