I Got Covid & This is What I Did
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To be real with you, I wasn't sure how my body was going to respond. For two years I lived with this lingering fear that if I got Covid I wasn't going to be ok. The fear mongering media got to me. I don't even watch the news but you really can't escape it. The fear campaign is everywhere. And if you want to be in the know and be educated on what's going on in the world, you must stay up to date on current affairs somehow, but every time I do seek insight the narrative is 99.9% bleak and rarely if ever do they share positive, happy ending stories. That is exactly why I wanted to share my story. Let me preface by saying this, this is my story- I realize that Covid has killed many and many have had a horrible battle and/or are still dealing with long haul symptoms. I have sympathy for every single person who has been affected by this virus. I feel at this point, there is not one person in the world who doesn't know someone who has been deeply affected or was deeply affected themself by this pandemic. But I have always found comfort in sharing my experiences, in hopes that bits of my story could somehow inspire others or bring comfort to others in some way. But our ability to even share these moments is becoming limited as well. We now live in this "we are damned if we do and damned if we don't" world and I am just so over the polarization that it has created. So, I can not preface enough, this is my story, my experience and my truth. If you don't like it, that is your prerogative and I respect that. I am trying to get back to a world where we can live in coherence even if we have different opinions.
I have always been about empowering people. It's what keeps me motivated and inspired. I feel it's my calling to share. Through sharing my experience with naturally birthing my son, Kaleo to the holistic way I have chosen to treat rheumatoid arthritis, which goes without saying puts me in the "high risk" category for Covid- I have always felt inspired to empower people to take their health into their own hands, which is exactly what I have always done. I am inspired to share my experience because unfortunately its not one that we hear often.
Although I am a Holistic Health practitioner, I am not a doctor. Everything I share is not medical advice, I am simply sharing what I personally did when I got Covid and the resources that I used.
So, like many of you, I got Covid for Christmas- well just before Christmas. My husband, Devan came down with some mild symptoms first, got tested, was negative then two days later finally tested positive. At that point we had decided that there was no point in trying to quarantine from each other as we are a tight close family and surely have all already been exposed. Plus with Christmas around the corner, we decided we would rather be together even with Covid than apart. As soon as Devan tested positive, I went into high gear and followed FLCC I-Mask protocol for Devan and their exposure recommendations for Kaleo and I. Most of these are already fairly known like gargling with antiseptic mouthwash at least 3x per day. Neti pot, Vitamin C, D, K, zinc, probiotics and adaptogen immune support supplements. You can see their complete protocol HERE.
If you are not familiar, the FLCCC Alliance was formed by a group of physicians at the start of the pandemic. The team quickly began to develop protocols to successfully treat patients. Their first, the MATH+ Hospital Treatment Protocol, was used to save critically ill patients and to prevent them from having to rely on ventilators to breathe. As COVID-19 cases surged, they urgently researched ways to offload the hospitals and reduce case counts and deaths. You can learn more HERE
I had been preparing for the possibility that this day would eventually come and being considered high risk because of my rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, I wanted to have all my ducks in a row prior. I had all my supplements, protocols, resources, and even a nurse on call with Monoclonal Antibodies should Devan, Kaleo or I need them. I also had a prescription for Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine). A few years ago my rheumatologist had prescribed it to me for rheumatoid arthritis. I never picked up the prescription due to the long term side effects, plus I was steadfast on healing myself holistically for rheumatoid arthritis. Although there are hardly any short-term side effects with Plaquenil, after about 5 years, blindness can happen and when you take it for RA it is meant to be a long term treatment. Once Covid happened and I heard that doctors were successfully treating people with it for Covid, I picked up that prescription to have it on hand. For those of you that don't know, Plaquenil is an immunomodulatory drug that has been used for 60 years to treat malaria and autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus and inflammatory arthritis conditions.
