Difficulty Driving After COVID-19

Try eating a low histamine, no sugar diet for awhile and see how you feel.

Hi @mcnabb5. Your journey so similar but I dont feel comfortable driving even a mile yet☹️ I believe our central nervous systems are on hyperoverdrive and react to visual and physical stimuli. Just talking, reading, word search brings on difficulties and I recently learned crowded areas or facing one direction with movement same time in another puts my body in tailspin. Right now my face is going numb and chest feels tight just doing this. What you are experiencing is very real as so many of us say, and small mindful steps as the rest of this challenging journey has needed, seems rightfully needed for driving for you too. I dont see myself on a highway for quite some time but there are a lot of back roads that I can pull over on and have to wait until I can move on or get a ride home from, when I can venture out as youve been doing. Your persistence is inspiring and I hope you find the comfortable ways to safely drive where and when needed🙂

Been dealing with the same stuff. Infact I have a delivery job where I can drive up to 300 miles a day. Luckily my work has been somewhat understanding but the hospitals just rack up my bills with no answers or sympathy. If doctors can't figure it out right away they give up,throw you to someone else,or suggest your crazy. Meanwhile you get charged thousands after insurance for no help-what a business model, lol! Anyways I have been rushed to the ER twice in the last year or so and have tried everything under the sun to figure out what is going on and what helps. I have almost given up and kind of wish whatever is going on would kill me so I won't be a burfen and my family can get my life insurance,and no I am not suicidal at all. Infact this has brought me closer to God and he is my only hope now. I am not a doctor but some things that may help you are: nattokinase which may dissolve spike proteins,colostrum with certain antihistamines, zinc with quercetin, ivermectin,and niacin. Again I am not a doctor but worked in health and nutrition for years and have studied exhaustively. Also, I find a massaging gun calms my nervous system,as well as prayer,meditation, alternate nostril breathing,and a technique where you close yours eyes while seated and describe a relaxing event or vacation out loud detailing how good you feel and what you are experiencing. That last one sounds crazy but can produce some amazing results. Good luck to you and will pray that God helps you,myself,and everyone else doctors have given up on.

Also I am currently on day 1 of trying midodrine for sudden drops of blood pressure, dizziness, and fatigue. Will let you know how that goes.

I delayed replying because I didn't have anything helpful to offer. I haven't been able to drive since I had an acute covid infection last June, because of my long covid brain fog and constant anxiety. I couldn't imagine driving with those symptoms. That being said, I'm lucky enough to live in a place (NYC) where I have relatively easy access to public transportation.

My biggest difficulty is tunnel vision as a result of covid, (in addition to the dizziness/trouble breathing/muscle spasms/etc), and moving things coming toward me wig out my eyes. They can’t focus. Before Covid I was an avid reader now I can read a page or two and it’s been a year and four months since original Covid. I do eye exercises and things like that practice typing,/reading out loud,/other brain injury exercises to help with both the brain fog and forcing my eyes to focus. But I have yet to drive. It sucks. I’ve even taken to driving around the mower my mom has because it only goes like 2 miles an hour. Slowly things are getting better while I drive in the next two months probably not. But I keep trying so I understand . Good luck

Hi @rosebear2424. Thank you so much for sharing about riding the mower as such inspiration to keep trying. I was told your car cannot just sit so I get in, back up, pull forward, then park. Working on driving to mailbox then small back roads. Hope this helps anyone and healing journey to all!🌈

My mom has been driving my vehicle for me thankfully. Her house is on a busy road, so I haven’t tried driving on it, but I do appreciate the ideas. I’ve asked her to take me to smaller roads or a neighborhood to try, but I don’t think she feels comfortable with the possibility I might hit something.

I am in a similar situation. I had COVID in early February 2023 and the illness was mild, and I was regularly driving a one-and-a-half hour commute (each way) on the highway twice a week to work, and after my COVID illness I was fine driving for about two to three weeks and then starting getting weak spells and feeling like I was fainting in the car, so I had to stop driving the highway and couldn't even drive around my house for about a month due to the growing fatigue. After about another month or two, I could drive short 10-15 minute drives again for errands around my house most days, but some days, if I'm feeling a lot of fatigue, I don't even feel like doing short drives. The fatigue has gotten better over time - it's been about a year now since COVID, but I still don't feel full strength and I will need to find another job before my leave runs out, since I no longer feel safe doing highway driving due to the dizzy spells, and I don't have the energy to drive the local roads for what would be a two-hour commute each way. I also am getting vertigo more often after COVID and the fainting spells are not only when driving, it evens happens at home and I get energy "crashes" where my blood pressure drops when I get too tired, and unfortunately recently found out that the tiredness can be cumulative, so even if I rest one night and feel good the next day, it keeps adding up over the days if I do even a little bit too much activity and then my energy eventually crashes. I've been trying to look for any patterns, and I noticed that I also seem to be more sensitive to motion than before, so I was thinking that the motion might somehow be triggering the dizzy spells which usually also involve my blood pressure dropping. What Law 59 said about " facing one direction with movement same time in another puts my body in tailspin" is very interesting and supports my theory of what happened to me - one day I was taking a bus to work (no longer driving to work) and I looked backwards only for a few seconds and when I looked forward again, I had a big "crash" where all my energy left me and I felt like I was about to faint, so I put my head down as best as I could on the seat beside me and rode the whole way (an hour an a half) without being able to lift up my head again. I was able to walk off the bus when it arrived at the station, but it was very difficult because I still felt very faint. I had been feeling fine when I boarded the bus, so the change took place in about 30 seconds, so I'm wondering more and more whether motion is somehow upsetting the nervous system signals in some way. I did the bus trip successfully 5 or 6 times prior to that day, so it was either the looking backward or else the fatigue that was accumulating that finally caused a crash, so I no longer am doing the bus commute either. Today, I was driving some local errands feeling fine, and was waiting next in line with the engine running at an oil change place where you stay in your car for the oil change, and I suddenly starting feeling faint. It passed in a few minutes and wasn't a full crash, but I'm wondering again if the vibration of the car while I was waiting had something to do with it.

I've had issues driving for almost 4 years now. I've had LC since April 2020 and used to drive ALL THE TIME for hours a day. Now I rarely drive at all and my max is maybe 5 min at a time.

I has to be something w/ motion because my zero turn mower in my rough yard really brings the symptoms out too. I wish I could find something that helped.