Day 1 of covid symptoms?

Hello everyone, with recent exponential spike in covid cases across India, I myself became covid positive. I started showing my symptoms on 15th April a week after my mom became covid positive. Two days later on 17th April my brother started showing symptoms.

In my experience I realised how much important it is to take extreme good care of yourself at home once you start showing symptoms. Many people don’t know how to take care of themselves in a right way and with the current collapsed health care, it becomes difficult to intervene when situation becomes worse. So let’s try to be proactive and vigilant from the day 1 to avoid the critical situations.

Few points that I made from my experience and have been sharing with everyone:

1. Be proactive and vigilant from day 1 of your symptoms. This will significantly reduce the chances of your condition becoming severe.
2. Don’t wait for the covid 19 test results. Start your treatment right away as you see symptoms. (Reason being late slot bookings and late announcement of lab results. Waiting for results and then starting your treatment is very risky)
3. Seek medical help immediately from a trusted doctor on day 1 of symptoms. Share your medical history with them and tell them if you are allergic to any medicines. Also, don’t refrain from asking right questions. Doctors are taking online consultations, hence they are not able to see your symptoms. Make sure there is no mis communication in the procedure.
4. Keep monitoring your vitals. (Spo2, fever, pulse, BP).
5. Proper steam inhalation and gargles every few hours from day 1 of symptoms to reduce virus loading in the starting phase. Please understand the proper procedure and instructions of steam inhalation.
6. Maintain proper hydration by drinking plenty of fluids like warm water, coconut water, soups etc. after every few minutes from day 1 of symptoms.
7. Breathing exercises (like Pranayama, respirometer, proning, etc) from day 1 of symptoms. Please understand the proper procedure and instructions for the same.
8. Have proper home made food (preferably protein rich). Take small frequent meals. Avoid cold and sour things.
9. Avoid taking medicines immediately after consuming food. Keep an interval of at least 30 minutes.
10. My fever used to be at its peak in the morning after I woke up. Make sure you don’t sleep much at a stretch (for ex more than 8 hours), to make sure that the gap between your medicines do not increase.
11. If you are a caregiver, even though the patient is isolated, make sure that the patient follows all the instructions and doesn’t slack off.
12. Last but not the least. Stay positive and think that you are improving. That does not mean you stop following instructions. For me, positive reinforcement was my faith in God and the love and support of my family and friends.

Please follow all these steps along with your medicines for speedy recovery.

The whole 14 days period is critical, especially days 5–10. You need to take care everyday as if the virus is at its peak. Do not become lazy and stop following the small steps that you took just because you start feeling better one day. It comes back stronger. Recovery phase is equally important.

Stay strong. We are in this together. Let’s share our experiences with everyone to collectively help each other.