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How’s it going everybody?
Today I wanted to do something just a little bit different. About a month ago, I was diagnosed with COVID-19. And when I was going through this, my one thought was, oh my god, am I the only one on earth like I was reaching out to all of my friends to see who had it. And what I really learned was a lot of my friends and friends, friends, we’re going through the exact same thing that I was going through.
And granted, yes, I’m a medical doctor. I know the traditional symptoms, I know what I’m supposed to do. I know what I’m supposed to take. But at the same time, it’s not the same as hearing it from somebody who has it and talking to somebody who’s going through the same thing that you’re going through. So in this episode, I just want to talk a little bit about my experience so that you can hear it from somebody else who had it just to know that it’s real, it’s out there, you’re not alone. And at the end, I’m just going to get some of my thoughts on what’s going on in the world right now with COVID. And kind of where I see this going and my mindset through this whole thing. I hope this is helpful for you whether you’ve had it or not. I guarantee you probably know somebody who at least know somebody who’s had it, but I’m located here in Florida, currently Orlando, Florida. Which is now like the epicenter of the world, apparently in terms of cases, which I believe with that I’m going to just get going and tell you about kind of what happened and what my experience with COVID was.
So it was about a month and a half ago, and the bars had just opened back up. Everyone was really excited. Everyone was really kind of wound tight from being locked up in quarantine for so long. And so as I was dying to, you know, get back out into a restaurant, go have a drink with a friend and me and a few friends went to dinner at World of beer, sat down at a table, social distancing, or the masks and took them off when we got there. And then after that, we went out to downtown Orlando for a drink. Nothing crazy, super casual. Everything seemed fine. That was on a Sunday.
I got back home, worked through the week and then Thursday night started to feel a little bit off kind of like when the flu starting to hit. You get that first night where you’re just like something’s wrong. And then you wake up the next day and it’s like, a truck hit you. From there. I mean, that Friday morning, that Saturday, that’s Sunday. I was just out for the count the first five to six days. It was very, very Similar to the flu, I was in bed, sweating, fever, just no energy muscle weakness, just wanted to lay in bed all day couldn’t do a thing. My head was hurting I was taking I wasn’t taking Advil, you’re not supposed to take Advil but I was taking a lot of Tylenol don’t take n sets if you have covid but popping Tylenol like candy just trying to you know sue the headache break my fever pulled the sheets over me I was burning hot and sweating. I took them off I had cold chills just a nightmare of a week after about seven days I started to get some energy back started to not sweat in bed, my fever was starting to break but sort of towards the time that those symptoms stopped.
I started to get those traditional COVID-19 symptoms I lost my entire sense of smell. I lost my entire sense of taste and it started to make its way into my lungs which is where I got really scared. I was starting to have like a partial pneumonia it was you know difficult to breathe in and out. I was coughing you know, I know what to do. I know the virus you know infects your lungs. It wants you to slow down your breathing so that it can replicate. It doesn’t want you to breathe hard doesn’t want you to breathe fast. So I was lifting my arms up really high and taking deep breaths as much as it hurt. Although I was starting to cough, springing up mucus was awful so that that week, I was still kind of in bed bedridden wasn’t doing anything going anywhere. I was starting to kind of return to my you know, in bed work but still felt like crap, absolute crap. And the pneumonia is what scared me. I was like, Oh my God, if this advances to the point where I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep, I’m gonna have to go to a hospital. And I was telling my roommate, if you can’t wake me up, I’m unable to breathe completely. That’s when you can take me to a hospital. I was refusing, but thank God. I mean, after about seven days of that the pneumonia got, you know, worse and worse as we approached like day three, day four, and then started to get better again. And this whole process.
I mean, my family was calling me every day, but I was talking to people who had already had it or was currently going through it. I was facetiming people not that first week so I couldn’t even talk but the second Now starting to feel a little bit better and I just wanted to connect with people who are going through the same thing that I was going through, we would FaceTime and be like hey man, like how’s your symptoms? I guess we’re facetiming so it’s like this how’s your symptoms like what are you going through right now? How you feeling? Do you need to go to the hospital? Are you okay? Can you breathe and that was actually really comforting for me to know that other people are going through the same thing that I was going through some not nearly as bad some way worse.
