My Experience With COVID-19 - Acute Phase Symptoms

In March 2020 I got sick with COVID-19, with what could be described as a "moderate" case, worse than a mild case but less severe than a severe case and not requiring hospitalization. I talk about my symptoms during the acute phase of the illness, with an emphasis on how my experience differed from prior experiences with flu, and from the published materials of the CDC and other medical bodies. My main symptom was breathing problems and shortness of breath, which were severe enough that at one point I went into the ER, but I was sent home without any treatment and told to home-treat.
I definitively did not have the two most commonly-publicized symptoms of fever and dry cough; initially I did not even have any cough.
My other symptoms included muscle pain, especially around the torso, that was at one point so severe it felt like I had been used as a punching bag. My breathing was also painful at times. I also had other weird symptoms including tingling in the extremities (especially hands, feet, and forearms) which felt like limbs falling asleep, elevated heart rate, and extreme thirst.
Overall the illness was not at all flulike. I have had the flu 4 or 5 times and this experience was very different. I had much more energy, and the recovery was more irregular or nonlinear, and much slower.
I also talk about the irregularity of the course of the illness, how I got better and then got worse multiple times, rather than following a smooth trajectory of recovery.
If you stay tuned for further videos I plan on making videos talking about my experience as a COVID long-hauler. I am 9 months out from getting sick, and mostly recovered but still not fully recovered. The widespread rhetoric that people either die or recover fully from COVID is misleading. It took me months to get even somewhat back to normal.

[@girlinahat3407]

Back at it again

[@Fillavoid]

I really appreciate your videos! Thank you for sharing your experience.

[@DeathFromChocolatte]

Thank you for sharing. I'm currently in my room hyperventilating and freaking out because in my household my mom just tested positive and I just threw up now I feel a strange sense of confusion. As im writing this I lost my train of thought but I just wanted to share that I thank you for sharing.

[@AlexZorach]

I'm glad you found this helped. There is no telling how this thing will turn out for everyone but it will help you to stay calm and comfortable, if you're able to do that. Just testing positive doesn't mean that you will have as bad a case as mine; many people test positive and are completely asymptomatic or have milder cases. Some people do get GI symptoms (like throwing up or nausea) so it could be caused by that, and people also do experience mental / neurological issues (like confusion or brain fog), it's very random. It's tough, because nerves or anxiety can also cause or worsen a lot of these symptoms. I did not get any GI symptoms at all so unfortunately I can't be at all helpful about that, I pretty much only had breathing / respiratory issues with some vascular issues, mainly the elevated HR. Hang in there, I hope you all are okay!

[@ThatBernie]

Although the details of your symptoms differed considerably from my own, your experience nonetheless deeply resonated with me. My main issues in the acute phase were severe dizziness and a skin rash. This didn’t feel like a stronger version of the flu, it felt altogether weird and alien, with an erratic symptom timeline that seemed to go up and down at random.

[@AlexZorach]

Yes! I find it fascinating that even among people with a completely different set of symptoms, we all seem to experience the erratic, irregular, or unpredictable nature of symptoms, like coming and going seemingly at random. If there is any one thing thet seems to characterize this illness I would point not to the specifics of symptoms but rather the weirdness and randomness of it. Even people I know with very mild cases seemed to experience the same general pattern.