Fighting Covid When Kept Home
This was shared on a Covid survivor group…have heard many of these before but it seems helpful: HOW TO FIGHT COVID AT HOME when you are not hospitalized.
“When the nurse came in to discharge me, I asked her, What can I do to help fight this at home? She said:
1. Sleep on your stomach at all times with Covid. If you can’t sleep on your stomach because of health issues sleep on your side. Do not lie on your back no matter what because it smashes your lungs and that will allow fluid to set in.
2. Set your clock every two hours while sleeping on your stomach, then get out of bed and walk for 15-30 min, no matter how tired or weak that you are. Also move your arms around frequently, it helps to open your lungs. Breathe in thru your nose, and out thru your mouth. This will help build up your lungs, plus help get rid of the Pneumonia or other fluid you may have.
2. When sitting in a recliner, sit up straight - do not lie back in the recliner, again this will smash your lungs.
3. While watching TV - get up and walk during every commercial.
4. Eat at least 1 - 2 eggs a day, plus bananas, avocado and asparagus. These are good for Potassium.
5. Do not drink anything cold - have it at room temperature or warm it up. Drink Pedialyte, Gatorade Zero, Powerade Zero & Water with Electrolytes to prevent you from becoming dehydrated. Water with lemon, and little honey, peppermint tea, apple cider are good suggestions for getting in fluids. No milk products, or pork. (as a singer I know milk products produce phlegm and always advised my students to have none for 3 days before a performance)
6. Vitamins D3, C, B, Zinc, Probiotic One-Day are good ideas. Tylenol for fever. Mucinex, or Mucinex DM for drainage, plus helps the cough. Pepcid helps for cramps in your legs. One baby aspirin everyday can help prevent getting a blood clot, which can occur from low activity.
7. Drink a smoothie of blueberries, strawberries, bananas, honey, tea and a spoon or two of peanut butter.
We always hear of how Covid takes lives, but there isn’t a lot of information out there regarding how to fight Covid when you are not critical. I hope this helps you or someone you know, just as it has helped me.”
(Wow, @thetimetostrikeislater wish you’d had this info when you were ill)
@cptdorkery @fortheloveoftrekuniverse @peridotsarelongterm
Chiming in as a physician here - I think this is a great guide overall but wanted to add my two cents with some additional info:
- Laying on your back isn’t dangerous but lying on your belly or side is definitely better for keeping things moving and helping with the shortness of breath; we “prone” patients (put them on their belly) when they are on the ventilator if possible because we’ve found it helps but they still spend a lot of time on their back too.
- Add melatonin to those daily meds - it’s associated recently with improvement in preventing spread and healing. Some people also use elderberry which may or may not help, but it’s got about as much evidence as some of those others do
- More important than the temperature of the fluids you drink is that you drink a lot of them, and have food that is easy to eat/prepare. Being hydrated and fed is more important than avoiding specific things.
- watch out for a few things as you recover there have been a massive uptick in certain cardiac, neurological/autonomic and blood clotting conditions long term. If you are finding yourself short of breath for weeks after you are “cleared”, fainting, feeling heart palpitations, having weight loss/nausea/etc, increased number of headaches these are all potentially signs of a post-viral syndrome that you can get treated with medication and therapy
