I hope I can help in some ways as I recovered from the awful virus. I had it for three weeks and believe I caught it from colleagues/students at school who presented mild symptoms. The virus attacked me very slowly (headaches and fatigue very normal with teachers) and the aggressively- coughing and flu like symptoms. I was in bed for weeks after.
It was so bad at one point I gave my DS (single parent) the “if Mummy dies” talk. Breaks my heart that he had to hear those words.
So I just want to share what helped me in case anything can alleviate your pain:
- Plenty of fluids despite making me vomit. The emptying of my stomachs helped clear mucus in my lungs/throat and helped me breathe. The only food I could graze on was flat breads or fruit.
- Antibiotics- the GP said this was to treat a secondary bacterial infection on my lungs in the second week which helped me breath. It did.
- Paracetamol x2 every four hours. Some days I was so weak it would take me two hours at 4am to take these. During the day DS was trying to nurse me the best he could.
- Lucozade. I could not eat and my sugar levels were desperately low. Some days/hours I had no idea where DS was (big garden) as I was so lethargic and fatigued. The lucozade gave me the sugar rush I needed to gradually get up and try and be a parent to him. He is 9.
- Steaming. My friend recommended doing this with whole cloves as this is used for colds in her culture. Again helped massively when I had the energy to boil the water and place in a bowl.
- Turn of sky news if you have it! The sight of the giant red virus cell as their background was nauseating! Turn off the news in general. It doesn’t help morale hearing about death rates.
- Have a heated pad or hot water bottle on stand by if you do get the chills. I had a microwaveable heat pad used for pets.
- Don’t be afraid to call nhs for advice if you think you are getting worse. At one point, my son called 999 and said “my mum can’t breath”. He was told “unless her lips are blue and her head has gone floppy we won’t be coming out we are too busy”. My poor love having to listen to that.
However, It helped me focus on getting better massively as I understood the nhs was on its knees and my recovery was going to be better at home even though I was gasping for breath.
- As my course of antibiotics finished and the steaming was helping, I started to do things like clean up and wash clothes. Don’t. Stop. They will exhaust you. Baby steps for at least a week as you will get a false sense of confidence thinking you are better and then relapse. This happened to me 3 times.
Hope this helps someone who needed hope that the chances of you getting better are higher than if you don’t.
Feel free to ask me any questions.
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