Writer-Counselor-Wellbeing Coach

My Covid experience

Among all the hype, the fear-mongering, the denial and the miracle cures, I suspect there are simply thousands of people going through this illness in thousands of different ways. For me it has been surprising and in spite of everything I did to prepare my immune system to manage it well, I still feel I struggled more than I'd expected to.

My Vitamin D levels are in excess of 120 which is considered therapeutic for dealing with respiratory viruses. I have also been taking huge daily doses of Vitamin C, daily zinc, quercetin, curcumin, CoQ10, magnesium and Nigella Sativa for more than a year. I have no underlying health conditions.

I enrolled in the HCQ trial and on the day of my positive test, had 2 x 200mg doses of HCQ 12 hours apart followed by 6 days of azythromicin 250mg in accordance with the trial.

I added 12mg daily Ivermectin for 6 days and 100mg doxycycline for 6 days, which is all I had as part of a previously prescribed prophylactic pack. I had up to 10,000mg Vitamin C a day and tripled the dose of Nigella Sativa. 4 times a day I used betadine throat gargle and nasal swabs. I did everything I possibly could.

On the day of positive test my temp hit 38.6 where it stayed for almost 72 hours. This, an uncomfortable neuralgia across my upper back, a strange sense of feeling very 'weird' and not myself, along with extreme fatigue and feelings of air hunger have been my main symptoms.

I've not had a headache, a sore throat, a cough, a runny nose or body aches and pains. It has not been like a cold or like the flu.

I have had a racing heart, feelings of breathlessness even when my oxygen saturations were okay, and an ongoing feeling of anxiety and weirdness.

I had no access to my local doctor where the clinic could offer me only a telehealth appointment a week after testing positive. The local area health service were kind, and asked if I would want to be resuscitated if I ended up in hospital. (This wasn't helpful).

They also offered me a monoclonal antibody infusion which I at first accepted, then after doing some more research, declined as I believed I was past the 4-5 day timeframe within which the risk/benefit didn't pan out.

Having declined that felt very stressful as I felt I was becoming more unwell and not only was I not vaccinated, but I'd also not taken advantage of this early treatment. I worried about how I would be perceived if I did end up sick enough to be in hospital.

I was lucky enough to be able to reach out to a doctor's network for some advice and have a caring and compassionate doctor check in on me very regularly by phone, and prescribe me a range of other therapeutics including prednisolone when I needed it.

I estimate I had early symptoms (runny nose mainly) for about 4 days before I spiked a temp and did a test. This puts me now on about day 13 and I still don't feel myself. I remain very fatigued. I have an ongoing low grade temp and I still feel breathless even though clinically there is no reason for it.

At the telehealth appointment at my local GP clinic there seemed to be little interest expressed in the current state of my health or how challenged I felt in getting care. There was also a refusal to provide more than a single month exemption for vaccination as the doctor believes the public health interests is most important. Clearly the research on natural immunity is not important, nor is my individual circumstance or health. This doctor is choosing politics over my health and it's reprehensible.

Someone asked me if I wished I'd been vaccinated. I did wonder if I would feel as awful or as scared as I did every now and then if I'd been vaccinated, especially because I was so surprised at how bad I felt. I didn't however wish I'd made a different decision. Who knows whether it would have made any difference at all given the broad range of experiences people seem to be having with Covid.

I know there are people for whom this was a case of the sniffles. There are others for whom it was like a bad flu. I don't know what makes it different for different people. I wouldn't want to get it again. Even with all my ability to rationalise and understand the research and dissect the fear-mongering, I was still scared and that didn't help my symptoms.

I am left feeling somewhat vulnerable. Even now that I've had the illness, my ability to function freely and carry out my work is being restricted by arbitrary decisions of government and a single doctor who doesn't care about my health at all.

It will be interesting to write more about it all when I feel 100% on top of things again. Perhaps I will have a whole new perspective.

8 Comments

  1. Clara

    I am one of those annoying people who experienced it as the sniffles. Yes I had a cracking headache first day but was up and jolly by day three. I work out my immune system all the time though. I have always trusted in my body’s innate ability to correct itself whenever it is ill and that trust has not in 50yrs been misplaced. I felt sicker when I had the mumps way back when I was 6.

    The other things I do which I believe helps. I practice basic hygiene but I’m not obssessive about it. I do not use hand sanitisers which strip your skin of the natural microbes that protect you. Soap is all you need it’s anti-bacterial because it’s alkaline. I use as few chemicals as possible in the home. I do not use scented body products, wear perfume or use air fresheners. I don’t imagine ingesting that level of synthetics to really help out. I eat 80-90% fresh vegetable matter for every meal including breakfast. I do only mild/moderate exercise but I do it regularly. I only rarely drink alcohol. I keep tech use low, yes this is important as the blue screens can disrupt your circadian rhythmns and sleep cycle.

    That bug I had last year, whatever it was, was the first flu-like thing I’ve contracted in almost 30yrs. I’m pushing 50 now.

  2. Roslyn Ross

    Having never had Covid I have no idea what might be involved although from extensive research I gather 90% of people have no symptoms or trivial symptoms and 99.97% recover without medical treatment. Depending on one’s general health, somewhere from a mild cold to a bad Flu.

    Then again I have never had Flu and have never done vaccines. The occasional cold passed on from dribbly, snotty, sneezy small grand-children in the past ten years, but even then, mostly missed despite them and their parents falling sick.

    After decades as a journalist it did not take me long to pick up the fear-driven propaganda campaign and to be deeply concerned at Governments using fear-driven bullying to force people to participate in a totally unnecessary, useless and highly risky genetic experiment called a vaccine.

    As the wheels fall off the Covid propaganda train let us hope too many are not seriously or permanently harmed by the genetic manipulation involved in the Jabs, particularly children who faced zero risk and who should never have been forced into the experiment.

  3. Sunila

    Thank you for sharing your experience. Many vaccine free people have reported similar stories along the lines of the weird experience of this flu-like respiratory infection. I’m just wondering if the man-made nature of this virus is what makes it different to the experience of getting influenza.
    Wishing you a speedy recovery to your normal self.

  4. Claire McManus

    I hope you improve quickly Debbie.
    Thanks for this information and please document the whole story when you are A1 again.
    Claire

  5. Beverley Peers

    In adults Covid 19 infection can be prolonged. A 2-3 week time frame in is probably more realistic .From what I’ve observed recovery to 100% is slower than with influenza.

  6. Karren

    Hi Debbie,
    Thanks for sharing your story.
    Glad you’ve made it through the worst off it 🙏 Glad you also said no to Mono. Ant.
    & did your research. Well done for sticking to your values. Thank God for that compassionate doctor 🙏
    Bless you.
    You will have more to say when you’re 100% I’m sure.

  7. Kit

    HI Deb, thanks for sharing your experience. How did you enroll in the HCQ trial and how did you get ivermectin and azythromicin ?

    • Debbie

      Hi Kit

      This is the trial I enrolled in https://niim.com.au/research-education/the-international-alliance-covid-19-treatment-study

      I was prescribed the Ivermectin and doxycycline in a prophylactic pack last year before the ban was in effect. I’d been holding on to it once prescribing of IVM was banned as I thought it may be better utilised if I needed treatment. It wasn’t a high enough dose, but it may have made a difference. It’s hard to know.

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