- Many people think they’re aware of all the coronavirus symptoms people commonly experience, and the CDC does list all the typical COVID-19 symptoms on its website.
- Unfortunately, there is also a laundry list of far more severe symptoms that hundreds of thousands of people around the world are experiencing.
- One coronavirus survivor posted a widely-shared thread on Twitter that describes many coronavirus symptoms that she and many other people have experienced.
One need only look at the sharp rise in coronavirus cases across the United States right now to see how serious this pandemic is. More than 3 million people in the US are confirmed to have been infected by the novel coronavirus, and more than 135,000 people in the country have died. Where case numbers are concerned, many experts believe the number of infections to be an order of magnitude higher than that already daunting figure. Since 40% or more COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic, we’ll never truly know how many people in the US caught the disease.
In cases of COVID-19 where the patient does display symptoms, there are a handful of common coronavirus symptoms that everyone talks about most often. They’re all listed on the CDC’s website, and there are 11 of them: fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea. Those are indeed the most common symptoms doctors have encountered in patients behing treated for COVID-19 infections, but there are several more severe coronavirus symptoms that hundreds of thousands of people around the world have experienced, and some of them are downright terrifying.
N+1 Foundation development manager Dani Oliver is a COVID-19 survivor who took to Twitter in an effort to shed light on her experience with the disease. She also sought to raise awareness of how serious the novel coronavirus can be. The global death count of more than 535,000 is a horrifying statistic that should be more than enough to scare people into taking every possible precaution. Sadly, many people across the US and around the world either aren’t getting the message or refuse to believe that COVID-19 is as serious a problem as the media makes it out to be.
As Oliver puts it on Twitter, “It’s not enough to not die. You don’t want to live thru this, either.”
In a lengthy thread posted to Twitter late last week, explained that she caught COVID-19 in March and has now been sick for more than three months with a fever as well as respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological symptoms. During her fight with the disease, she has also connected with other people battling COVID-19 around the world, who take to online forums and support groups to share their stories and help raise awareness.
“I am not unique,” Oliver wrote of her severe and wide-ranging coronavirus symptoms. “Support groups have sprung up all over the internet because medical science doesn’t know what to do with the hundreds of thousands of Covid patients who don’t get better in the (utter and complete bulls**t, and they know it) CDC guidelines of 2-6 weeks.”
She continued, “The CDC is also refusing to add widely-reported, terrifying symptoms to their lists. So here’s a grab bag of what patients like me are experiencing, so you know.”
Oliver went on to share a laundry list of severe symptoms that she and other COVID-19 patients she has come across have experienced. Here’s a portion of them, as quoted from her thread on Twitter:
- Extreme tachycardia. My heart rate was once 160 while I was sleeping.
- Chest pain, like someone’s sitting on your sternum.
- Back and rib pain like someone’s taken a baseball bat to your torso.
- Fatigue like you’ve never felt before in your life. Fatigue like your body is shutting off. Fatigue so bad that it would often make me cry because I thought it might mean I was dying.
- GI problems, diarrhea to severe acid reflux. I had diarrhea every day for two+ months.
- Unbearable nausea.
- Inexplicable rashes.
- For me, little broken blood vessels all over my body.
- For many of us, a constant shortness of breath that doctors can’t find an explanation for.
- Neurological symptoms. I had delirium & hallucinations. Many report tingling all over their body, an internal “buzzing” or “vibrating.”
- Insomnia & chronic hypnic bodily jerks. One symptom so weird that I thought it was just me, but it turns out it’s so many of us.
- Waking up in the middle of the night, gasping for breath.
- Tremors while trying to sleep, like someone was shaking the bed.
There are many, many more coronavirus symptoms that Oliver goes on to describe. You can read the entire thread by clicking through on the tweet embedded below. She also shared a link to an article on The Atlantic that includes links to several COVID-19 support groups. This is the latest in a long line of reminders that the novel coronavirus pandemic isn’t being overblown by the media. If anything, there isn’t enough coverage of just how severe COVID-19 can be. Wear a protective face mask every time you leave the house, practice social distancing, and wash your hands or use hand sanitizer anytime you touch a surface or object outside your home. If you don’t you’re a danger to yourself and to everyone around you.
Hey, so, I got #Covid19 in March. I’ve been sick for over 3 months w/ severe respiratory, cardiovascular & neurological symptoms. I still have a fever. I’ve been incapacitated for nearly a season of my life. It's not enough to not die. You don’t want to live thru this, either. 1/
— Dani Oliver (@DaniOliver) July 3, 2020
