Covid recovery

I had covid a few weeks ago. I was clear by 3 weeks ago. But I'm far from back to normal.

I know lots of people who've had it, an experienced mild cold symptoms, and a few that have had it rough. My own experience is somewhere in the middle. It seems it's different for everyone.

Despite being clear for about 3 weeks now, I seem to be in the unlucky minority that has lasting effects so I thought I might share my progress here, partly in case it helps someone else in a similar situation, and partly in case anyone has any tips to aid proper recovery.

Before I go into actual experience, here's my background in a nutshell. I'm mid to late 40s, normally fit as a fiddle. When I'm not tending my garden I'm out walking, mountain biking, or practicing martial arts. I'm also fully vaccinated and should have good immunity because I caught it right at the beginning, was very ill, but made a full recovery.

So, 3 weeks ago, technically clear, I had no energy at all. I was falling asleep all the time. I'd manage 15 minutes or so of very, very light duties, then sit down and doze off.

Two weeks ago was worse in a way. By then I was back in the office, but I started to notice massive holes in my memory. There were whole chunks of time just sort of missing. Not just amnesia, I'd also lost chunks of knowledge. My technical skills had taken a battering. It was like being back at the start of my career.

A week ago, I had just about enough physical and mental energy to realise I need to start tackling this. Knowing nothing about what viruses do to the body, I fell back to what I know about recovery from injury. So I figured, I need to start getting the blood pumping so it can better reach everywhere, and wake up the muscles, but not burn myself out. I figured nutrition is also key, and of course rest. So I started treating it like injury rehabilitation. I don't know yet if that's the right approach, but it's the only one I know.

Where I'm at right now is really frustrating. I feel like I'm starting to understand what it must be like for people in the early stages of dementia. I know all the things I used to be able to do mentally and physically, but now, try as I might, I can't. I've been forgetting the names of people I've known for years, but I know I know them, just their name escapes me. I've tackled technical tasks at work and my brain says this is easy, I've been doing this for 25 years, but as soon as I start to do it, nothing. Tech skills just not there. Even basic arithmetic is a challenge.

So I've took some time off work. Right now I'm in a hotel in the middle of the countryside. I figured, I'll exercise my body, but let my brain rest. That's where I'm at right now. Let's see how the next few weeks go but I'm determined to fix this.

I'm the plus side, I'm better now than I was a week ago and I was better then than I was a week before that, so I'm heading in the right direction. I'm just determined that this doesn't last for months.

 

That is interesting report Clueless.
I caught Covid at a time when there were no home testing or getting a GP appointment.

A few months later I started having dizzy spells, very bad pains in my head (not headaches) and no energy. Also unable to walk far without getting breathless and having to lay down each afternoon.

I spent 2 years in total lockdown

Lately no pains in my head or dizzy spells, but after 2 years I still have no energy and can't walk far.

 

My brother caught it about 4 weeks ago and tested positive for 12 days . He is still completely shattered all the time and has no inclination do much at all. He has been extremely confused too, more so that normal. He was diagnosed a couple of years ago ( at what was classed as a young age) with Alzheimer's, which has only made his post Covid symptoms a lot worse. He is also physically disabled too and finds everything he does a great strain at the moment.

 

For the last two days, I've been hiding out in an unspecified location in the middle of nowhere (Yorkshire dales). It's done me a world of good.

I still haven't managed anything like the kind of walks I used to take for granted before covid, but I've been managing a couple of miles at a time, which is way more than I could do even a few days ago. Some might say that's down to the fresh air, but I have a different theory. Being somewhere unfamiliar to me, it doesn't matter that I don't know what's where, so if I have no idea where we're going, or what the route back is, instead of suddenly getting a pounding headache because I know the info is in there but I just can't recall it, I just let my missus and kids remind me which is the way back. We're not going to burden mountain rescue, I'm totally not ready to go far yet so no fear of being lost in the fells.

In terms of fitness, it seems my ability to plod is coming back slowly, but anything that gets the heart pumping is still really limited for me. We found a park with a kids play area in it. The kids convinced me to do the little obstacle course, which according to the signage, is designed for 7 to 14 year olds. A few weeks ago it would have been nothing to me. Today it has my heart pounding and I felt dizzy and nauseous.

