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

Good advice and I am glad you are feeling better.

Do be careful with and watchful of your son. I am very concerned for him.

Thank you @katkit I’m so lucky. Despite being a single parent? I had funds for food, meals in the fridge for DS and help from family a phone call away. During my illness I kept thinking of those in more dire situations and kept thanking God that my situation was not worse.

How utterly horrendous it must be for those living in abject poverty without the family or local support to help.

As lovely as my neighbours are, my immediate ones did not want to know me during illness. I don’t blame them they were protecting themselves but they would walk past DS hurriedly who in the garden without even a socially distanced hello.

"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*

We called 111 instead. It took ages to get through, but we finally did and after assessing my symptoms,.....(if you can get up to make a cup of tea, that won't cut it)....they sent an ambulance (Which took 7 hours, but they did come, and they did take me to hospital) By that stage, I couldn't stand without nearly passing out, so that was how bad I was.

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

This is why people are dying at home . Germany is admitting to hospital earlier than this and getting people on oxygen earlier.

Their death rate is 54 people per million, ours is 228 per million.

@starray so glad you are better! How wonderful.

I called 111 twice in the days before my son called 999. The advice was GP referral though. GP advice initially was “if you’re not better in 7 day’s, call us back”.

Please don't ever leave it too late to see someone. Sepsis from pneumonia or a heart attack and organ failure can happen very very rapidly.

OP, glad you are recovering, your poor son must have been terrified.

thanks for your update op.

Turin thank you very much for sharing your experience, it is very, very useful.
Your symptoms may well be classed as mild to moderate in the current context. They don’t sound moderate to me one bit.
I’m so glad you recovered and I’m only posting to say your DS is a real credit to you and such a wonderful, supportive and reliable little boy. He’s been amazing throughout.

To be fair, nobody knows whether this was Covid or not. As far as I can tell, GPs seem to be telling everybody to assume that!!!! Glad you are now ok, but maybe for anyone else, have somebody take your son in rather than telling him that "you might die!!"

I think a complaint would be in order. And the recording will be examined. However much stress the system is under.

Surely someone who is centrally cyanosed is at risk of a respiratory arrest? It’s awful that we’re at a state where this is the advice being given out.

This is the second thread/time I’ve seen someone say they had this advice.

Can’t remember if the first time was in here or in a paper but someone had a paramedic attend and told their partner don’t ring us again unless her lips are going blue!

Bad enough to say that to an adult never mind a kid. And yes I don’t understand it when the hospitals aren’t that full. Nightingale London had 19 patients the other day! Do you think Boris had to wait until his lips were blue?

Thanks @Turin. My first port of call in the inital stages of Covid was when my symptoms were still mild. Temperature and cough. The GP did take it seriously, based on the fact that I have had pneumonia in the past, and they sent me to hospital. The hospital sent me home after assessment and monitoring and antibiotics as I seemed alright. I then got much worse, got a phone call saying it was Covid, and was sent back to hospital again!

A complaint needs to go in I think about this. I hope the press picks up on these sorts of stories as it's shocking.

Glad you are on the mend OP.

Maybe your title should be changed to "might have had"

Why not keep this as a supportive thread

There are plenty of other threads about the failings of the nhs and why and did I hen covid or not

Let’s try and keep this as supportive as possible for the op and others who have just been through a very frightening experience and want to share their experiences

Sorry I don’t meant to jump on your thread op. Your son is a little hero 🦸‍♂️

I am 99.9% sure it was covid. I wasn’t tested

this is exactly what is wrong in this country and why any talk of easing the lockdown are absolutely pointless.

Because we have no test - or nowhere near enough, and no data.
So all the figures we get near-daily are utterly useless.

Glad you are on the mend OP, being responsible for a young child on your own and so ill is hell. You've done well.

If anyone doesn't know, if you get an intense sharp pain just under your breast, in your chest cavity, that could be pleurisy. I'm talking pain so bad that it literally takes your breath away. That's serious. This symptom in context with any other flu or pneumonia or Covid symptoms of course.

What would have really helped me was to have a CPAP machine at home, which people use for sleep apnea. Unfortunately, they are quite expensive!

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

Single parent here and no bloody way would I say this until I was in hospital. You were at home. Absolute drama queen and your poor child suffers as a result

Turin I am so sorry you and your ds had to go through this. What a brave, sensible little boy you h have. I've read many threads on here saying unless you are seriously struggling to breath and turning blue don't bother ringing for an ambulance to hear that is actually your expsleriencs has really shook me up. Which are are you op??

*area

Thank you for sharing this Turin I’m glad you are better

my immediate ones did not want to know me during illness. I don’t blame them they were protecting themselves but they would walk past DS hurriedly who in the garden without even a socially distanced hello.

being scared is not an excuse to be rude with a young child, but you can understand why they had to keep a good 5 m away. Whilst despite many reports many people pretend 2m is enough - when experts are proving it's just not enough

I was also told by 111 and the Gp it sounded like Covid. I would very much have liked confirmation. In hindsight, I wish I had paid the £375 for the tests, which were avail then. But it was just so ridiculously expensive for nothing.

There are a lot of very dimwitted questions on this thread asking about tests.