I had a friend thank god she stayed out of the hospital but she couldn’t sleep because the breathing she was sleeping up. She said every time she took a breath, it felt like she was getting stabbed in the back that’s you know, the point where I would worry and say you should probably go you know, see a physician go to the hospital just in case they can monitor you just in case they have to take aggressive action and intubate you or something crazy. But thank God might never advance that way. And honestly, a hospital right now sounds like the worst place on Earth. Thank god after that next week was over. So it was about two weeks and maybe a day or two until I started to feel a little bit better get my energy back. I was still testing positive. I still definitely had it in my system. \
So I was quarantined, not leaving my house you know at that point I started to do some light exercise at home. My taste and smell actually started to return after about two and a half weeks. But you know what I didn’t actually hate that symptom so much actually lost 10 pounds on COVID obviously due to my inactivity, but I was also eating really clean. I wasn’t craving any junk food, I couldn’t taste anything was the weirdest thing ever. I would have like a peanut butter and banana smoothie. I couldn’t taste the peanut butter. I would you know, make tea every day couldn’t taste the tea couldn’t taste the juice it that was probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve heard of cases of people who still don’t have their tastes back. Just a weird thing and a weird symptom that’s kind of a hallmark of COVID-19 right now almost every person that I’ve talked to so far that’s had it has lost something of a sense of taste or smell. So just a weird thing.
My roommate also thinks he had it he tested negative recently so which was way after that we think we had it but he started to get symptomatic just like a light flew for about a week while we were living together. We were taking precautions but not that many. We just kind of assumed he was going to get it and he got kind of sick for a week and that was it and he’s actually much more sickness prone than I am which is a weird thing we thought if he got it he would be like on its deathbed but he was okay. It affects people differently. It affected me I would say like a medium way. I was on the verge of being scared of going to the hospital but was never even close to there. In terms of what I did for like treating myself on my own. There’s honestly not much that you can do at home other than homeopathic remedies. I was drinking a lot of tea. I was drinking a lot of water. I was you know, staying hydrated.
I’m a big multivitamin guy. I was taking my vitamin D which is great for Immune Support vitamin C akinesia elderberry fish oil, I have a whole Immune Support complex that I take that has all of those things and more that hopefully helps me get past this faster. But I did not take any and says don’t take Advil, don’t take a leave. Don’t take ibuprofen stick to Tylenol. I was taking it quite often that first week when I was really feeling pain. It’s good for breaking the fever. And my theory. I think fevers are good for fighting viruses. I think it’s your body’s response to try and get that thing out there. But for my headache alone, it was awful. god awful. But luckily, I’m now testing negative, I’m good to go. I think my immune system has been able to overcome the virus build immunity. I have not had the antibody test yet. But I will get back to you on the results of that. And with that being said, if you’re going through COVID-19 diagnosis and you have any of these, you know, want to talk to somebody, please reach out I’m happy to talk.
And with that being said, I’m going to transition a little bit into a conversation about COVID and America right now COVID in the world and kind of what my what my viewpoints are from both a medical perspective, a business perspective and just a human being. So from a medical perspective, the one thing that I really want to emphasize is that everyone is looking for doctors and data for answers right now and it’s just so new and the data is changing. They say wear masks they don’t wear masks, they don’t know what mask is going to block it. The best we can do right now is use the best recommendations that we know might work which is wear masks, we’ve seen a decrease Since spread with masks on we know that the chance of getting reinfected right away if you’re immuno competent, which means you have a good immune system are low, but they have seen cases of reinfection.
With that being said, wear masks regardless, it makes everyone feel better. And we don’t know if you can get reinfect or not. For those of you who are like some of my friends and say, let’s go out let’s get this virus. Let’s get it over with think twice. I know it sounds like that’s probably a good idea to just go get it get back into normal life. I’m honestly a little bit relieved. I feel like I’m probably not going to get reinfected and I can probably go do things without having to worry about it. But at the same time, I’m really scared about what the long term effects of me having this virus in my system could be. It might not be out of me. My immune system may not have fought, you know, fought it off and it’s just gone. There’s a lot of viruses that lay dormant and cause other issues. The herpes virus stays in your dorsal nerve root ganglion and when your immune system becomes weak, it comes out to play again, the chickenpox virus. You have it as a kid your immune system fights it off, but it lies dormant when you’re old. And immunosuppressed, it comes back as shingles. And there’s a lot of other examples like this. And these are just the ones that we know about.
There’s a lot of evidence out there that you know, viral infections can spark autoimmune diseases and things like that. So we really just don’t know what the long term effects of having this virus are. And that’s what scares me from getting in. And that’s why I think you need to stay protected from a human standpoint. That’s that’s my medical perspective where the masks try to avoid it. Don’t go out and be courageous and try and get it. We just don’t know. It’s too early. There’s too much data. It’s too crazy. Right now, doctors don’t have all the answers, the best we can do is the best we can do. So wear masks, stay safe, avoid older people and try not to get the virus Now let’s talk about from a human perspective, just what’s going on in the world. My first thought is with all of the people who have lost their jobs, all of the people who have lost, you know, relatives. I mean, that’s that’s all awful, awful. My worst thought is all of this 65 plus and immunosuppressed and sick. People out there right now are basically in prison until a vaccine is created or herd immunity becomes a thing and that is just the saddest thing ever.
