Hi everyone, five weeks ago I developed covid19. I’m through the worse of the virus but have terrible shortness of breath. I have my thyroid bloods booked for this Thursday so I’ll see if my levels have varied much.
My main worry is I may have hypercapnia (too much CO2 in the blood) caused by very shallow overnight breathing? Symptoms are normal or high pulse oximetry, feeling of dizziness, confusion and fatigue in the day. Day time sleepiness. Sometimes flushing red. Nightmares, morning headache and SOB. I think I have this, it’s tested for by a blood sample from a wrist artery so can only be done in hospital. It’s common in people with COPD. Anyone any experience of this or Any idea how I get an NHS test as I tick all the boxes.
Sorry not totally thyroid relevant promise to keep my next post totally thyroid focused.
Make sure you sleep propped up on a couple of pillows because this will help with your breathing. If you start to feel like you cannot breathe please call an ambulance or 111 for advice because this virus can last a long time. I think I had the virus in January and it lasted 8 weeks, you can read my thread about it if you look on my profile page and scroll down to my threads.
I feel fine now but I felt dreadful when I had the "flu bug" I saw my GP after 6 weeks and she was so concerned she wanted to call an ambulance because I had a very high temperature and high blood pressure. I went to A & E and they did a blood test and a chest x-ray which showed my chest was inflamed.I was then given prednisolone for 5 days which helped with my breathing. My TSH was 0.28 and thought I was going to have another thyroid storm but I didn't but I was shaking and sweating. If you start to feel much worse please get medical help. I am not someone who makes a fuss and I rarely go to my GP but the virus I had in January made me feel very ill and I think it might have been COVID-19.
I tried to battle on while taking two lots of antibiotics but as soon as I finished the course my symptoms came back. The pharmacist who gave me my second prescription said there were some virulent bugs about at the moment ... this was the end of January and we now know the coronavirus was already here then.
It's not really a good idea to do thyroid tests where there's been an acute illness until you are recovered. Your results could very well be skewed and if a change of dose is based on those results it might not be a good move.
It might be an idea to ask on the British Lung Foundation forum about your possible hypercapnia as you have COPD, someone there may know something about this:
I am unsure if you have copd, but in Kent the community respiratory nurses are able to take either an arterial blood gas or capillary blood gas in the community. If you have an underlying chronic lung disease ask to be referred to the community respiratory team for assessment of hypercapnia. If you do not have chronic lung disease and feel this is entirely due to covid 19 you need to wait a minimum of 12 weeks if not longer as the corona pneumonitis is similar to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and this can take up to a year to resolve. I wish you better health.
I'm so sorry your dealing with it . I would suggest that you make sure your vitamin "D" levels are in good rang . You will need to take vitamin "C" , NAC is very good for lungs /liver and it's a precursor to glutathione that is so important for our immune system and wellbeing . Zinc Is also very important for our immune system but not higher than 40-50mg. Calcium/Magnesium helps with breathing. I don't remember where I read that DHEA if low can be very helpful too .
Will do and thanks for the kind words jgelliss, feeling pretty weak, lonely and anxious as it’s been more than five weeks. If my thyroid is under medicated that can also cause sleep breathing problems.
For sure having your thyroid levels *Optimal* is very important . Drinking warm teas with honey was very helpful with my coughs going through with COVID-19 . Keep yourself hydrated. I was not tested yet but my Dr is sure I had with all my symptoms .My Dr told me that studies came out now showing that those that had COVID-19 and lost their taste sense have the highest antibodies towards this virus. The Coronavirus is very debilitating and knocks one off their feet. I felt like a squeezed out rag. It took me over four weeks to snap out of it . And I still don't have my full smelling sense back it's coming back slowly.
Keep Positive and Strong you will get through it very soon.
Thanks jgelliss, I'll try to stay positive and I wish you the best of health. Had a good chat with my GP, they'll run some practical tests on heart and lungs and confirmed they are now seeing people with long recovery periods of many weeks (even so called mild/moderate cases). In the end we both agreed this is very new and no one knows for sure what the recovery journey looks like. I've had terrible throat pain which is subsiding but I did wonder, is this kicking the hell out of whatever scrap of functioning thyroid tissue I have left?
Mike It's great your Dr is being pro active on your behalf. Some Dr's tell their patients to ride it out. With the soar throat I gargled with warm water and salt and that eased my throat . You might want to try that too. I took some Tylenol and that was very helpful too especially with the headaches and fever. They say that only Tylenol is OK to take now.