I'm confident that with time I'll be back to normal. The two things that are really bothering me are, I can't live up to other people's expectations. My wife and kids keep forgetting I'm still recovering, and ask me to do fun things that I'd normally do, but I have to disappoint them by reminding them I can't do those things yet. The other thing that really bothers me is just how little effort it takes to max out my heart rate and breathing. I am mindful that I'm not 20 anymore, so I have to be quite self disciplined when exercising, to work up enough effort to make a difference but without pushing myself so hard I might drop dead as my kids watch. That's long been one of my worst fears, but I feel like right now, if I'm not careful, there's a greater risk of that now than there was up until a few weeks ago.

 

I've just over heard a conversation, where one guy, clearly much older than me, had covid at the same time as his wife. He said he didn't even realise he had it, thinking it was just a bit of hay fever until his wife became ill and tested positive. I heard him say he was absolutely fine, but several weeks on, his wife's exercise is still limited to walking to the end of their drive.

 

Sounds like me though I have never had Covid.

 

But what you're not telling us is you are secretly stinking rich and your drive from your manor house to the nearest private service road on your estate is 3 miles long.

 

I had to take the car in for its MOT this morning. The garage is 2 miles away, and I don't like buses so I always walk back home after dropping it off.

As I'm walking, I found myself thinking, I'll be wiped out by the time I get home. Then I realised there's part of the problem. The human brain is very good at forming habits, especially if that habit takes little effort. When you have covid, for a couple of weeks you genuinely will be wiped out after exercise, because your body is using all available resources to fight the lurgy. Given that you're not moving much while in the thick of it, and your body is not exactly focusing on muscle maintenance during this time, it's a perfect storm of muscle atrophy combined with the habit forming of not doing much, which means when you do try to exercise again, your muscles are weak, and your brain is screaming, we don't do this.

So I've concluded that an important part of the recovery is basically putting the effort in to build fitness. It's horrible, but that's just how it is. The frustrating part is it takes so much effort to do things I used to think nothing of. But if I put it into perspective, before covid, I used to feel dizzy and nauseous after a hard session at martial arts. It's the same thing, it's pushing myself a bit harder than I find comfortable in order to expand what I find comfortable. My body has just fought an epic battle, and is exhausted and no doubt damaged. It's bound to be weaker than it was. So my job now is to build it back up through perfectly ordinary fitness effort, but at a lower level than I'm used to, for now.

I still haven't worked out how to speed the recovery of the big holes in my memory, but I'm working on the theory that if I gently tax my brain, and throw myself into situations where the confusion and amnesia come to the fore, but back off when the intense headache comes, maybe bit by bit those damaged neural connections might rebuild.

I learned something recently from one of the science channels I watch on YouTube. Apparently when your body fights an infection, your immune system prioritises production of the specific antibodies needed for that specific lurgy. In milder infections that's not a problem, because the fight is usually short, and there's enough of all the other antibodies floating around to fend off anything else. Apparently covid is different. Because it's a much tougher battle and lasts longer, your immunity to everything else is severely compromised, leaving you vulnerable to secondary infections. Not really a problem while you're at home unable to do much, but when the fight is over and covid is defeated, apparently the antibodies don't just immediately go home. Your body likes to make absolutely sure it's gone, so over excited antibodies keep flooding your system for a while, and protection against other stuff is still reduced. I guess over time normal exposure to life in general will address that

 

Another week later, and something weird has happened. Yesterday I had a running race against my son. He is a skinny teenager and therefore usually faster than me, but I won, and I didn't even feel ill afterwards. Then today, proper benchmark, we did our weekly training session at the hall. I had intended to keep it light because of the heat but it turned into a high energy session, more intense than usual. One by one everyone started slowing down and stopping for a breather, but I was fine.

I seem to be fitter now than I was immediately before covid.

Being the annoyingly analytical individual that I am, I'm trying to figure out why. Not that I'm complaining, but if I can figure it out, then I can keep doing it. So apart from natural recovery, which doesn't explain why I seem to be significantly fitter than before I got covid, what else could it be I wonder. So what happened over the last few weeks? Well....

I've been eating less junk food. I always eat fairly healthy, but in addition to eating healthy, I must admit I used to snack on too much chocolate and the occasional bag of crisps. I still do, but far less so now. When I had covid, I was so keen to support my body in fighting it, I made extra effort to make sure my body got everything it needed, but wasn't burdened with anything it didn't (apart from smoking, I must admit I smoke and still did when I had the lurgy). So lean meat and fish for protein and B vitamins, fruit and veg for everything else.

I also made sure I pushed myself to do at least some exercise every day, not loads, but enough to challenge me at whatever level the lurgy and my post lurgy recovery allowed.

