What is it like to have COVID with asthma?

5/3/2021

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, click here.

When COVID started popping up in the USA last year, I took note. The more we heard, the more nervous we got, not so much the family as a whole, but me for sure because my son and I are both asthmatic. When we finally caught COVID a year later, in April of 2021, I made sure to keep track of my symptoms so I could share them with other people when I was feeling better. Here's how it went. (read more)

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF SURVIVING COVID WITH ASTHMA?

I'm going to be honest with you, I felt a little silly typing that title. I did it anyway though because it was a very real concern when my son and I came down with COVID. I don't watch the news a whole lot, I get that fear sells and "if it bleeds it leads", so I tried to stay away from the screen and look at the overall survivability rates. I knew they were high, something like 99.98% chance of survival in my age range (43 years old) and about the same for my ten year old son, if not a bit higher. Still, in the back of my head I couldn't help but feel afraid. What if we were different than other people? What if it was worse for us? What if it didn't feel like it was going to be bad, but then it got bad and....and.....and....you get the idea.

In case you're wondering and you don't want to read this whole blog post, we're fine. It was basically a mild flu that lasted about two weeks for me, and about three days for him. I'll get into all of that below, but I figured I'd help you out if you just wanted the end of story part right at the beginning.

So, while I don't know the official chances of surviving COVID with asthma, I do know that we survived just fine, and I doubt my son even noticed he had it at all.

DOES PONY O WORK FOR CURLY HAIR? HERE'S A REVIEW I DON'T GET PAID FOR.

REAL LIFE COVID EXPERIENCES UNITED STATES
THE VIDEO

As always, I made a video. If you'd like to watch it instead of reading, feel free. It is only on Rumble. I have no faith in YouTube not removing the video and penalizing my entire account for it, so I didn't want to take any chances. I just know they're all about that censorship, especially on a few topics, COVID being one of them. My videos are not my main income stream, but all the same, I'd rather not test the waters.

WHAT IF YOUR CHILD HAS COVID SYMPTOMS?
FIRST SON - 13 - NON ASTHMATIC

I have two kids, both boys, only one has asthma. The first one in the family to come down with COVID was our 13 year old. We believe he got it from his MMA class, which he takes four nights each week.

He woke up on a Monday morning and said he didn't feel well. He was sleepy, which for my kids is always a sure sign of illness. I took his temperature, it was around 101 F, so I had a hunch he might have COVID, but we went ahead and got him tested just to be sure.

The test came back positive, so at that point we called his MMA class to let them know that he was positive, and to also let them know that he wouldn't be back for two weeks. No matter how good or bad he was feeling from that point on, we were going to quarantine.

Over the next few days he slept a lot, didn't eat much, stayed hydrated, and ran a fever between 101 and 103. On Thursday morning he woke up and acted like he'd never been sick at all. Just like that, he was over it. He had no other symptoms and no lingering issues. That was three weeks ago, so I don't expect anything else to pop up.

We kept him out of his MMA class for the full two weeks, but life is pretty much back to normal at this point.

ARE YOU ENTERING THE DARK PORTAL? HERE'S WHY I LOVE ZYGOR GUIDES.

CAN ASTHMA PATIENTS RECOVER FROM COVID?
43 YEAR OLD FEMALE

The second person in the house to come down with COVID was me. It was about five days after my oldest son got sick. I have had asthma my entire life, so when I started to feel bad, I knew what was likely going on, and I knew that there was a chance my reaction to COVID could be very different than his because I do already have breathing issues.

I have tried very hard not to get caught up in the doom and gloom COVID stories, but since that's all you see when you do any searching for COVID stuff, I couldn't really avoid it. I knew from the overall survival rates that I would likely be fine, but, as I said at the start, it gets hard to believe that you'll be okay when all you hear is that you will NOT be okay.

It really does have an effect on your brain, at least it did mine.

I got sick on Friday, enough that I was tired, not feeling well, a little nauseous, headachy, and just sort of blah. Saturday morning I woke up with a fever of around 99.7, and I ran that fever for three days, never going over 100. I did a lot of sleeping, took a lot of naps, and waited for the really bad part to start.

For me "the really bad part" means it has gotten into my lungs. Back in 2019 I got the flu and ended up in the ER with walking pneumonia. That was a month of exhaustion, steroids, z packs, nebulizer treatments, the whole nine yards.

I did get a cough and waited for it to become gunky, but other than being sort of productive for a day, nothing came of it. Two weeks later I do still have the occasional coughing fit, but it's a dry cough, more irritation from coughing than anything else.

After three days of a fever, I could feel myself getting better, and while I did need to sleep quite a lot for 10 days or so, each day I felt stronger and less tired. I did use my inhaler as a precautionary measure a few times, but I never had a serious asthma attack and never felt like my lungs were in any real danger.

Still, when my ten year old came down with it, I worried all over again.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I GOT BOTOX IN MY BUNNY LINES.

