Monsoon fever can be misleading.

Fever during the monsoon season in India can be deceptive as malaria, viruses causing dengue, chikungunya and jaundice, and bacteria causing typhoid can all produce fever in this season,

Following are the Do and Don’t to follow if you have fever in the monsoon season: 

1. No antibiotic should be started unless a diagnosis of typhoid is confirmed. 

2. Cough, eye redness and nasal discharge can also be present in viral disorders. 

3. In dengue, one may have pain with the eye movement. 

4. In chikungunya, patients may have fever, rashes and joint pains. The joint pains will typically increase on compression of the wrist joint. 

5. Malaria fever may present with chills and rigors, with no toxemia in between the fever episodes. 

6. In jaundice, fever normally disappears by the time jaundice appears clinically. 

7. In typhoid, patient looks toxic and the pulse rate may be relatively low compared to the fever. 

8. Fever medicines like aspirin should not be given in monsoon season as many fevers may have low platelet counts. 

9. Most viral disorders are self–limiting and resolve within a week. 

10. In most monsoon related viral disorders, treatment is adequate hydration. 

11. Fever in the setting of chronic medical disease should not be ignored and shown to the doctors at the earliest.