Chickun Gunia – A Traveller’s Nightmare (post by mary)

O Woe!  In the months before Matt and I set off on this incredible journey, we obediently checked into the Travel Doctor’s office in Victoria for our third world medical consultation and numerous injections (Matt practically cried! Mostly due to the size of the bills that accompanied those injections!).  The nurses we met were gentle,  professional, knowledgeable and current in the afflictions that we could encounter on our travels.  We took home maps of the parts of the world we were headed to that graphically listed all the diseases known to scientific man and woman.  But at no time did we ever hear or read of chickun gunia.  A  mosquito borne viral infection well  known to the many local Rajastani people who brought its name to our attention in Jaisalmer.

I became very intimate with this affliction when it came to visit me in Bundi , Rajasthan in mid-December.  The day began happily with a leisurely meditation and yoga routine on the roof of our Hadi Rani Havali roof top while watching all the kites flying and attacking overhead.  By mid afternoon, my upper body was seized with the most intense tension headache that locked down my neck and shoulders.  I had to cancel going off with Matt and the two ladies from Australia to visit the fort.  Instead I stayed home and requested an ayurvedic massage offered by our hosts.  At the agreed hour, Seisha (our hostess) showed up at my door with an older woman, Krishna; Seisha explained that Krishna was her assistant and would do the massage.

After introductions, I was ordered to take off my shirt and bra and sit on the floor.  Krishna began what I can only describe as torture.  I quickly began to question in my mind her professional training certification, and her rough technique.  Her hands, slightly moistened with coconut oil moved briskly shrubbing my upper back and shoulders.  Her hard working hands were rough and exfoiliated my flesh.  When she moved to my neck I experienced what it would be like to be choked.  She held my neck in full grip and squeezed the breath out of me, causing me to squawk and choke.  As she roughed up my arms, she turned to my wrists and brought back childhood memories of my brothers giving me the “old wrist twisting torture treatment”!  It was the worst, painful massage ever and I was stunned into silence, just enduring it and accepting that this was India’s version of “ayurvedic” treatment.

I put myself to bed as the deep chills took over my body, and two Ibuprofens did nothing to relieve the growing intense pain locking my neck, shoulders and head.  Fever set in and stayed with me for two days.  By morning I was shocked to discover that I was incapacitated completely; unable without help from Matt to stand up and shuffle to the bathroom.  My hips and knees were locked and in excruciating pain.  I stayed in bed for the next two days and fasted on water.  It took all my strength and tears to be able to climb the tall steps to join the living on the roof top for morning breakfast and sun bath three days later.  My body still in great pain but the fever had broken.

It took three weeks of morning yoga in bed to get my hips and knees unlocked so that I could regain my walking gait and slowly get back into following Matt up great cliffs to photograph the beauty of Bundi’s fort and palace.  My energy was depleted and my body rejected food on a weekly basis with the dreaded “Delhi Belly”.  A month later my wrists and ankles flared up with such pain and swelling that I was unable to grasp the lightest thing to carry, walking and climbing stairs was a painful effort.

Three months later in Jaisalmer I was still suffering, especially with my wrists.  I was sure I had fractured bones.  We got talking with some young local men and described this illness.   They instantly recognized it and the reality of the suffering it delivered.  It was well known throughout Rajasthan, as “Chicun Gunia”.   Matt googled it and it was a mosquito borne viral infection and I qualified for all of its symptoms.  No real remedy but time to get through it; anywhere from three weeks to three weeks and in the case of the elderly or other unfortunates, up to three years!  Please God, let me be cured now!  It was a relief to identify the affliction’s name and know it will pass.

  The Three Beach Witches, Sue, Angie and Mary in Yoga Bliss!

  The Frog Stand – still trying to hold my weight up on this one.

When I arrived in Agonda in early March, I began a focused effort on ridding this nasty bug.  I began taking an Ayurvedic immune system booster called Chyawanprash,  started a daily yoga routine on the beach, swam laps in the Arabian Sea and rested.  Yoga was hard as my joints were not willing to bend very far and my hands/wrists could barely hold my weight in many of the postures.  There were days where I just collapsed and cried face down into my mat.  It was interesting to observe the psychological impact of pain, which created an impulse to avoid doing simple things for fear of the pain it would create.  But each day got better and I got stronger and healthier.

  Ahh the joy of swimming in the warm Arabian Sea!

  My cozy cocoon safely tucked in away from the bad mosquito monsters!

Four months later I have reclaimed my body and strength.  There are days that my joints swell in pain, particularly this week as the monsoon rains have begun.  I still do my yoga for 90 minutes each morning and swim daily.  I sleep under a tightly wrapped mosquito net, burn mosquito coils and candles on my veranda and lather up on deet repellant if I am to be outside in the evening.  Who ever heard of Chicun Gunia?  Lots of Indian people have, but not a word from the western travel medical advisories.  Best to take precautions and avoid this one!

Did you put your mosquito deet on!?