Niamh Spence
WARNING: Contains graphic images
A man suffering from the Monkeypox virus has urged others to get the vaccine while they can after sharing his symptoms.
Lake Javan, from Chicago, showed exactly what the Monkeypox virus can do, before urging his followers to 'save themselves from the pain' by getting the vaccine.
In one of his pictures, he can be seen measuring his left index figure next to his right. Yet his left finger is swollen, oozing and bloody with the monkeypox virus. In another snap, a selfie shows open and oozing sores on his cheek and chin.
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In his tweet, Javan wrote: "So if anybody thinks monkeypox is like a joke - it’s sadly not.. pictures are kind of graphic but just to give you a real idea. If I had time to get the vaccine before this I 100% would of to skip all this pain/possible scarring."
He added in reply to his own tweet: "Also this doesn’t show the lesions inside my mouth or small ones on my arms."
Javan also told how his symptoms began: "Symptoms started last Wednesday: beginning with EXTREME chills, I’m talking turning the heat up to 90 in the house.
"Next chronic fatigue and migraine level headaches and body pain. I basically slept for 5 days straight - only getting up for some water and Tylenol.."
He added: "When it wasn’t chills it was waking up in pools of sweat, during the sickness stage large puss filled bumps formed on my face and on the inside of my mouth - at first more unsightly and annoying than anything, but as things have progressed out of the sickness stage they’ve progressed to extremely high levels of pain and now bleed rather than pus.
"It’s made eating or drinking anything nearly impossible without wanting to cry. As for the lesions on the rest of my body, they’re smaller and at more of an itchy stage as of right now."
He then explained how he was one week into having Monkeypox, with recovery still expected to take a couple of weeks and it could potentially get worse before it gets better. "The next week could become much more painful," he said.
"As for my finger - initially the doctors thought it was a very infected paronychia but after slicing apart my finger they found little to no pus just immense amounts of pressure from the pox that created a hematoma in my finger. Currently monitoring for infection to prevent sepsis."
Javan's tweet isn't the only insight into what Monkeypox looks like. A London man has also shared his horrifying experience, including rare symptoms.
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