Mumps

For a lay person:

Mumps is a contagious viral infection best known for causing painful swelling of the salivary glands below the ears, giving a puffy-cheeked look. It usually starts with fever, headache and tiredness. Most people recover in one to two weeks, but it can sometimes cause swelling of the testicles or ovaries, meningitis or hearing loss.

For a trained medical person:

Infection with mumps virus, a paramyxovirus spread by respiratory droplets, typically causing parotitis after an incubation of about 16–18 days, with complications including orchitis, oophoritis, aseptic meningitis, encephalitis, pancreatitis and deafness. Diagnosis is clinical with confirmation by PCR from buccal swab or serology. Management is supportive, with isolation; prevention is by MMR vaccination, and cases are notifiable in many countries.

In Chinese medicine:

Liu and Tseng's textbook differentiates this condition into these patterns: Warm Toxins at Exterior; Heat Toxins Accumulation. Treatment follows the pattern a patient presents with, not the Western diagnosis alone.

When to get help: Mumps is vaccine-preventable and notifiable; suspected cases need medical assessment, and anyone with a stiff neck, severe headache, drowsiness, testicular pain or severe abdominal pain should seek urgent care. Chinese medicine is adjunctive at most, and herbs should not be given to children without medical advice.