COVID IN CHILDREN WITH ASTHMA
10 YEAR OLD ASTHMATIC BOY

My 10 year old son was the last in our house to get COVID. He was a very bad asthmatic for years, finally getting an official diagnosis when he was 8 years old after going to the doctor four times and getting, "He has bronchitis" as a diagnosis, despite my efforts to explain that he wasn't sick. Unfortunately his asthma attacks presented as severe coughing fits that would last hours on end. It wasn't your typical wheezing. Finally I got a doctor who listened and sent us on to an allergy doctor who did all the tests and....of course....he was asthmatic.

We did weekly allergy shots for a year, then another year of monthly allergy shots, finishing only in February of this year. So when he got sick, I was VERY concerned. I knew his lungs were prone to issues, especially since at the peak of his asthma he was having attacks several times per day, even with a preventative inhaler being used daily.

He woke up late a few days after I'd gotten sick. It wasn't like him to sleep in, so immediately my spidey senses started tingling and I took his temperature. He was running a low fever, not over 100, but insisted he was feeling fine. He ate fine, didn't seem to require any more rest than normal, and didn't even miss a day of school (my kids have always been homeschooled, so online school is what they're used to and I let them go at their own pace since there's no option of truly skipping a lesson).

After running away from me a few times when I tried to take his temperature again, I left him alone and just listened for that tell-tale cough that would indicate he was having an asthma attack. Thankfully, it never came.

Of the four of us, he had the least issue with COVID. He never acted sick other than the one morning he slept in, he never required any medicine, and he seemed totally unfazed by the low fever. He was over it and back to being fever free long before my husband I were back to normal.

IS DIPPING YOUR NAILS AT HOME MAKING YOU SICK? IT DID ME!

WEIRD COVID SYMPTOMS AFTER RECOVERY

There were some things that I think are notable, stuff I would not have associated with COVID, and a few things that we'd heard about COVID that proved to be 100% true for us.

1. Smell/Taste Loss - This happened to my husband and I, but not the kids. About three days after I got sick, after the fever was done, I started to smell horrible things. Everything stunk! Since I wash my clothes with Vinegar (I'll have to write another blog post about that), I was initially concerned that I'd spilled that vinegar in the house, but since my husband couldn't smell it, we realized it was COVID. After four days of everything smelling terrible, I lost my sense of smell and taste altogether. My husband did as well and we both spent another four days eating the bare minimum because it all just sort of tasted like sand.

2. Viral Rash - My ten year old got a rash on the tops of his thighs. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was a viral rash because both of my kids used to get these when they were little. It was a pre-sickness sign in our house. Get a rash and sickness would follow a day or two later. The rash lasted a few days and disappeared just as quickly as it came. If you have kids who get viral rashes, you know what I'm talking about.

3. Stomach Issues - This was all me, no one else experienced it, but for me it is still going on. I wake up in the morning and my stomach feels uncomfortable. It lasted about 20 minutes the first day, but has since shortened in duration. It's been about a week, so it's definitely been longer than I'd like, but I can only guess that COVID messed with my gut flora. I've been eating yogurt to get those probiotics. Either that is helping, or it's just sorting itself out with time. I'll never know for sure.

4. Headache - This has been something all of us other than my 10 year old have experienced. We had bad headaches for a week or so, but they seem to be lingering for my husband, though they are happening less and less. Again, I guess it's just going to take some time.

5. Nausea - My husband and I both dealt with this at the start of our symptoms, though his was much shorter lived than mine, and it's also why I am making the assumption that my gut flora was messed up a bit.

FINAL THOUGHTS

To date I have had too many family and friends with COVID to count on all of my fingers and toes. Every single one of those people is totally and completely fine.

Even knowing this information, and knowing the incredibly high rate of recovery, I was still extremely nervous when my family got sick.

There's nothing wrong with that.

You know your body better than anyone, so if you feel like you need to see a doctor, definitely do that. I'm not a medical professional by any means, and I didn't even sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.

All that said, if you have any questions about my specific experience, I'm more than happy to help, just ask below and I'll be sure to reply.

Ty

1 Comment

Andria Duncan

7/24/2022 01:24:08 am

I commented on your post about gabapentin withdrawal, as I've been dealing with that for the last couple weeks. I might be more or less over it, it's hard to say, since I'm still itching from the gabapentin allergy, but the insomnia might be clearing up... mostly because now I have COVID19! Which didn't terrify me when I tested positive, though I also have asthma, because it's actually the 2nd time I've had it, though I'm now triple-vaxxed - was double-vaxxed when I caught what was likely the initial omicron strain back in January (2022). Wasn't terribly sick then - fever up to 101.6 for a few nights, those ungodly headaches, and all over in a week, even tested negative one week to the day of when symptoms first appeared. Not terribly sick now, either - fever less than 100 a couple nights, lots of mucus both in sinuses and chest, wet productive cough, feeling tired/sleepy a lot, which is what seems to have fixed the insomnia. Daresay I'll be over it soon. But now husband has it too, and though he's also triple-vaxxed, he hasn't caught it before, and he's 69 yrs old, with well-controlled hypertension, so I'm terrified for HIM. Which is why I'm awake at 4:15am this time! I can't seem to catch a break!