Obviously, dying is horrible. The death rate honestly, you know, it’s not that bad, young, healthy people are recovering from this thing. And now most of the cases are with the young and healthy. But how sad is it that I mean, my grandma has basically been stuck in her apartment unable to leave her house, Scott’s grandma unable to leave her apartment. At least my grandma can like go out and have safe dinners. A lot of older people right now are in prison for the end of their life. And we don’t know how long this is going to last. If the virus mutates a vaccine could be useless. The virus mutates herd immunity can be useless people can get reinfected there’s a pretty likely chance that that happens that already mutated once that we know about and that’s just really scary. As a human I’m scared I’m scared that it’s gonna mutate we’re gonna be stuck with this like the flu and this virus is not like the flu when I get the flu. I’m sick for two days. When I got this I I never get sick. This put me out of commission for two weeks. I’m really scared for what would happen to some Who was already sick, older or immunocompromised?
It’s a really hard hitting scary virus. Let’s see, from a business standpoint, my business has actually done really, really well over the past six months. One of my businesses my public relations company has done excellent, obviously, because media is a wildfire right now. And the people who have had money still have money to spend however, the people who don’t have money, the people who are maybe just starting a business own a storefront where people have to come in and brick and mortar that I mean, that’s a horrible, hard hitting thing. I think. Unemployment right now is kind of a crazy thing. They’re paying $600 a week for people who are out of work. I think it’s too much. I think it’s discouraging people to go back to work. I think all of the money that they’re giving to businesses right now is probably misplaced.
I know my business got a ton of money. My friend’s business did not my friend’s medical practice got a ton of money. My other friends did not the applications are crazy. There’s lots of backup. There’s more money going in fortune 500 companies are getting millions while other companies are getting thousands The system just doesn’t know what to do. And that’s kind of the moral of the story with all of this. No one knows what to do, because it’s all coming so fast, so hard. There’s so many moving pieces, so many people that are sick. But the important thing is that in Florida, people are not just in Florida, you know, in the entire country, people just aren’t taking it seriously, people don’t think that COVID is real. And I’m here to tell you I had it. It’s real, it’s freaking scary. It’s not the flu, it’s not something that you want to just get and get over with. This is really you know, hurting a lot of people and if you do go out, you know, balls to the walls maskless on a boat party and end up getting COVID and getting hospitalized with no health insurance. That’s not you that I mean, it is you could suffer and you’re gonna suffer quite a bit, but that’s what’s going to tank the economy. That’s really what’s what’s putting all the stress on the healthcare community right now. You know, thank you to all of our practicing doctors, nurses, hospital staff, all of you right now absolute heroes. I know things are slowly getting better.
We’re slowly starting to figure this all out. But until you know we have a vaccine we have a long term solution, we’re just gonna have to do our best. And that’s all that we can do. And I’m here to tell you that I had it. And if you have it, I’m more than willing to talk to you reach out to somebody and don’t I mean, you don’t want to go to the hospitals just stay safe. Try not to get the virus. But if you’re having a lot of trouble breathing, to the point where you can’t sleep, it’s stabbing and you’re really working to get take a breath, you have to do what you have to do. I know I didn’t really want to go, but I’ve had friends who probably maybe should have gone and yeah, next time you see a nurse or a doctor, thank them. And next time you see somebody inside of a store without a mask on, shame them with that being said, sorry that this episode was a little bit different.
I hope you liked it. Drop your comments connect with me on social media. The best way to get in touch with me is probably my Instagram DMS. It’s @drjayfeldman. And again, if you have this, you just want to talk about it. You want to tell me your thoughts. You know spitball some some ideas and whatnot asked me where I think this is going or some personal questions. I always answer my Instagram dm Just start with a question not just Hi, love you. I probably want to answer that. All right. Anyways, peace out.
Hope you enjoyed this. Hope you enjoyed my moment of honesty, and I’ll see you guys next time. Peace. Thank you so much for watching this episode of the Mentors collective.
This is Dr. Jay Feldman and I just wanted to take a moment to thank you so much for your support and also asked you for a little bit more. If you can take the next 10 seconds and write us a review on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify. Just let me know your feedback. It means the world to me again. Thank you for watching. If you love this episode, please share it with your friends. Share it with your family. Until next time!