Tawa Tawa for Dengue

I recently contracted the dreaded Dengue virus. Yes, I went through all the hullabaloo of being confined in the hospital for 5 days and constantly had a nurse visit every 8 hours to extract blood from me so that the doctors can monitor my platelet count. It was such a hassle!

For those who know me, I hate going to the doctor and I hate being confined. While other people like the air conditioned room and the special treatment, I would rather stay at home and try to recover from anything in a familiar place. This explains why I only agreed to be confined a day after a knew that I already had dengue.

What did I feel? Well, for those of you who have not yet had dengue, it all starts with a really high fever. In my case, I had a 39 degrees Celsius fever which lasted for four days. I went to the ER of St. Lukes Global City on the third day. That’s when they found out through checking my blood that I had dengue. They had this test that can confirm if you have dengue by doing a blood extraction (NS1 and the IgM and IgG). Aside from that test, I had to undergo CBC or Complete Blood Count.

During that day, my platelets were still within the normal range (but already near the lower limit). I opted to go home since I was still breastfeeding my baby. The next morning and day 4 of my fever, I had to go back to the hospital to do another CBC. This time, my platelets were below normal and I agreed to be confined.

My platelets continued to drop. Mind you, there is no cure for dengue. You just have to hydrate yourself! I was drinking gallons of water a day and I was going to the restroom every hour. Aside from the water I was drinking, I of course, was connected to an IV so that I had another ‘hydration’ source.

During this time, I was taking Tawa Tawa. I had my husband bring me boiled leaves of tawa tawa, which was made at home and mixed with calamansi concentrate (just to mask the taste). Aside from that, I was taking this Dr. Dana Tawa Tawa Concentrate drops. You can get this from Echo Store. It is at Php 550 per bottle.

The dosage that I took was 1mL every hour. I know that Tawa Tawa has no approved therapeutic claims yet, but I think it really helped control the drop in my platelet count. The lowest platelet count that I had was at 80,000 plus which was not bad at all!

Echo Store also has this Tawa Tawa Tea Granules. This is being sold for Php 80+ pesos.