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Deep Breathing to Stop a COVID Crash
Hello Everyone, my OT and PT therapists both witnessed one of my "covid crashes" today. The kind that make you breathless and dizzy and unable to do much of anything. So instead of the scheduled therapy, today we focused on recovery only.
They recommend that recovery take place when you are lying flat on your back. Take in a deep breath, then without exhaling, take in as much additional air as you can. So a double breath. You should feel the expansion in your ribs. This will flood your lungs with oxygen. Then let the air out as slowly as you can. Again when you think you are done exhaling, try to force more out. Do this until you are feeling more clear headed and less dizzy. I did it for about 10 minutes. Then sit up very very slowly. And do the same thing sitting up for several more minutes.
My crashes usually last 2-10 days. We are going to try to reduce the amount of recovery time by doing these breathing exercises laying down repeatedly through out the day. I am going to try lying down and doing double breathes for 10 minutes every hour.
I will let you know how it goes.
UPDATE: I used the deep breathing technique many times through out the day yesterday, sometimes lying down, sometimes sitting or walking. Whenever I thought of it, I did it for 2--4 minutes. By the end of the day I was feeling significantly better. Now today, I actually think I can do a few of the therapy exercises that I missed yesterday. Not going to go crazy, but am definitely better than I was this time yesterday
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Wow, how encouraging! My daughter still "crashes" at times - 22 months post-Covid. I will suggest she try this.
Sue
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1 ReactionTowards the end of 2021, I was admitted in a hospital for covid-19. I was discharged after 3 days.
At home, my daughter took care of me. She used to talk to the visiting doctor in the hospital.
She told me that the breathing control exersises I did earlier helpme in quick recovery.
This breathing exersise is locally called 'Pranayam'.
There are varios techniques of doing Pranayam.
What is called here as the deep breathing is somewhat different.
Perhaps the purpose of the exersise is to enhanse level of oxygen in the breathe.
My daughter tests with some instrument the level of xygen in my blood. It is normally 95 to 97.
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2 Reactionsyes oxygen therapy is good one. infact any activity of life with body will increase oxygen taking. oxygen is basic requirement of life. oxygen increases immunity. oxygen is well established therapy in medical science.
your immunity is best to protect you. and that is what vaccines do !!!!
Deep breadhing is very simple, free .No equipment is needed and definitely helps improve health. i sometimes I wonder why masks are required ?!
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1 ReactionI’ve been having attacks of GERD, very painful but brief. Lately I’ve tried breathing with meditation and it seems to work.
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2 ReactionsI have episodes that I call 'crashes'. Are yours similar? I have leaden, overwhelming and incapacitating exhaustion (not fatigue) with arm & leg muscle pain (not aches), severe headache with sensitivity to light, sound and smell, no appetite, nausea, chills, inability to concentrate/listen/read/think/talk. I force myself to have 2-3 (8oz) glasses of water, take 2 Excedrin Migraine pills. I go to a bedroom with blackout shades and crawl under a pile of blankets, silence the phone, lay in the fetal position holding my head and pray I can fall asleep. This part lasts ~4 hours.
Then I can open my eyes to daylight and drink more water and move to the couch in silence.
Eventually I can tolerate the sound of tv turned way low but watching the screen hurts my eyes. I sleep on and off throughout the rest of the day/night
At some point I become hungry but nothing sounds good to eat, I wind up with either oatmeal or plain noodles because the smell of food makes me nauseas. Microwaved oatmeal is the fastest and safest for me to cook.
My last 'episode' I slept 26 out of 32 hours,
The next 2 days were like slogging through quicksand or swimming in oatmeal; no energy and a lot of time on the couch. After that I was so afraid of relapse into that state that I did very little the next couple days.
My longest episode was 10 days in a row and I had crashes ~every couple weeks.
Five months ago I started to keep a notebook/log every day. Laying open, on one page I write down what I am doing every hour of the day, the opposite page I write what symptoms I have that day. Looking at the log as I write during the day, I add up how many hours are spent on physical activity and how many with cognitive/thinking/brain work. Right now I am limited to 2 hours of each a day. After my last crash I was able to look back and see that I had way exceeded my cognitive limit-the week prior I had 3 days of 4hrs cognitive work and 2 days of 3hr work. I could also see that the day before the severe crash, I had been really tired early in the afternoon-that was the start of the episode.
Every single 'crash' episode is the same thing: I feel good and inadvertently stretch my limits, then do it again and again until my body says 'heck no-I am shutting you down!'.
The episodes are farther apart and last less days the more I pay attention to my limits. it's been over a year since I had COVID, a positive test but did not require hospitalization. The symptoms haven't changed or improved, I have learned (through PT/OT/Speech Therapy) to change my activity to improve the frequency and severity. It just plain sucks that my life went from marathon runner, ER nurse, traveler to 2hr light physical and 2hr brain work a day. Mentally I haven't accepted and keep forgetting my limitations, ergo the repeated crash episodes.
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3 ReactionsThank you so much for your comprehensive description. I am so sorry that your symptoms are so severe and lasting - we can be hopeful that as long-Covid is studied, some improved therapies will develop.
I noticed your reference to PT & OT - are you enrolled in a long-Covid program?
Sue
Thanks for sharing. This sounds incredibly hard! I’m really sorry this is happening to you. I am an ICU nurse recovering from infection in Oct 2021. I can identify with your term “crashes” and some (but not all) of the symptoms you describe particularly that “leaden” feeling (for me it is mostly my legs), the short windows for activity (mine also are about 2hrs/day) and the “boom-bust” cycles from testing my limits. I have found an activity diary quite helpful with this, and am currently trying to break my activities in shorter periods with more frequent rests to see if that helps. I truly sympathize with your difficulty adjusting to the impact on your life - it totally sucks!! I also struggle with this (and I think am still somewhat in denial). Try to be gentle with yourself and take one day at a time. And keep reaching out - hopefully we can learn from each other, because as my doctor said today, they are learning from us!
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1 Reaction@rinadbq @adelem and all of you having post-Covid "crashes" - here is a past discussion about how some people with chronic illnesses have learned to organize their days and weeks: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/how-do-you-plan-your-day-and-conserve-energy-are-you-a-spoonie/
Have you heard of it before? It can be very helpful, and by rationing, can help prevent sudden "crashes". Best of all, it can be adjusted day-by-day and even hour-by-hour as needed.
Sue
Thank you very much.
I first came across an article in Time magazine, published from the USA, of date, Nov. 15, 2015. It mentioned that it helps patients suffering from high blood pressure. It also gave illustrations of exercising it.
As I was a patient of BP, I started practicing this Yoga exercise.
About 15 years back, my wife who suffered from cancer, died.
We had kept an oxygen cylinder by her bedside.
Last year when the covid-19 was raging, there was an urgent need for a supply of oxygen.
Recently, I was discharged from the hospital a bit earlier because the level of oxygen in my body was satisfactory.
This shows that for some diseases, oxygen is of vital importance.
It goes to prove that it is very essential to spend a few minutes every day and try this Yoga treatment which does not cost anything to prevent the occurrence of some of the ailments in the future.
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1 Reactionyes, PT/OT/speech, I don't get much from OT, but PT especially for balance & speech (for memory) is invaluable