It’s quite disheartening to note that children died in Bihar due to so called AES Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. Not this year, but every year, not only in Bihar, throughout India, thousands of children die of Encephalitis outbreak. It is not a disease because of which somebody should die. In order to understand this, you need to understand three things-
No. 1-What is Encephalitis?
No.2- Why it occurs?
No.3- How to cure it?
No. 1 What exactly is Encephalitis?
The disease is known by several names- Progressive Encephalitis, Acute Encephalitis, Chronic Encephalitis, Primary Encephalitis, Secondary Encephalitis, Japanese Encephalitis or little more complicated names like MIB-Measles Inclusion Body Encephalitis, or SSPE i.e. Sub acute Sclerosing Pan encephalitis. To avoid confusion one should simply remember that Encephalitis is inflammation in the brain i.e. wound in the brain.
What is the reason for the wound- is it bacterial reason, viral reason, or some pathogen or some auto immune response- the name is decided on the basis of the reason. But whatever be the name, the symptoms in all types of Encephalitis are similar. One part of the symptoms include, high temperature, weakness, vomiting, diahorrhea etc which are flu like symptoms.
But it is not called Flu or Influenza, or H1N1, or Dengue but Encephalitis if some neurological disorder gets associated with it. For instance, memory loss, hallucination, disorientation or seizure or stiff back and neck, that is, Flu like symptom plus neurological discomfort together is called not Flu, or Influenza but Encephalitis. With the method of diagnosis like MRI, CT scan, blood test or urine test, a precise name will be attached to it.
That name may be Progressive, or acute or chronic or Measles induced. But these things are not required; diagnosis is not needed. It is clear that if it’s Flu and there is a neurological symptom that means it can be Encephalitis.
Now the second thing-why Encephalitis occurs?
No.2 What is the cause?
Patients afflicted with this disease showed dehydration- lack of water in the body, hypoglycemic state i.e. extreme hunger, acute shortage of glucose in the body and weak immunity which may be due to several reasons one of the main reason is mineral loss. If all these three things are found in a human body with a bacterial or viral attack that may lead to inflammation of brain is called Encephalitis.
Body has innate mechanism to recovers itself in a few days or a week or ten twenty days. Death will take place only when a conventional medical protocol is followed. Anti pyretic drug not only lowers down the fever but also compromises the immunity all the more. In this disease weak immunity is further weekend by antipyretic drugs. Along with this, the patient is administered with antibiotics. Antibiotics also dehydrate the body. So already dehydrated body gets more dehydrated resulting in extreme dehydration.
In this situation, vomiting occurs if a person takes cooked food and severe diarrhea takes place leading to death of patient.
No.3 Now how to cure it?
During summer season chances of dehydration are more and second is the immunity that should be taken care of. Immunity can be boosted with a massive dose of vitamin C. As soon as you give a massive dose of vitamin C, a reaction is induced in the patient that is called fenton reaction and as per this reaction immunity can be boosted within three to four hours. Secondly, mineral balance, that we can achieve by giving coconut water- nature’s mineral water. Coconut water does a lot of things simultaneously- No. 1- it does the work of hydration; No.2- provides glucose. The glucose of coconut water is quite different from the glucose that is normally given to the patient, in the hospital set up. The kind of glucose that is there in coconut water is the glucose that the body accepts very quickly- where there are no chances of vomiting, body don’t reject it; but assimilates it immediately, metabolises it, accepts it.
Recovery can be achieved in three days i.e. 72 hours in three stages- stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3.
Day one. On this day one should strictly follow fluid diet/ liquid diet. On this day patient should take orange, pineapple or mix juice according to formula (weight/10 = no. of glasses of juice) If the patient weighs 40 kgs, that means 40 divided by 10, that is 4 glasses, each glass assuming is 300 ml so 300 ml * 4 equals 1200 ml. That is, 1200 ml of citrus fruit juice and the same amount of coconut water in the whole day. That is eight glasses are to be given to the child or the patient in the whole day. These two things should be given alternatively. Meaning, in the first hour citrus fruit juice, then after two hours coconut water and so on. Patient should take it sip by sip, not quickly. One can start noticing the difference in temperature which is in control now.
Day two. In this day along with fluid diet tomatoes and cucumbers are to be given. Quantity of salad will be according to body weight × 5. In this case, the patient is 40 kgs. 40×5 i.e. 200 gms of cucumber and tomatoes are to be given to the patient in raw form. With this, the patient will be recovered nearly 70%.
Day three. It is called liquid- fluid and solid diet. In this diet according to the formula, breakfast given to the patient should be simply liquid i.e. citrus fruit juice and coconut water after one hour. For lunch raw tomatoes and cucumber is given according to day 2 formula. For dinner, normal cooked vegetarian food will be given with very less oil and very less salt. By third day, the patient will recover completely.
But still, for at least one week, a glass of citrus fruit juice and a glass of coconut water in addition to normal cooked food should be continued.
So this is a very simple solution for any patient to get rid of Encephalitis or flu like syndrome. I hope more and more patients will get benefitted after reading this article.