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Long Covid

God’s Girl

God’s Girl

New Member
I’ve just turned the corner and am finally feeling better after about 9 months of diagnosed long Covid and related health issues. I also have chronic Lymes. I’m noticing that I get overwhelmed much quicker than before Covid and am much more prone to outbursts and fleeing conversations. I used to mask my emotions better than I can now. I’m wondering if others have similar experiences and if you’ve developed coping tools that you’d like to share. I had a melt down at church that shocked me and everyone else. I’m struggling to learn how to navigate this site so it may take me awhile to see comments if anyone shares. Thanks everyone!
 
A fair while ago I posted a thread asking a very similar question.

I don't know If I've ever had Covid, never even been tested, so I don't have that problem. But I noticed in general that as I'm getting older I'm becoming a lot less tolerant of the things that upset me. I wondered if it was in part just Grumpy Old Man syndrome.

The question I asked everyone is - Am I normal?

Most of them said yes.
 
I'm sorry you're going through this. It sounds awful, especially having chronic Lyme on top of everything.
I hope you continue to feel better. I'm not in the medical field so I don't have any great advice, but I'm going through a similar experience, with the health-related emotional stuff.

I was literally just telling a friend from this forum about how having a hysterectomy has affected my emotional reactions to things.
Since I was basically plunged into sudden menopause, at 28 years old, I am pretty emotionally unhinged right now, and being on estrogen has only exacerbated it. I'm having a lot of outbursts now, not just anger but I'm also prone to crying fits and I'm more insecure, and have put on a lot of weight.
I'm working on this with my doctors and hopefully it will even out soon.

Sorry that I don't have any comforting advice but I hope sharing my story will at least help you realize that you're not alone. A lot of women struggle with medical issues that affect our emotions.

Like Outdated, I don't know for a fact if I have ever had covid, but I have also gotten less tolerant of certain things with age, and more prone to having outbursts about them. I was relatively level-headed for most of my 20s, but the closer I get to 30, the more compelled I feel to speak my mind about things that upset me.
It is normal, as far as I'm concerned.
 
God’s Girl said:
I’ve just turned the corner and am finally feeling better after about 9 months of diagnosed long Covid and related health issues. I also have chronic Lymes. I’m noticing that I get overwhelmed much quicker than before Covid and am much more prone to outbursts and fleeing conversations. I used to mask my emotions better than I can now. I’m wondering if others have similar experiences and if you’ve developed coping tools that you’d like to share. I had a melt down at church that shocked me and everyone else. I’m struggling to learn how to navigate this site so it may take me awhile to see comments if anyone shares. Thanks everyone!
Click to expand...
Yes, even with neurotypicals, behaviors, moods, thinking, is affected. Basically, it's a result of brain inflammation, but even inflammation throughout the body, blood vessels, liver, lungs, etc. Nothing is back to normal for many months. I've known a physician and a nurse practitioner that had to go on leave for over 6 months, their brain was in such a fog that they were a danger to themselves and their patients.

I had CoVID-19 back in October of 2020 and it wasn't until March of 2021 before I started to feel "normal". People would walk up to me, "Are you OK?" "You don't seem yourself." The later part of it, you just get used to the feeling, but little things like mood, driving skills, decision making, exercise tolerance, inflammatory gut issues, everything is a bit "off".

If you haven't tried fasting, this helps tremendously. Once you get past 18hrs or so, your inflammatory mediators downregulate and your human growth hormone rises. After 36hrs, your dopamine rises as well. Any aches and pains are pretty much gone, your brain is running on ketones, and your brain is significantly more focused. Having said that, I wouldn't just jump into a long fast without working yourself up to it. Try12hrs, 16hrs, 20hrs (one meal a day), and then work yourself up to 36hrs, 48hrs, etc. Most people who regularly fast don't find much more benefit past 3 days, then ease yourself back into a 1-meal a day regimen. It's probably the best way to dramatically decrease the inflammation from long CoVID, auto-immune diseases, arthritis, IBS, etc.
 
God’s Girl said:
I used to mask my emotions better than I can now. I’m wondering if others have similar experiences and if you’ve developed coping tools that you’d like to share. I had a melt down at church that shocked me and everyone else.
Click to expand...
That's interesting. Glad you're feeling better. I strongly suspect that I had long covid back in 2020-21 (I spent months completely exhausted and a bunch of other symptoms) and I've never been "myself" as much as I have been since then. Maybe there's a connection there too - then again it might be the result of a combination of things, including the impact of the covid "era", the lockdowns etc.
 