The day Devan tested positive, I called my rheumatologist and told her that I had been exposed. She advised me to start taking 200 mg of Plaquenil 2x per day for 5 days. I immediately added that to my regimen. That night Devan started experiencing a fever, tiredness and what he later described as a strep throat feeling. This lingered for him for just over a week. Where he slept almost 24 hours and only got up to try and eat and use the bathroom. The night of day 3 for me, since being exposed, I started feeling some unusual body aches that started in my back. I am used to having chronic aches and pains but knowing that I might be getting Covid, this somehow felt different. Then I started getting the chills, like to the point where I was freezing and the worst headache of my life. I never get headaches so I knew something was going on. I took 325 mg Aspirin and melatonin (I-MASK protocol) put my heating pad on and went to sleep. Upon waking up, I felt about 75% better??? To the point where I was confused as to how good I felt. I called a friend of mine who had just gotten over Covid and asked her if it came in waves? Can I be expecting another bad night or do you think I'm over it already? By day two, I was cooking for Devan, cleaning the house, practicing yoga again and actually built out this website. In fact, I had more energy than usual, it was very weird. Kaleo and I finally got tested and confirmed that I was positive. Kaleo on the other hand was still negative and still had no symptoms. It's really a mystery to me because we live in a very small space, but he never got it and it seems like everyone got it over the holidays who had been exposed. I do have a theory on this though- we joke, even though its not funny, about the poor water quality that Kaleo surfs in and even before the vaccines were created, he had been surfing in it every single day, so maybe its possible that he developed some sort of stronger immunity towards it from being exposed little by little each day, who knows? We all however continued our protocols and quarantined for 10 days. It took Devan the full 10 days to feel 100% like himself again, but he really did a minimal protocol and only took some of the supplements listed on FLCC. He was even making jokes saying, Jesse is the only person I know that gets Covid and feels better! I have a hypothesis on this too: Plaquenil is something that my doctor prescribed for me for rheumatoid arthritis and although it says, it could take some time for the drug to take effect, I immediately felt better in my body compared to how I normally feel. See, people living with a chronic disease really don't know what feeling good is. Our barometer and threshold for pain is so off that until the pain is gone, do we really realize the pain we are in day to day. The second thing is, for me, Plaquenil absolutely worked but I was also very lucky to have known that I was exposed prior to actually having any symptoms so that I can treat for exposure. Studies show that early treatment is key in a successful recovery. Now I don't know how I would have been had I not done all the protocols I did early on, but if I compare myself to Devan who had not taken everything I did and had a much more difficult time, I can't help but assume that they helped.
Despite what it was that helped me recover so quickly with no long haul symptoms- all year long 365 days a year, I make it my job to be the healthiest person I can be so it goes without saying that I was ecstatic to have had Covid and know that my body was able to fight it so quickly, especially being considered high risk. I believe the measure is how quickly you bounce back. There is something to say about your current state of health or balance of your body and level of resistance. The stronger you make yourself prior, the more your body will be able to defend itself. Although I have this diagnosis of RA that supposedly considers me high risk, I am a very healthy person and do everything in my power daily to be that way. I have some sort of sense of peace that after all that wasted time I spent fearing something that in my case, was not all that scary at all.
Furthermore, my mom who lives in Florida also got it....something I was dreading the most, since she is 75 years old and has an asthma diagnosis. I am happy to report that she got through it like a champ on the basic FLCC protocol. She didn't take any prescription drugs, just the supplements and other protocols listed. I do want to preface that she is very healthy. She does like her wine but other than that she eats an ancestral diet, does pilates or dances every day and generally has a lot of QI (vital life force energy) in her body. She runs circles around me.
My goal in writing this is to empower you to take your health into your own hands. Do your own research, gather your resources and be prepared. Don't rely on just one resource. Stay open to all sides, educate yourself. Talk to friends and family members that have had it and ask them what they did? This is an ever-evolving virus that is changing daily so keep yourself informed. This is your life, your family's lives and it's your place to do your due-diligence and that goes for listening to me or anyone else. Use your own discernment. When you empower yourself, fear diminishes and you can start living your life again. Blessed be.
You can find all my favorite supplements HERE
Some other tools that I used for my family and I outside of what I already mentioned are:
Therasage EMF Free Heating Pad
IonCleanse Ion Detox Foot Bath
Daily drink I made:
One whole organic lemon squeezed
Juice of an inch of ginger, grated and strained in cheesecloth
One tablespoon of honey
Add boiling water, sip while warm