18 March 2013

Papaya Leaf Juice as Cure for Dengue Fever

I just saw a friend's "share" on Facebook today on an article about papaya leaf juice saving a patient who was critically ill with dengue fever.

I should have written about this episode earlier but now is as good a time as any.

My own daughter came down with dengue fever in the first year that we moved to Ipoh. Our house was built on virgin land, and all around us was still plenty of empty land filled with large shady trees, tall grass and shrubs. Peaceful and green yes, but also abuzz with wildlife, including mosquitoes.

It was of course harrowing when the diagnosis was made that my daughter had dengue fever. We admitted her into hospital straightaway and she was started on the drip.

At the same time, my maid (bless her) told me that back home in Indonesia, they would drink papaya leaf juice to cure dengue fever. I was game for anything. I have never had any aversion to traditional or folk medicine in the first place.

So at home, my maid plucked several papaya leaves, washed them with tap water and pounded them to squeeze out its bright green juice. Several leaves just yield one or two teaspoonfuls of juice.

We fed them to my girl. We mixed some honey into the juice because it is extremely bitter!

I can't remember what my girl's platelet count was that first night. But it was of course low. Some time after taking the juice it was  time to do another blood test. Her platelet count starting climbing up! She was discharged after 2 days.

We don't know the exact dosage of the juice to consume but my maid said just to drink as much as you can!

After my little girl recovered, I was also asking around on how to strengthen her ("poh" in Cantonese) general health after this episode. I was given advice by our insurance agent who herself recovered from dengue fever.

I was told to buy 2 frogs from the market and 3-4 small bitter gourds.

Double boiled frog and bitter gourd soup
  • Clean the frog meat and cut it into medium-sized pieces. 
  • Wash, remove the seeds and thinly slice the small bitter gourds. 
  • Arrange the bitter gourd and frog meat in layers into a double boiler. 
  • Add a small bowl of water and double boil it for about 1.5-2 hours. 
  • Add some salt if you like (you may also add a few pieces of goji berry/ wolf berry and Chinese red dates)
  • Drink the soup once a week for several weeks after recovery.

Dengue is rampant in this part of the world and there is yet no absolute prevention against it. But God has given us natural ingredients to counter it. I hope this traditional knowledge will help.

There are many other testimonials about the efficacy of papaya leaf juice: dengue-fever-remedyTop7 natural remedies for denguewhy-pawpaw-leaves-juice-cures-dengue-fever.

>>>  I am updating my post today as I came across another folk remedy for dengue which sounds simple and interesting, and backed by testimonials.

One Filipino remedy is to use a common weed that we can find in Malaysia. It goes by many names - tawa tawa, snake weed, gatas-gatas, patikan - and it looks like this. I am sure you will recognise it instantly. You will probably have battled to pull it out of your lawn or crevices in your cement sidewalk or driveway.

The recipe for the tawa tawa tea can be found at tawa-tawa-dengue-treatment. I have copied it here:
• Take 5 to 6 whole Tawa Tawa plants. Cut off the roots
• Wash and clean
• Fill a pot with clean water
• Boil the Tawa Tawa for one minute in a slow rolling boil
• Cool
• Let the dengue fever victim drink only the Tawa Tawa water for 24 hours
• Sip 1 to 1.5 glasses of Tawa Tawa water every hour

Newest

The Institute for Medical Research in KL recently carried out research into the papaya leaf juice folk remedy, publishing their findings in March 2013, in an Egyptian-based medical journal called, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Hindawi Publishing Corporation.

“It can be concluded that the administration of 'carica papaya' leaf juice in dengue fever is safe and does induce the rapid increase in platelet count. It may play a valuable role in the management of dengue fever in the near future,” the Malaysian team wrote in their concluding remarks of the paper.

The news link for this report: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/papaya-tree-leaves-a-way-to-cure-dengue-062124867.html

(images from wikimedia.org and http://mui25.blogspot.com/2011/07/remedy-for-dengue-fever.html)

11 comments:

  1. hi there!
    Finally I'm back to Ipoh.

    Need your insights or thoughts / ideas about kindergarten to standard one.. what am I suppose to see in her development. Should be able to read and write and count before standard one?

    Whats with kumon, smart reader?

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  2. Hi Huba-Huba! Welcome back to Ipoh, the city of white coffee and delicious food! Hahaha...but of course you knew all that.

    Well, well, that's quite a lot of insight you want...

    Education...first off u will see a huge difference between Malaysian schooling and Australian schooling. There's definitely more academic stress here than down under. Your child MUST be able to read, write and count the basics (1 to 10 at least, better if to 20) before Standard One (my son had already memorized the times table before Standard One!) This she should be able to achieve under any reasonably good kindy in Ipoh.

    I remember you said you would be sending here to a regular school, and not a vernacular school. So she only needs to learn BM and English, lucky for you. You and I had discussed kindies before, so I shan't go thru that again.

    As for Kumon and Smart Reader, they are hugely popular here in Malaysia, altho my own kids did not go for either. I guided them in their reading,taught them with flash cards, and read with them. I am still not persuaded as to the necessity or efficacy of mental arithmetic. But I guess any mental stimulation is good!

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  3. Initially I registered for KinderLand. Then last minute discussion we decided to send my daughter to Tenby Kinder. She started mid-Feb, she is happy no problem. But, after attending kinder for 3 weeks & 1 sports day she was diagnosed with chick pox (mummy as well).

    How, she's all OK now. I noticed some small improvement in my child, BUT since I'm paying ALOT for Tenby I expect MORE! However, I cant expect too much since she just started + she got chic pox.

    You guide your kids how to read, interesting.Have you considered guiding other kids (hint2x)..

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    Replies
    1. Oh dear, poor baby! chicken pox...but when kids start kinder or school, they tend to get sick more in the initial months. Naturally, being exposed to so many other kids.
      Hey, do tell me what you think about Tenby Kinder, since it does COST quite a LOT. hahaha...

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  4. Hi, came across your blog. Similarly, am in KL now but should be moving back to Ipoh in the near future. Tons of questions to ask you, if you dont mind sharing.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Jen, sure no problem! When are you moving to Ipoh? Are you native to Ipoh?

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    2. Thanks loads. Yea am from Ipoh originally. How many months roughly would I need to prepare the entire move, i.e. changing schools for my kids etc? Do you have gmail where we can chat perhaps?

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  5. Basically I'm NOT HAPPY with Tenby. Too long to write. I'll comment on this issue later. But, to give you an idea, I'll give you one example.

    Before going into Tenby, we taught my daughter to use the word "eraser" whenever she does her drawings. After 3 weeks +, she now says "rubber". I corrected her. She said 'No Daddy, Teacher J says its rubber!'.

    So, that's Tenby! Welcome back to Malaysia to me! :)

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  6. Hi Huba Huba.

    Hmmm, sorry to hear that you are not too satisfied with Tenby, considering you are paying a lot more for it. But then again, you know la the standard of English in Malaysia since our dear govt did goodness knows what to our education system!! I am lucky to possess very good English.

    Have you even spoken to some of the teachers in our Sekolah Sekolah Kebangsaan?

    Let me know more about Tenby, Huba Huba. We should start a post entitled "Tenby" shall we??

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  7. I haven’t checked in here for some time as I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are good quality. Have you ever considered to invest in Koh Samui Luxury Property for Sale? You deserve it my friend
    http://www.samuiproperty.asia/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Cinderella, thanks for checking in.

    As for your investment proposal, I am a rather risk averse investor and I don't have millions sitting around to enable me to spend a few hundred thousand that might potentially just burn. But thanks for the invite.

    ReplyDelete