Reinfected with COVID-19, Ruth’s immunity went haywire – she had to go to the hospital again

However, Rūta Žičkienė was reminded of COVID-19 in a different way. The body’s reaction was so strong that the woman had to lie down in the hospital.

“It just came to our knowledge then. I thought it would not come out anymore,” Rūta opened, describing his story on the Facebook account of his social network and agreeing to share it with readers of the Delfi portal.

He felt this was not the end

Ruth told me she had COVID-19 before Christmas.

“The first symptoms appeared on December 18. The nose was stuffy, the smell was gone. On the 22nd, I took the test, it was positive, “recalled the interviewee.

Later, as if he had recovered, he even went back to work after the New Year, although, as he himself admitted, intuition said that this was not the end.

“The nasal congestion was still felt a little, but insignificantly,” Rūta told the Delfi portal.

A couple of weeks after the New Year, Ruth began to suffer from unusual health problems.

“Two weeks ago I felt pains in my chest, I had to go to the reception to check my heart, everything was fine – maybe reflux, he sent me home.

The temperature rose after a few days. I went to the polyclinic, inspected, found nothing, but the temperature indicated the problem, so I sent directly to the reception. There he illuminated the lungs; again nothing, only the lymph nodes were enlarged.

I came home at night, and in the morning I woke up with a crazy, rushing itch, and a rash all over my body, back at the front desk. It was decided to go to the hospital there, “said Rūta.

The temperature in the hospital stayed around 39 to 40 degrees, and the woman suffered from insane headaches and pain all over her body.

“They examined me crosswise and longitudinally, there was no way to find a reason. And even liver function was worse, so the only possible drugs were acetaminophen from time to time. And so on for a week, ”Rūta recalled.

Later, Ruth blushed and began to rub her entire body.

“I’m not going to lie, I thought it wouldn’t come out anymore … The doctors stayed behind, they started trying the antibiotic treatment, but it didn’t help much, and the next day they decided to start the cortisone treatment. From that moment on , Things started to get better!

Two days later I was discharged from the hospital and yesterday I returned home ”, the woman was delighted.

Currently, Rūta is being treated at home with cortisone, reducing his doses, in the hope that eventually the body itself will begin to produce it. Additional blood and lung tests are also pending.

According to the woman, there is still no exact diagnosis that explains what happened. However, doctors speculate that Ruth’s immunity went haywire and began attacking a healthy body, as previous studies show, which may have been triggered by the coronavirus.

Virus-induced allergy is likely

Family physician Valerijus Morozovas, having heard of R. Žičkienė’s post-ovidial symptoms, said that it is difficult to decide exactly what happened to the patient without examining her, but it still seems to him that the woman may have induced allergies.

“The immunity can start to behave strangely after any infection. Clearly I am not aware of this particular case, but based on the listed symptoms it is most likely a simple induced allergy that occurs after many viruses. It is present in both children and adults.

Just as the body is fighting the virus, it produces antibodies that look like something: its own tissue, food, or something else. For example, a person has not been allergic to strawberries in life, but becomes infected with them after a coronavirus infection.

Antibodies usually disappear within a few weeks if they are not “supported” – a new virus. But during that time, the quality of life drops dramatically. This can last 4 weeks or more, especially if there is “support” – immunity is constantly being renewed.

If a woman develops these symptoms about two weeks after the illness, it is likely that she has developed an induced allergy, ”said Dr. Morozov.

According to the interlocutor, he himself had encountered patients who developed such allergies after various infections, including COVID-19.

“A boy started having a fever of up to 40 degrees 12 hours after the medicine stopped working. The whole body was covered in blisters. Everything disappeared after the administration of the medication. This allergic reaction was treated without waiting for symptoms to reappear. The boy spontaneously recovered when, after a few weeks, the antibodies “washed away” from his body, “the doctor recalled.

According to the doctor, the antibodies formed after the viruses begin to react simply to the tissue of the human body itself, as a stimulus.

“In this case, the antibodies can react to your skin, but it is a transient condition. It is not exclusively characteristic kovidui. This can happen if you have an infectious disease, most often a virus, ”explained Morozov.

Postcovidial symptoms

Patients with COVID-19 infection often develop postcovidial syndrome.

„Kovidas The only thing is that, unlike all other viruses, our immune system is very unknown because it is mutated and it is completely new.

So our immune system is sometimes very overloaded – the same cytokine storm happens. Then, if the inflammation was more severe and severe, there may be one or another damage to all tissues. There may be weakness, exercise intolerance, irregular breathing and insomnia, and joint and muscle pain.

It is often called post-vitreous fatigue, and what the accompanying symptoms are, more neurological or cardiological, depends on each person individually: some have numb hands and feet, others have heartbeats, others have an odor, no they can do anything, “said Dr. V. Morozov.

By the way, similar viral symptoms can appear after other diseases.

“There is a diagnosis of ‘post-viral syndrome’, only now we are talking more about ‘post-epidemic’, because it is much more common. Some authors report that it occurs in 30-80%. of all the sick. Both patients experience one or the other symptom.

This is not believed to be related to the severity of the disease. You can get sick easily, you can get very sick, but about a third of people will experience one or the other post-viral or post-ovidial fatigue.

With other viruses, the percentages are much lower, but at a time when the virus is mutating (for example, when the flu virus is mutating and we have a pandemic every 20 years), the occurrence of post-viral syndrome also increases. There is no news here. The same thing happened after the bird flu pandemic, the same was for those who had relapsed with other mutations of the same coronavirus: SARS, MERS, which were a few years ago. The same is true after the Ebola virus.

People also have a hard time recovering from tick-borne encephalitis, after Lyme disease, although it is not viral, but also when they get sick, they feel very tired, “noted the doctor.