Calling all Coronavirus Survivors: Tell us your tale of COVID

Everything else
1

About a month ago I was diagnosed with COVID-19. I woke up one morning with a slight cough, and the next day developed a low grade fever. Not being an idiot, I decided to get tested, and four days later they informed me I had tested positive.

Thankfully it was a mild case (low-grade fever, headaches, body aches, elevated heart rate, slight cough, fatigue) so I was able to recuperate at home. The fever and body aches were tough, but it was the fatigue that really kicked my ass. Most of my symptoms had passed after about 10 days, but the fatigue lingered on for another two weeks.

Even today, almost a month later, I still sleep about 2-3 hours more than I used to and I haven’t quite gotten my stamina back. I’ve also noticed that my heart rate remains elevated. I’ve always had a relatively high pulse rate, typically around 70 BPM while resting. Since COVID, though, I’m seeing around 80-85 BPM (while I was sick it was in the 95-100 BPM range).

And it seems I’m not the only one. There are multiple reports of people with seemingly mild cases of COVID-19 who continue to experience symptoms long after they should have recovered:

I suppose the purpose of this thread is to hear from other QT3’ers who’ve tested positive with the Coronavirus. Mainly I’d like to know: What were your symptoms? Did you recover quickly? Do you still have lingering issues? If so, for how long?

Perhaps we can offer advice to others who have recently contracted COVID, or offer support to those who are recovering. To be honest, though, I’m mainly curious to see if others are still having issues long after they’ve “recovered”.

2

@HideousRex, glad to hear that you recovered from COVID and are still with us. I hope that what you are dealing with is something that will eventually go away as you continue to heal.

3

I’m sorry you got it, happy it was mild. But it sure seems that even mild cases aren’t really that mild. Thanks for sharing your story.

4

My husband’s aunt, in her 60s I think, had it back in May sometime, I think. Or at least they’re fairly certain she had it. His family is in the UK, and she works in a chemists there. She had all the symptoms, but she didn’t meet the criteria to get tested (at the time), so it was never confirmed, only assumed. She recovered at home, but was miserable throughout.

He was speaking to his mum the other day and she said his aunt was still having trouble with shortness of breath and fatigue these several months later. :(

5

Have not had it (so far!) but I go back in the classroom Monday. We will be tested once or twice a week, as will the students, and there is a massive and confusing and disruptive (but necessary) cluster of systems, procedures, and protocols in place to try to manage things. Where I live we have a very low rate of infection and a small population, but of course even at a small college like mine students will come from all over the country. Some are here already in quarantine.

I certainly hope I’m not back in this thread in a few weeks with the story of my case.

7

I was a presumed positive back in April, around the early portion of the peak in Massachusetts. I had enough symptoms, a couple of potential exposure vectors, testing was still an issue, and I wasn’t in bad enough shape to need treatment, so my doc basically said to just stay home, don’t be dumb, and call him if anything got worse. Thankfully, it didn’t get much worse, but it was about 3 weeks at a baseline shortness of breath, cough, fatigue, and general achy soreness. I also had pinkeye for a week, which is not a common symptom but has been seen, and was the first time I’ve ever had it.

I popped a fever over 100 exactly one day, though I normally run well below 98.6 and I was consistently in the 99s. Despite feeling generally miserable, I was able to work (remotely, obviously, and often from bed) the entire time. The most stressful part was that we had no child care (which has otherwise been my parents this summer) for five weeks or so between onset of symptoms and two-weeks-after-all-clear. Neither my wife nor daughter developed any symptoms; we were as careful as possible but there’s only so much you can do with a one-year-old around.

I feel fortunate that my experience was manageable and while I more likely than not had it, I haven’t been assuming immunity and I’ve been continuing to take all of the precautions. I haven’t seen any lingering stamina or breathing issues in day to day life. Hard to say if there’s anything under exertion because the worst thing that has happened to my health in 2020 (and I am saying this a bit glibly given the thread but it’s true, physically but especially mentally) has been losing the gym for, what, five months now. Morbidly curious to see how my lungs/cardio hold up when I get back into any kind of shape, but it feels like it’s going to be well into 2021 before I get an answer on that.

8

This was almost exactly my experience, Kyrios. For the first week my fever barely broke 100, and things seemed to be improving. But on the seventh day I woke with a fever around 101.5 and was completely miserable for the next two days. At that point the fever broke, though, and I slowly started feeling better…

10

I am confident I caught the plague bug back in March. I first expressed symptoms on March 10th. I had breakfast that morning with my octogenarian father that morning and worked that day (Uber driver). I noticed I was feeling increasingly cranky during the day. I my first tell was that I bought a pack of Red Vines for the first time and they seemed to leave a very foamy feeling my mouth and I thought “Ugh, who likes this shit?!” Well, it wasn’t the Red Vines. That night a I had chest congestion that seemed to be bottom up in my lungs. I also had a bubbly, popping noise when I breathed. My temperature never ran above 100 degrees. I also had chest pressure. I got over it in about 10 days. Two days later I got bronchitis. At least I knew what was going on. It was top down congestion upper respiratory stuff I had before. It took 10 days to recover from that. Good times!
I am so very thankful I did not spread it to my wife, daughter, and dad. I do not want to have giving anyone COVID on my conscience particularly folks in the at-risk category.

11

Here is my story so far. Having managed to avoid infection for two years I tested positive last month after returning from a business trip to Detroit.

Friday June 24 I started experiencing symptoms of a cold. That Saturday I started feeling fatigued and tested positive. The next day I started Paxlovid and my symptoms abated. And I thought that I was in the clear.