Tylenol is acetaminophen which we in the UK call paracetamol.
I note that they have reduced maximum daily dose to six 500 milligram tablets - from eight.
An estimated 50 million Americans use acetaminophen each week to treat conditions such as pain, fever and aches and pains associated with cold and flu symptoms. To help encourage the safe use of acetaminophen, the makers of TYLENOL® have lowered the maximum daily dose for single-ingredient Extra Strength TYLENOL® (acetaminophen) products sold in the U.S. from 8 pills per day (4,000 mg) to 6 pills per day (3,000 mg). The dosing interval has also changed from 2 pills every 4 – 6 hours to 2 pills every 6 hours.
Thanks, that's very interesting. Have I got it right in understanding it suggests in serious illness in adults with healthy thyroid glands they can develop serious heart problems as their thyroid hormones crash due to whatever is making them sick. It suggests thyroid hormones as a treatment. I wonder does this mean my daily dose of Levo gets into my blood stream no matter what the state of my thyroid and is therefore not as vulnerable to variation?
I have tried to check on relationships between thyroid and covid-19 but there are many problems in trying to understand what is, or might be, happening.
On top of that, most of the information is still un-referreed, pre-publication, and from so many different sources. Extremely difficult to know what to make of any of it.
There are some mentions of thyroid and thyroid hormones - but nothing I have read (and that is only a very small portion) stands out.
In time, I'll not be surprised to see thyroid issues better reported.
Hi Mike I caught Covid 19 around the same time as you (probably a week behind) and am still experiencing breathing difficulties especially if I exert myself. Have to pace myself walking etc. Also chest and back still hurt when breathing. Lung function is overall reduced. Feels like heavy brick is on chest and my lungs have gravel in the bottom of them.
All the symptoms you are describing: Nightmares or vivid dreaming, hot face, morning headache, fluctuating temperature, pulse rate going up and down and extreme sleepiness I have had, and are common features of this illness.
My sister works on a covid ward and said if you have an underlying health condition (I have asthma as well as Hypo) standard recovery time is 8 weeks MINIMUM. For others it will be more. If you have COPD It may be worth calling 111 and explaining that you are worried you have hypercapnia they can send you an ambulance and take you to hospital.
Your doctor may also be able to refer you for extra help.
There's very little information about what happens once you've 'recovered' from the initial phase of the illness, and recovery is not linear as it is in other illnesses, it sort of waxes and wanes. You can feel like you are improving then experience a resurgence in symptoms. This part of why recovery takes so long.
Please call 111 or your GP for advice do not worry you are taking up their time. I ended up calling 111 twice!
Thanks Alanna01, the that’s really helpful info. I hope you are feeling better soon it’s really quite and awful illness. Really hard managing the anxiety. If you are interested, there’s a forum for people with covid symptoms that drag on on SLACK, it’s called bodypolitic, if you are interested I’ll send an link.
Thanks for the kind reply Alanna01, just up and on my way to have some bloods and lung and heart tests at my GP. Sorry you had this too, I really empathise with the lung problems you describe. Even writing this is making me breathless. I hope you regain full strength and recover soon.
Wow hope you get better soon. I wonder if I had it. I caught a 'cough' around the time of Chinese New year. At that time there were no official cases in the UK. But my asthma has not been right ever since. It's getting better. But early on, I would take my blue inhaler and it would not relieve my asthma. I sometimes get morning headaches, and am always tired. I put that down to hypothyroidism.
It was weird at the time. I worked at a port, and the ‘cough’ went round the office. I guess it could be easy to catch something at a port with all the shipping containers and crew arriving each day. At the time we had a colleague who was on holiday in Singapore for Chinese New Year. We all joked that she should go into quarantine when she got back. She was fine. In the mean time, we had this ‘cough’ that went round the office. I had the cough before my colleague got back so I know it wasn’t her.
Hi lora7again, I think the news is focusing on very ill people in hospital and lots isn’t yet being reported, including the fact that many people have severe debilitating symptoms for two months or more with little or no support or advice from the NHS other than ride it out, take paracetamol and go to a&e if you think it’s become critical. Suppose it’s all so new.
Just to add to the stories from others...I have been fighting a virus, most likely covid, and still experiencing symptoms 7 weeks on. There are forums online with many people sharing similar experiences despite not having been bad enough to be hospitalised. I agree that this long up and down recovery has not been that prominent in the media. I hope you recover soon.
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