Malaria from years back?

Question

This is a real long shot I know, but getting desperate.
For the last few years I have been unwell to a degree, starting relatively mildly with a bit of a achy side, had blood taken & my ALT enzymes were high, but nothing else was found despite visiting a liver specialist & having scans. More recently I have been generally unwell, lots of flu like symptoms, stiff achy joints, sore stiff neck, waking in the night sweating heavily.
Had my worst ever night last night, awake all night, sweating, headachy, even had palpatations. Have had lots of blood taken, been screened for some immune disorders after a very nasty anaphylactic shock a few months back but all they find is low red cell count (sometimes)
Occured to me that 12 years back I had a couple of lost days while in the Gambia, put it down to a reaction to the malaria drugs but clutching at straws here, could this be a malaria of some kind knocking my immune system & making me feel so ill, so long after possible infection?

Answer 1

Did you had high fever at night? If you are thinking this could be malaria, I guess you should undergo the blood test for malaria like the peripheral smear or the antibody test for malaria. there are many disease that can cause the low red blood cell count. But you can be sure that it is not any tumor or immune system problems said you mentioned already that your tests came out negative. Hope this helps. God bless

Answer 2

Yes malaria is for life and not just a one hit wonder. You would need to ask the doctors to be tested for it. I take it it was Malarone you had the reaction to 12 or so years ago. Apparantly the dose that was being dished out then was about a 100 times what they give you now. I had some very bad side effects from taking this stuff around the same time. A few people i know suffer from time to time with bad flu like symptoms from time to time and they have all contracted maleria whilst working in Africa. Tropical diseases clinic is probably worth going to, there should be one in your local main hospital.

Answer 3

if you traveled to African and had active malaria and took treatment, i think you should think of other problems like helminths ( Worms) if you never had any Anti-helmintics. A stool analysis would straighten this. you also need a blood smear for P. Falciparum which is the resistant strain of malaria. If you have night sweats and general malaise you should just do a PPD ( Skin test for TB) just to be on the safe side. Hep A is another one that could cause the liver enzymes to be wacky, most especially if you ate raw fruit of undone foods.