Of all the related conditions, is chikungunya one of the better or worse ones to have, in terms of effects on health and well-being?

Bad Disease: Patients of mine who have had this would rather have had dengue fever multiple times. This is not a fun illness.

Depends...: ...On who the patient is, and what diseases you're comparing it to. For children and adolescents it is typically mild and self-limiting. In old people with other medical problems it can cause significant issues.

Prolonged Joint pain: Even though it is almost never fatal, the protracted joint pain lasting weeks, months or even a year or more & the extreme fatigue with paradoxical insomnia, frustrating altered taste long after fever, terrible headache, rash, chills, muscle pains have gone especially for the middle age and older unlucky soul, makes me agree with the authors above. Chikv is not an illness for the faint of heart.