Then on Friday, July 8 the symptoms returned and in addition to flu like symptoms and fatigue I had a powerful pain in my lower back just north of my right hip. Like wolfing ibuprofen and heating pad bad. The stretching exercises I do to deal with other back issues did not alleviate the pain.

On July 11 I got a PCR test and it came back positive. The other symptoms are gone now and I tested negative this morning using an Abbot home test kit. But the back pain hasn’t let up.

So I am going to see my doctor this morning.

12

In Jan of '21 I was feeling punky. I just felt off, had no appetite, and was often out of breath. Just as I was thinking I should get tested…

…I collapsed onto the floor of my office. Turned out I had a small stroke (doctors are still split as to whether it was Covid-related).

After being rushed by ambulance to the border, then to a second ambulance to a hospital in Goodyear,AZ, it was confirmed that not only had I had a stroke, but also Covid-related pneumonia.

This was back when hospitals were still flooded with patients, and I spend the first two days in a bed in the hall before a room became available. The pneumonia symptoms were pretty mild, and after a week I tested negative again and was shipped off to a rehab facility, where I spent 3 weeks learning to walk and talk again.

As I said, I was fortunate in that the stroke was a mild one. The only lasting effects are balance issues, a slight stammer, occasional aphasia, and when tired I sometimes slur my words. (No, honey, I’m not drunk, just tired :))

13

Jesus, man, that’s awful. Glad to hear you recovered.

This is why everybody should get paxlovid if they become symptomatic, now that it’s available. COVID is associated with all sorts of cardiovascular problems from blood clots, and of course long COVID is a concern too.

It seems pretty clear now that 5 days isn’t sufficient for many people. If you rebound a week after recovering, consider taking paxlovid again.

14

Wow, I’m very glad to see that was a mild stroke and you’re doing relatively well now. Stroke run on one side of my family and I’m very wary about them myself. Do you remember having any other symptoms in the days or weeks prior (aka TIA or similar?) Based on the clotting, I think Stusser’s comment is key and the doctors are probably torn on saying it’s COVID related because they don’t know you’re full history.

Again, I’m very glad to hear you are okay, Sonoftgb

15

Thanks, all.

16

Damn dude, glad you’re still with us.

17

My Tale of Covid

Made it all the way to the first week of July 2022.

It was the 4th of July party.

I woke up wednesday morning of the 6th, and coughed up a pretty decent blob of phlegm/blood. (note this blood issue is not entirely uncommon for me, as I have chronic nosebleeds that due to my cpap therapy can sometimes end up with a blob of yuck right as I wake up.

As the day went on my through was a bit sore, and I chalked it up to the blood, I assumed that my cpap situation was just bad, and my chinstrap hadn’t kept my mouth shut, and things got a bit dry.

As the day went on though, the soreness only got worse, and I went to bed uncomfortable.

Thursday, I woke up sore and tired, went into work (working from home) and basically stared at my screen unable to comprehend what was going on. Pretty bad brain fog, things just took a lot longer to figure out. I checked out halfway through the day to sleep. That afternoon I took an at home test that confirmed I was positive. Called my wife, and she came home from work, as she said she had a scratchy throat. She never tested positive at home, but definitely had Covid.

That night I had chills/fever (low, 99-100F) and slept ok, woke up friday SUPER sore. And took the day off. I had asked my Dr. if I should take paxlovid, and they prescribed me. I took my first dose Friday afternoon. As the day went on I felt better than worse than better etc.

That is probably my biggest take-away from covid-19 is that it was very up and down. There would be times where I would feel a lot better, and then mere hours later be tired again. Like I had regressed.

Aside from the absolutely terrible paxlovid-mouth, I didn’t really have any symptoms late saturday onward. The only lingering effects were just how easy it was to get tired/winded doing normal stuff. Walking the dog was tougher, cooking required a sit down sometimes. I would say by about a week out from symptoms showing it was mostly going away, and now 2 weeks out, I feel basically normal.

The paxlovid mouth was not fun though, I am happy that it probably helped me get over it faster, but that bitter taste in my mouth all day was just bad. I never lost my sense of taste/smell though. My wife did, and it took a week or so to come back.

18

Man oh man, what a hairy ride you have had. Though it sounds like you have largely recovered you also dodged a helluva bullet. Mazel tov!

19

My doc is skeptical that the back issue is directly related to COVID, as in a kidney or liver issue, and more due to the inactivity over the past month and resultant muscle spasms I am experiencing. I’m a pretty active guy so sitting around for a month is unusual for me. But she acknowledged that nobody really knows what the virus is doing to us over the long term.

So to figure that out, I am getting some imaging to rule out stenosis and impinged nerve(s) as a factor and will see a physical therapist to see if I can work my way to a happier back.

Bottom line, you don’t want to get COVID and despite the weird aftertaste, get Paxlovid if you test positive. In my case I do think a 5 day regimen of Paxlovid was too short…

20

Good job getting paxlovid!

I can’t emphasize this enough, everybody should immediately take paxlovid when they become symptomatic.

21

Definitely not everybody.

The drug has an insane amount of interactions.

You really need to make sure your doctor/prescribing pharmacist is up to date on your current meds/interactions. As well as double checking the list yourself.

22

Thanks. It could have gone a lot worse.

Funny story - Shortly after my admission to rehab and in the process of being evaluated, I was given the same cognitive test Trump claims to have aced. Part of the test was a series of drawings of various objects, in alphabetical order, that I had to identify.

Did fine, until we got to the Y’s, and I was presented with a drawing of a yoke - not the egg kind but one of these:

image

I had no clue, and when the therapist told me what it was, all I could reply was “I’m from Brooklyn. I couldn’t have identified that before the stroke”.

Much hilarity ensued.