I have been off sick recently with what I think is coronavirus. I wrote up my experience with a symptoms log and posted it for the team at Ultraleap. Lots of people found it useful so I thought I would share.
I first noticed Covid-19 symptoms on the 19th of March. I spent a lot of the first few days searching for accounts of people who had tested positive but had mild symptoms. This is really hard to do! Most of the western world are not testing outside of hospitals and there are a lot of people posting fake stories on social media for attention š. I found accounts from professional athletes to be the best source of truth as they are being tested by their clubs.
My main symptoms have been fever (often ~38Ā°C), sore eyes, dry cough, muscle aches, joint pain and being really really tired! Small activities left me out of breath. One day I slept for 8 hours, woke up, had breakfast, then slept for the rest of the morning.
The weirdest part has been that everything came and went in waves. Sometimes I felt fine, other times I was completely wiped out. I could switch from one to the other rapidly. I had a theory that this was the fever ramping up and down but it continued after my fever stopped.
My main concern was my wife, who was hospitalised with an autoimmune condition two years ago. Thankfully she had a similar experience to me with milder symptoms š.
We self-isolated at home and rested as much as possible. We both started feeling better after around 10 days and our fevers went away but the fatigue kept coming back. It was 20 days before I felt fully back to normal.
A summary of how I felt (you donāt want to see an actual photo).
I am very grateful that we both made it through without any worrying breathing issues. I have had pneumonia before and was paranoid about it going to my lungs.
If you or anyone you live with develops symptoms I highly recommend cooking lots of food if you can. The fatigue is real and I donāt think I would have managed to prepare 3 meals a day from scratch.
If you run a company or manage people, note that the fever may clear up after around a week enabling a return to work but the effect on productivity can last closer to three weeks!
Look after yourselves and stay home! š·
Symptoms Log
Wednesday 18th March
- General tiredness. I blamed this on too many Zoom calls!
Thursday 19th March
- Dry cough started when I woke up.
- Fatigue through the afternoon and then felt really drained after finishing my last call at 7pm.
- Temperature of 37.7Ā°C.
- Mild muscle aches.
Friday 20th March
- Fever > 38Ā°C.
- Sore eyes (this is the worst!).
- Muscle aches.
- Joint pain.
- Dry cough.
- Felt slightly out of breath even while lying down.
- Really really tired!
Saturday 21st March
- Sore throat.
- Fever reduced to ~ 37.6Ā°C.
- Eyes stopped hurting!
- Felt great in the afternoon and thought I was better!
Sunday 22nd March
- Fell asleep after breakfast and woke up in the afternoon.
- Sore eyes again.
- Muscle aches, particularly in my neck.
- Really low energy levels.
Monday 23rd March
- Still fevering but not as bad or as often.
- Eyes ok.
- Felt nauseous all-day. Never very strong but enough to be a distraction. Couldnāt look at a screen for more than ~45-60 minutes.
Tuesday 24th March
- Fever almost gone - it feels amazing!
- Cough moved into my chest overnight but cleared over the day back to a normal dry cough.
- Felt good by the afternoon and hopeful that I am almost done!
Wednesday 25th March
- Completely wiped out!
- Fever back but < 38.
- Absolutely zero energy. Slept for most of the day.
Thursday 26th March
- No fever.
- Tired but generally feeling ok.
Friday 27th March
- First day feeling ābetterā.
- Still tired and still have a cough but otherwise normal.
Saturday 28th / Sunday 29th March
- Rested and slept, energy coming back more each day.
Monday 30th March
- First full day āproperlyā back at work.
- Still not at 100% energy levels but generally feeling better.
- I lost just over 1.5kg in weight from this so eating a lot to get those energy levels back!
Tuesday 31st March - Friday 3rd April
- A really full-on week at work. Getting sick 3 days after moving the whole company to work from home was not great timing!
- I felt ok all week, just a little tired and lacking sharpness. In hindsight, I think I got through this week on adrenaline.
- I had a bad migraine one evening.
Saturday 4th - Monday 6th April
- The fatigue was back! This could be because I pushed myself through a week of work too early but it felt more like the virus. Itās hard to explain but I felt like muscles that I had not used at all were completely devoid of energy.
- I had another bad migraine over the weekend. For reference, I usually only get ~1 migraine per year. I read that sore eyes can be a different way for a migraine to manifest so itās possible I have had a lot of migraines thanks to the virus.
Tuesday 7th April
- My first day feeling fully well again. I had energy, could think clearly and got a lot done.
- From this day onwards I had no recurrence of symptoms or fatigue.
- This was 20 days since first symptoms.