its hard to believe its been over 2 months since i got sick
i still have these symptoms
malaise and fatigue thats worse in the afternoon and evening
continued shortness of breath if i overexert
i would say my endurance is about 75% of what it was before i got sick
i still have some hoarseness but its better
i still have a reduced appetite
i read that these symptoms are common in people who recover from a covid 19 infection
my malaise and fatigue is complicated by restarting my aricept (donepezil) which i got off of when i was the sickest
after my body readjusts to the aricept which usually takes a couple of months it causes less symptoms
this fatigue is aggravated now by an outbreak of shingles on my forehead or the supraorbital nerve
i recognized it as starting late thursday night since i had 2 pustules with redness pop up on my forehead that were tender
i also had a headache where that nerve that goes up the forehead and into scalp and had eye pain
yes i had the shingles shot when i turned 60
i realized though that i didnt get the 2 shot series which came out a couple of years ago
neither will protect you 100%
the one i got protects you around 50%
the two shot one protects you at a much higher %
yes i can get shingles again
since i was having some eye pain i went to the ophthalmologist the next day
i had no eye involvement yet that he could see
i will do a 10 day course of an antiviral valtrex to slow this down
acetaminophen every 6 hours keeps the pain under control
the lesions and redness and tenderness have almost gone
so
the med valrex and the shingles both can add to the fatigue
yes there are several reports of folks getting shingles after the covid 19 infections
anything that knocks down your immune system can do this
i am hoping since i recognized what this was and jumped on it within a few hours that the meds will work
if you get treatment after 72 hours its less effective
im sure you have seen folks with a bad flare up before and saw how painful this can be
my wife she had it bad once and was in bed and in pain for a week
hopefully i wont do this
this week because of the exertional shortness of breath i saw a cardiologist to evaluate my symptoms to make sure the shortness of breath wasnt cardiac in etiology
the covid 19 causes blood clots which can get in your heart arteries and cause heart attacks
and causes strokes and causes clots in the extremities and causes pulmonary blood clots
it also can cause arrhythmia problems with the electrical system in the heart
most of us has read about what it can do to kids with the kawasaki like syndrome that hits the heart
the cardiologist did a stress echo which does
an echocardiogram before i exercise and after i exercise
a continuous ekg before during and after the stress test
i really was able to go much longer than i really thought i would do
my irregular heart beats are mostly premature atrial contractions which are usually benign
afterwards he gave me a green light to increase my physical activity
now the shortness of breath which is much much better is probably due to a lost of conditioning and probably residual damage done from the covid 19 to the lungs
in most folks that usually returns back to normal
my appetite is better
i am eating more at each meal
i am usually not real hungry but i eat anyway
i am still eating the organic soup kitchen soups once a day since they are loaded with calories and nutrition
i am also loading in calories where i can
when i was at the cardiologist i weighed 3 lbs more than i did 10 days ago
there are a lot of us who have had this covid 19 infection who are having these symptoms
i see malaise and fatigue and shortness of breath as a persistent symptom they have now
i am not complaining
i am happy to be alive
if i am now left with how i am now then i am definitely ok with that
i can live this way and be happy
minus of course the shingles
this morning i read this article which i will link here
it was written by the physician author of the book being mortal
many of you have probably read this book
if you havent you should
he works at brigham young hospital system in boston which has one of the lowest rate of infection among its health care workers
what they are doing to keep down the infections we should all be doing
if we are going to open up our economy this is what we all have to do
its simple and not much to ask to save our jobs and save our loved ones lives
each thing is like a leg on a chair
do all of them you can sit in the chair
dont do one and the chair topples over
wear a mask
do hygiene like wash your hands and disinfect high use areas
keep a safe distance from others
stay home if you have symptoms
each by itself doesnt help as much
as
if you do all four together
dont do one then it doesnt help
i look at all those folks who got let out this weekend at the beaches and the bars and the stores
i notice they all arent do these 4 simple things
i expect from looking at these pictures and videos that you can draw a circle on the map where they are at
i saw a lot of high risk folks in those pictures and videos
you will see an outbreak in about 2-4 weeks there
so
in summary
wear a mask is that too much to ask of you
do hygiene like wash your hands and clean counter tops
keep a safe distance from others
stay home if you have symptoms
maybe its not just the deaths we should be looking at
it may also be the disability that folks are suffering from who have had the covid 19 infection
in spain it appears that only 5% of the population even got the infection
but
look at all the deaths and illness it caused there
this is the most highly contagious disease that anyone alive has ever seen
worse than the plague worse than the flu worse than polio
all we are being asked is to do these 4 simple things
thats not to much to ask is it
just
to save our jobs
to save our loved ones lives
the organicgreen doctor
No comments:
Post a Comment