And I took a break. We went off to the countryside for a few days.

I doubt it's any one factor on its own that's got me to fitter than pre covid me, but if I was to bet on what made the biggest difference, I'd bet on the diet. While I normally eat fairly healthy, what I don't normally do is put much thought into getting all the nutrient balance right for the circumstances. It should have been obvious really. Top athletes are obsessive about their diet, and they're top athletes. I just didn't think it made that much of a difference for more ordinary folk like me.

 

It's a while since I posted on this thread, largely because I forgot it existed. It seems there's loads of things I've completely forgotten, and rather frustratingly, I've come to realise that the holes in my memory are not limited to memories prior to covid.

In every other respect, I'm fully recovered. My fitness and energy levels are back to pre covid levels and I feel generally good. But the holes in my memory are really annoying. And when I say holes in my memory, I don't mean brain fog as people are calling it, I mean generally clear thinking, except for things where I have absolutely no recollection of some piece of knowledge.

It seems that names of things and people are the biggest loss. The other day in the garden, I was suggesting to the kids that they harvest the tomatoes. Except I couldn't remember what they were called. My eldest son found it funny when I pointed at them and referred to them as 'these things that are not strawberries'. Thankfully he gave me the word I was looking for, and now it's back. But I've also forgotten the names of some people at work, who I've known for years.

Things also keep popping up that I didn't even know I'd forgotten. That's probably the most frustrating bit because now I can't stop wondering what else I'm missing. In town recently I saw a lady, a complete stranger, who looked straight at me and gave me a lovely smile. I thought nothing of it, other than that it was slightly odd because it wasn't a polite smile of a stranger, this was a smile of an old friend. It was the next day I realised we'd been best buddies throughout our teenage years, practically inseparable, she was part of my inner circle of inseparable buddies. I have no recollection of her name at all.

The good news for anyone else dealing with this is it seems the memories do come back and stay back. Sometimes I need others to jog my memory, sometimes something seemingly unrelated triggers and sequence of cognitive steps that slowly build back those broken mental connections. I just hope I don't offend too many people by failing to remember who they are. Another friend reminded me recently of the time we got drunk to celebrate his brother becoming a dad. I'd forgotten that my mate had a brother, and having been reminded of that, I still have no recollection of celebrating with them.

 

I might make this my last updated on this thread, mainly because I think I have a conclusion.

I have a casual interest in the more scientific aspects of nutrition. In a conversation with a friend who is into body building, nothing to do with covid, I mentioned that almost all of my sporting injuries are tendon injuries. I've broken a few bones over the years, but they've generally healed well, and I've pulled muscles, which generally recover quickly, but I'm always injuring tendons. No hesitation, he said I need more protein. So being interested in the science, I did a tonne of reading. Not random stuff, but actual academic papers (the ones I could understand at least).

The penny dropped. Covid takes a huge toll on every part of the body. Your immune system has to tap into all sorts of reserves to fight the infection. And after covid is defeated, inevitably, those reserves are severely depleted.

Armed with this new knowledge, for the last few weeks I've been really focused on my diet. I have in part resorted to supplements, specifically protein powder, even more specifically, collagen protein. Also fish oil. And in my non supplement diet, I've drastically reduced calories from why starchy carbohydrates (bread, potatoes, pasta) and diverted that calorie allowance to nutrient dense options (eggs, Greek yogurt, lentils, barley).

Oh and here's the best bit, turns out cocoa is loaded with a few potent essential nutrients. I didn't know that when I was using it to enhance the flavour of my protein smoothies. I've also taken to consuming pumpkin seeds regularly. They're loaded with vitamins and minerals.

The result of all this is that I'm now all good. My brain is clear again, and physically I'm fit. Almost all of my memory is back. I still occasionally struggle to remember things but whereas a few weeks ago those holes in my memory were just black holes, total absence of the the memory, now it comes back with a little bit of prompting.

There are a growing number of studies in the science community linking long covid and malnutrition. Not malnutrition as in going hungry, but malnutrition as in significant nutritional deficiencies. Most of the studies I've read hypothesise that low energy following covid is preventing people from making good diet choices. A few studies I read looked at the effects of covid itself directly on certain nutrient reserves. I'm not sure any conclusions have been drawn yet, and my story is only anecdotal. I'm hardly representative of the entire population of long covid sufferers, but if my story helps someone else in some small way, then that's great.