Encephelittis

[FinallyRetired]

I don't read many obituaries, but the other day a tragic one caught my eye in the Washington Post, because it was about a very healthy looking 26 year old man. He had served in Iraq and was returning for a second tour. While traveling, I believe in Wisconsin, he became sick in the morning, by the afternoon was transported by helicopter to the Mayo clinic, and that night he died. The obit said it was due to encephelitis.

I googled encephelitis under news and found a log list of encephelitis deaths. This is a disease most of us have heard about, but I had no idea it could act so quickly. Many of the stories linked it to mosquitos, but I also note there are variations of it, some viral, some bacterial.

Anyway, don't want to frighten anyone but I wonder if this is something we should all be better educated about, since it can strike so quickly.

[MasterBlaster]

Isn't that what the West Nile Virus scare is all about ?

[lazygood4nothinbum]

you don't have to go to iraq for a bug bite. you do what you can. long sleeves and pants at sunrise and sunset hours. bug repellent. but really, if you believe in god and god has sent a mosquito to kill you, all the netting in the world won't stop it. so why worry.

death by mosquito. sort of puts things in perspective don't it.

[mark500]

Encephalitis can be caused by a plethora of things including viruses, bacteria, parasites, and unknown etiologies.

[Alan]

At age 31 I got really sick one evening - terrible headaches, raging fever, couldn't nod my head without horrible pain in my back. DW took me to the docs in the morning.

The doc examined me and then called in another doc for a 2nd opinion. They asked "have you been bitten by any mosquitos recently?". I replied "I'm a soccer ref and this is South Louisiana, I get bitten often" "We think it is encephalitis so we've booked you into the Nuerolgy center, go straight there from here".

We did know about the disease so were rightly afraid. Following the lumbar puncture and tests I was relieved to find out it was "only" spinal meningitis, and the viral kind, not the bacterial sort which is worse apparently.

Very nasty. I started using bug repellent after that. (even though the meningitis I had was not mosquito related, I had a good idea what encephalitis is like)

[Dawg52]

An old high school girl friend of mine died with it at the age of 40. Her husband found her in the kitchen in the middle of the night cooking something. She was confused and he took her to the local hospital. After a couple of days they flew her to another city where she died. She died within a week of her initial symptoms.

Very sad.

[flpanhandle]

Here on the Florida Gulf Coast Panhandle, there was a death a few weeks ago from West Nile. The media\authorities have been very secretive about the age, name, location,etc. of the victim.