Age: 55.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Arthralgia, Back pain, COVID-19, Chest X-ray normal, Chest pain
Clinical narrative: My first symptoms were sore throat, body aches, terrible headache. Just some general malaise. It progressed from there to significant body pain. I get migraines and I would say the headache was worse than the migraine. Felt like my head was being cut in half. I think those symptoms lasted for about 3-4 days and taking Nyquil to go to sleep. Still wasn't really getting sleep. I think I was feeling like I could've gone to work. I went for the whole day and didn't do much and sat the whole time. I didn't feel good and a couple days before I started developing a cough that was ongoing. Wasn't giving me much release. I stayed home for another week still feeling crappy. Still body aches and nothing major. Also had diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. I would say my taste buds did change, and everything tasted weird. I tried to go back to work the next Monday, but the cough was way worse. So I was only there for about 4 hours then went home again. I called my doctor at the time and he prescribed a cough syrup and Tessalon pearls and said if it got any worse and not getting relief, I should go to the ER the next day. I was also starting to get chest pain a few days prior. It felt tight and sharp and it radiated to my back. At 1 AM I still couldn't sleep and coughing and my chest started hurting more and started radiating to my left shoulder and jaw. We didn't wait until 5 then went immediately to the ER. They gave me an injection of Solu-Medrol and put me on a 3 day course of steroids, but I do not remember for sure. They sent me home with the same cough medicine and pearls and an albuterol inhaler. They did a chest x-ray and a d-dimer and both came back with nothing indicated. My labs were okay. They sent me home and said to follow up with my physician in a few days. I followed up and I was still having a lot of coughing trouble. They continued me on the cough syrup, the Tessalon pearls and a tapered steroid. A week later, I went back for follow up and I was still not doing well, doing worse. Fatigue and cough were getting worse. Chest pain was getting worse. Body aches were off and on. I was over being sick with this lingering stuff. I went back for a follow up. A physician friend also suggested micro clots and to ask for a CAT scan. We did 2 nebulizer treatments in the office at some point and didn't want me to wait for a CAT scan because I was coughing and had chest pain. I went to the ER again and they did another chest x-ray and did a CT scan of the lungs with contrast. It was ground glass opacities throughout the lungs. They gave me a couple more nebulizer treatments at the ER then sent me home with follow. At home, I was on nebulizers every 3-4 hours, PRN inhaler, tapering steroids for home. They also put me on an antibiotic at some point, Z-pack. I had another doctor friend who had me do a nebulizer with betadine solution and a number of vitamin supplements. A week into that, I felt a lot better. Cough had slowed and felt a little better. Seemed the things that my friend had recommended seemed to help more than the doctors and what the ER had been saying. It's been just follow ups and follow ups. Coughing continues. The fatigue continues and body aches and joint paint. Brain fog continues as well. They did also send me for a follow up with a cardiologist and the EKG came back normal. They sent me to see a pulmonologist to do a pulmonary function test but in the interim, I was switched over to workers comp doc and he said that he didn't think the pulmonary function test was necessary. He stopped the nebulizer and the inhaler, and he started me on Pepcid and a 10 day course of Prozac and sent me to physical therapy. We just had a follow up and he stopped the Pepcid and now I'm doing Zyrtec instead and still in PT. He's going to prescribe a different steroid inhaler Pulmicort but I haven't started that yet. Still wheezing when going up the stairs and other activities.