Anxiety about underlying conditions

[Wheezycheezeball]

I’ve namechanged because I’m usually quite cheery and sarcy and this is unusually angsty and miserable for me.

I’m looking for ways to easy my anxiety about covid. For background four of us & 2 dogs live in a tiny 2 bed house with one loo. Myself and my two kids are asthmatic. I also recently started to take biologic immune suppressant medication for RA. My partner is an recently qualified anaesthetist in a large city hospital with no health issues. I spend my day surrounded by self centred students who believe they’re invincible and that this doesn’t affect them.

I fully expect covid will come into my household eventually, most likely due to my children picking it up from school/nursery and while I’d hope for them it would be no worse than a bad cold of which we have many, I’d be like a dead woman walking if they or my partner get it. I suspect health care workers on the frontline are at high risk making my partner a huge risk too.

We’ve discussed him living elsewhere if it all kicks off at his workplace but I’m still a disabled woman needing help with two children and there is no one apart from him.

I don’t even know where to begin with planning for this. If any one of my family get it, I’m going to get it being the primary carer to my kids. There is no one to help out and by the time they’re symptomatic it will be too late for me and I’ll be on my way to getting ill with it too. There are no specific statistics for younger people with underlying health conditions and people only ever talk about the elderly. I feel like knowing the stats would help my anxiety, even if they weren’t good.

I phoned the rheumatology helpline last week and they haven’t called back. I suspect they’re inundated with worried people. I’d like to know whether to stop taking the medicine or whether the fact it stops inflammation might actually help in an odd way.

I wouldn’t even know what to do with my dogs as there’s no one to take them.

I feel like I am on death row waiting my turn and I’m struggling with that right now.

I am really worried too, I have MS, and take a disease modifying drug, that suppresses my immune system. I am staying at home, you can only do your best to avoid it. Hopefully in a few weeks it will die down and life can go back to be as normal as possible.

Do whatever you can to keep yourself busy, perhaps try to avoid the news if it causes you further anxiety OP, it’s not easy I know.

Good luck, you are making a positive decision to control your condition as much as you can.

They are looking at TNF inhibitors as a prophylactic for Coronavirus.

So I’ve been reading a lot. I find mixed opinion on biologic medication but I have read from quite a few sources that they’re trialling chloroquines to see if it slows the progress of the disease. Again results are quite unclear but it’s a start. This includes hydroxychloriquine which is prescribed for RA and Lupus.

@Purp1e

anakinra (Kineret) is a modified version of a natural human protein that blocks receptors for the cytokine IL-1. It’s FDA-approved for rheumatoid arthritis and a multisystem inflammatory disease in infants.