I recovered from Covid after 3 weeks. Here’s what helped.

[Turin]

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:

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

X

Great advice Turin. So glad you are on the mend.

I'd add the tip about lying on your front to help with breathing. Also, standing up and raising arms above head helps too (if you have the strength).

All my thoughts to those going through this. To those who ask how you know it's not the flu, it's honestly nothing like the flu. It's like if you tell people you have a headache and they reply "well how do you know it's not a broken leg". Er, because it feels totally different

The response of 111 to your 9 year old son is shocking.

And there are medics on other threads claiming their hospitals are still quite quiet! No understanding that in some parts of the country, services have been completely overrun. And without the lockdown, that would be all parts of the country.

I hope your son recovers emotionally, OP - that must have been terrifying for him.

Thanks for sharing, OP. Glad you're on the mend

I has yiur son shown symptoms too?

How did you get tested OP?

Your*

And that folks is why lockdown had to happen. If 999 was/is giving that advice to children telling them their mother can’t breathe because there was no available staff to call on until they were turning blue!!!!!! Then just imagine what would have happened if 100x the people were calling at the same time.

Fucking hell doesn’t it make you realise why so many young ‘healthy’ people have died at home with that being the advice.

Thank you for posting this OP.
I am very glad you are getting better now and hope you will soon feel fully recovered.
It must have been so traumatic for you and your son to go through that.
Sending my very best wishes to you both x

Agree with @Littleninja1 , I have it and have people saying well how do you know if you haven't been tested - well the GP thinks I'm symtomatic, it's different to any other flu that I've had - whilst it was mostly debilitating for 3 days, I could still get up and downstairs for a short while and nothing in my life has ever made me lose my sense of smell or taste.

I seem to have had it a lot milder than OP. Hope you're feeling back to normal soon! (and me ) .

I'm also a single parent, my daughter has been worried sick bless her she's been braver than me in my eyes. She hasn't shown any symptoms thank goodness.

Thank you for sharing I hope your recovery continues

Thank you OP, I'm glad you're feeling better. Your poor son, he must have been so worried and to get that response... 😱
To those asking how she was diagnosed CV-19, I expect her GP told her/confirmed that's what it was as since tests were reserved for hospital patients.

Nearlyalmost. They want the schools back in 3 weeks. This terrifies me.

DfE is saying on Twitter that schools are NOT going back in three weeks as papers are reporting!

I'm sorry you had to through that however glad to hear you're now on the mend.

The advice you've given is good. The only thing I would add is to be careful about how much paracetamol you take; 4 doses per 24 hour period max. Paracetamol overdoses, even very small ones, can kill.

Oh blueskys thats such a relief. I naiively assumed once bbc and everyone reprted it thered be a grain of truth. Ive been anxious all night.

I can't see why people want to luft any restruction when stories like this show how little help there is.

@Turin thanks so much for sharing your experience.

I have such a bad headache, am weary but not tired, and not so much a cough as a rattle in my lungs, with a very slight temperature. Does that sound like how your symptoms began?

Can i just add that you can’t take paracetamol every 4 hours. 4 hours is the minimum gap between doses. But you can only take a total of 8 paracetamol tablets in 24 hours, which averages out at every 6 hours.

Your poor little boy.

unless her lips are blue and her head has gone floppy we won’t be coming out we are too busy they told a 9 year old this? In these exact words? Really? I find that very surprising.

@Turin
for you both. What a thing to go through. Wishing you all the good things.

@Supersimkin2 I must admit I raised an eyebrow at that sentence too.... not to say it’s impossible but it does seem a little unlikely...

I have watched a YouTube video by an a&e nurse that said to not necessarily take paracetamol to lower fever with this. The reason bring, the fever helps your immune system do what it needs to do to overcome the virus. Reducing fever(in adults) can lead to more complications with covid like the pneumonia.Children can fit with fever so that is different.

Thank you for sharing your experience of recovery, we're not hearing alot of that. My dh's Cousin is a Nurse on the covid ward at our closest hospital, she tested positive on Friday.