I've found that the post-covid convalescing time is shortened quite a bit, when I've taken the homeopathic remedy "Oscillococinum". It's sold with the flu remedies. Take a little tube of it 3x a day. It really does help.
 
phantom said:
Long COVID is just fear mongering.
Click to expand...

Long Covid is real, recognized by the CDC, the AMA, and medical professionals around the world. Check out the Mayo Clinic's website or other respected, legitimate websites for information.

One of the worst things about the pandemic is the politicizing of health issues, ignorant denial and deliberate misinformation about it.
 
God’s Girl said:
I’ve just turned the corner and am finally feeling better after about 9 months of diagnosed long Covid and related health issues. I also have chronic Lymes. I’m noticing that I get overwhelmed much quicker than before Covid and am much more prone to outbursts and fleeing conversations. I used to mask my emotions better than I can now. I’m wondering if others have similar experiences and if you’ve developed coping tools that you’d like to share. I had a melt down at church that shocked me and everyone else. I’m struggling to learn how to navigate this site so it may take me awhile to see comments if anyone shares. Thanks everyone!
Click to expand...

You're not alone! While rare, long Covid has adversely affected many people. It may last a month or several months but it will eventually resolve. Keep on taking good care of yourself, plenty of rest, good diet, try to reduce stressful experiences. It's good to talk about it and work your way through it.
 
phantom said:
Long COVID is just fear mongering.
Click to expand...
;) Well, it can be if you're not putting things into perspective. It's actually a real thing. I went through it, and known a few that have, as well. Having said that, the vast majority of people who do get CoVID will never experience it.

I see where you might be going with that statement, though. It's sort of like all the hospitalizations and associated/causative deaths from CoVID. If you look at the raw numbers, it is hard to comprehend those sorts of numbers, millions. However, putting things back into perspective, comparing that to total population numbers, it was only a tiny percentage. We can't live our lives in fear. That much is clear. We all have to do our risk analysis as it pertains to ourselves and the life we lead. As much as our respiratory care department was absolutely gutted from the CoVID experience, loosing over 40% of our staff simply giving up on healthcare. I too, have to keep things in perspective. Our hospital is a referral center for the sickest of the sick, things were highly concentrated. So yes, we had all the refrigeration trucks lined up outside our hospital full of the dead. We had 3 hour waits in our emergency rooms. We had ambulances lined up around the hospital. We had the National Guard helping out. It sucked.

So, despite that experience, we still can't live our lives in fear. We can live through things, learn, make some mistakes, and gain some wisdom though.
 
I miss the lock downs, they only lasted a couple of months in my state, I got ripped off.
 
Outdated said:
I miss the lock downs, they only lasted a couple of months in my state, I got ripped off.
Click to expand...

My state did not impose a statewide lockdown, but many cities and towns here did so. My family implemented our own rules (masks and social distancing) and self-imposed lockdowns during the worse of the pandemic.

My home state of Mississippi had the highest per capita Covid death rate in the USA. Maybe a statewide lockdown would have prevented many Covid illnesses and deaths but we'll never know that with certainty.
 
phantom said:
How did you know it was related to covid? I see lots of opportunity for people to blame (even imagine) lots of unrelated health conditions having had covid.
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Good question. If you are questioning "association vs causation", you have to look at what are the markers of CoVID infections within the body. You can look at how CoVID stimulates the immune system, specific inflammatory markers, etc. which is actually different than say, other seemingly similar presenting viral infection syndromes. As a respiratory therapist, we learned that CoVID pneumonia/pneumonitis, aka "CoVID lung" is quite a bit different in terms of the effects upon the air sacks (alveoli) and airways system as compared to say, ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) even though, as viewed upon X-rays and subjective exam, appear remarkably similar. We had to learn to adjust our ventilator settings differently. So, we have also learned over time and experience that CoVID infections are a global phenomenon, heart, lungs, brain, blood vessels, clotting factors, inflammatory mediator production, etc. We have learned how "long CoVID" presents as people have visited their physicians, have had blood tests, imaging, relevant history, etc. We know that "long CoVID" is a very real phenomenon experienced by a relatively small number of people. Keep in mind, many of the people who contracted CoVID are also front-line health care workers, like myself, and are more likely to have a professional evaluation, often required by their employer, and as such, are far more likely to seek out testing and diagnosis.

Now, your concerns regarding "self-diagnosis" and having coincidental associative symptoms is real, especially if the person in question does not pursue further evaluation. Are there hypochondriacs that have spent too much time with "Dr. Google"? Sure.
 
Mary Terry said:
My state did not impose a statewide lockdown, but many cities and towns here did so.
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We have the benefit of being an island. We locked the whole country down, no flights in or out except under special conditions. We got off very lightly compared to a lot of other countries.
 
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