I want to share my experience with COVID over the last few months. I'm 39 years old and live in Manhattan. Over the last two decades, I've run 20+ marathons and trained for several Ironman.

If you don't read any further, the headlines for my experience are:

  • It lingers : total time from incubation to recovery was 2 months
  • It transforms : every week or two, it changed symptoms
  • Have a home treatment kit : being at home with options and some feeling of control helped manage the fear

In the beginning, I was (mostly) asymptomatic for two weeks with limited symptoms that were easily attributed to being run down or the normal blips from germs in the winter months. After a few days of fatigue, I remember having a dry sore throat beginning March 5th that lasted 5 days. There was no cough. It didn't hurt to swallow like a more normal sore throat. It was simply an irritation in the back of the throat that didn't progress. It went away. I didn't think twice and resumed exercise.

I remember feeling extra fatigued on Friday March 13th. Not in a disabling way, but certainly enough to have an early dinner and get into bed at 9pm. Saturday felt fine. Sunday I'd say I noticed a slight increase in resting heart rate - a classic precursor to illness - but again, I had been running 6-7 miles/day and I attributed it to poor rest and perhaps nutrition. I felt tired, but not sick.

On Monday, March 16th, I woke up with a 101 fever. This was terrifying. The world was in lock down and I was isolated on my couch watching CNN. I was extremely fatigued. I had no cough, no trouble breathing, no congestion. I called my doctor & we had a tele-visit setup that afternoon. I explained my symptoms and she thought I was sick with a normal flu. (This was Manhattan in mid-March!) In any case, there were no coronavirus tests available and any hospital or clinic visits were reserved for patients in extreme distress. I hunkered down.

It's important to relay this: the scariest part wasn't the disease itself. It was not knowing how I would progress and knowing there was no treatment until I was in distress. If you're going through a COVID surge in your local community, this is likely the case for you. I strongly recommend having home treatment supplies ready; there is almost no downside to being prepared. I'll share my prep kit at the end of the article.

This is how my symptoms progressed over the following 2 weeks:

  1. Monday: Fever progressed to 102
  2. Monday overnight: severe sweating
  3. Tuesday: Fever lowered to 99-100. Severe muscle aches & pains, especially back and torso
  4. Tuesday overnight: severe sweating
  5. Wednesday: fever normalizing. Some trouble taking deep breaths
  6. Thursday - Friday: fever gone. Some GI troubles, constipation (dehydration?)
  7. Weekend and into following week: tired, recovering. GI troubles, diarrhea
  8. The following Wed (10 days after symptoms) - total energy crash. This was unexpected. I was feeling better. I crawled into bed at 3pm and didn't move for 2 days. Nose started running without typical congestion of a cold
  9. Energy recovery by Sunday (now a full 2 weeks since onset)
  10. Mon/Tues: chest wall pain started. This continued for almost a month. Characterized by sharp chest wall pains (around the heart) that comes and goes with enough regularity to be concerning
  11. By early May, I was feeling back to normal. During this time, I also asked my doctor for a chest X-Ray, which came back looking good. We also did an EKG on my heart
  12. I was able to get a COVID antibody test on April 30th from LabCorp which tested positive and confirmed my cases serologically

A couple other comments relative to my specific experience and health conditions:

  1. I still have, although greatly diminished, chest wall pains. Prior to COVID, I had never experienced these before. I'm not concerned, but at some point would like to get a blood test given some research on blood thickening
  2. I was massively dehydrated the entire time. I can't tell you how much water I drank!
  3. I cried a lot in the first two weeks. There is some discussion of neuro-inflammatory effects causing emotional dysregulation. I don't know...this was at peak virus and it was honestly terrifying
  4. My brother also contracted and recovered from COVID. He is 27. He had no symptoms but is going on 4 months without any taste or smell

A moment on home treatment preparation. This was critical for me; knowing that the medical community had nothing to offer if and until I was in distress meant I was on my own. Here is what I did and took at home (note: I'm not a doctor. I'm not suggesting this works or will work for you. It worked for me as described below.) Underlying all of this was my belief that COVID is a disease of inflammation. In the worst cases, it provokes a a cytokine storm that often affects the lungs, but not necessarily.*

  1. Mental health. The best thing you can do before any infection is to MANAGE YOUR STRESS. High stress (cortisol) inhibits the immune system, including suppressing it and promoting inflammation. This sounds basic and it is. Follow the basics
  2. Protein in your diet. Protein is what makes antibodies. Remember many COVID patients lose appetite, so have chicken/meat or whey powder for shakes
  3. Tumeric in your diet is no-regrets. It promotes low inflammation (this disease promotes inflammatory response)
  4. This disease also loves sugar. Decrease sugar as part of your regular diet. (Sugar promotes inflammation)
  5. Daily: Zinc (immune system support, take it before sleep on an empty stomach)
  6. When symptoms appear / contingent only on getting sick: NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine.) Promotes coughing (clearing of debris from the lung) - 600-1000mg/day
  7. Depending on your health (asthmatic) or severity - an antihistamine and/or anti-inflammatory. OTC is fine. Zyrtec. Pepcid. If you take Celebrex, this can also work to calm down an immune system in overdrive

Others have recommended with some success: Vitamin D, Quercetin w/ Bromelain and Selenium. These can also come from diet if you eat well.

I also used a blood pressure monitor (not an oximeter) to self-monitor. I had read enough case accounts from endurance athletes to suspect that the pathology in patients with highly-efficient pulmonary systems tended to favor cardiovascular complications.

One historical note: in 2017 I started having episodes of severe angioedema. Angioedema is an inflammatory condition caused by an immune system in overdrive. It took three years to manage and eventually achieve full remission. It was a nightmare; I'd wake up regularly with massively swollen hands, feet, arms and facial features. It took some time for doctors to trace the root cause: a viral infection and the cytokine storm it triggered. That a cytokine storm is the hallmark of bad COVID infection was both a comfort and a concern (thank god for Twitter in those early days.)

Today I feel great. I'm back to running long distance. My energy levels feel normal. I do occasionally feel chest wall pains. I'll get it checked eventually.

If you've read this far, I hope it was helpful. Take precautions; be safe. Wear a mask. No community wants to go through what NYC has ]endured.