Post Covid Fear

Posted by da69 @da69, Apr 10, 2023

Has anyone experienced fear after getting Covid?
Meaning you always feel scared for no reason and it leads to anxiety attacks sometimes
Like your just waiting for the worst to happen and no longer do things you used to...Like go out to eat...Go shopping etc etc.
I know my anxiety started after covid and never had a panic attack in my life before getting it.
Even when i am not having a attack the fear is still there.
Does anybody relate to my situation?
Thank You

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I totally understand what you are experiencing! Before I got Covid pneumonia in November 2021, I was never an anxious person. After I came home from the hospital-I worried about EVERYTHING! I lost my husband, who was hospitalized at the same time, late November 2021. So my anxiety was through the roof. I’ve gotten a lot better with my anxiety but I still worry more about my health than I ever have. It’s the unknown that still scares me at times. I’m so much more aware of what goes in my body now. (Every little ache or pain) And some times that is not a good thing. Because then I start thinking too much about what could be wrong. I’m still dealing with the dizziness, brain fog and chest tightness. But it is getting better. I’ve recently started acupuncture (along with changing my diet and adding herbs) and I believe it is helping me. Much more than all the doctors I have seen and they all tell me all my tests are normal.
Hang in there! Hoping we all find total relief soon!!

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@auntb65

I totally understand what you are experiencing! Before I got Covid pneumonia in November 2021, I was never an anxious person. After I came home from the hospital-I worried about EVERYTHING! I lost my husband, who was hospitalized at the same time, late November 2021. So my anxiety was through the roof. I’ve gotten a lot better with my anxiety but I still worry more about my health than I ever have. It’s the unknown that still scares me at times. I’m so much more aware of what goes in my body now. (Every little ache or pain) And some times that is not a good thing. Because then I start thinking too much about what could be wrong. I’m still dealing with the dizziness, brain fog and chest tightness. But it is getting better. I’ve recently started acupuncture (along with changing my diet and adding herbs) and I believe it is helping me. Much more than all the doctors I have seen and they all tell me all my tests are normal.
Hang in there! Hoping we all find total relief soon!!

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COVID sucks. We cannot let it consume us, be strong. Some days it is so hard to be strong.

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As I've mentioned in other threads on this site, I've had constant unfocused anxiety since my mild acute covid infection last June. It's the feeling of anxiety (or, in its most extreme, "fear") without any obvious objective reason. At first, if I couldn't attribute it to something immediate, I would link it to problematic memories that "just happened" to pop into my mind. I'm also extremely "jumpy" (e.g. if my wife walks out of a room unexpectedly in front of me in our apartment, I feel like someone just jumped out of hiding and yelled, "boo"). It's one of the reasons that I've stopped driving. It's helped me to just realize that the "fear" itself is a symptom of long covid and not linked to any actual threat, and I don't need to "figure out" what I'm anxious about.

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Its no fun for sure and i worry this is my new normal forever.
Nothing has helped me yet.
Sometimes its real bad and sometimes its more mild but its always there
and i never know from day to day how its going to go.

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@da69

Its no fun for sure and i worry this is my new normal forever.
Nothing has helped me yet.
Sometimes its real bad and sometimes its more mild but its always there
and i never know from day to day how its going to go.

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It seems like many of us here are worried about the same thing. Some posters have described improvements after a few months, while others have described ongoing issues for years. There's information on line about a "post-viral syndrome" that existed before covid (e.g. some people who had the flu) that produced similar symptoms (but, obviously, not on the scale that we're seeing now). At the very least, I hope that more research into this "syndrome" might help to find interventions that would (at least) help alleviate our symptoms.

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Has anyone who has post Covid anxiety gone on medication? I know there is such a stigma ( roll eyes) abt mental health being “actual” health… but since it is, and since long haul affects our Neuro? Anyone?

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@car0

Has anyone who has post Covid anxiety gone on medication? I know there is such a stigma ( roll eyes) abt mental health being “actual” health… but since it is, and since long haul affects our Neuro? Anyone?

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Yes i take meds but nothing has helped much... It's like my body has become medication resistant.
We try this and try that and can't seem to find anything that works.

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I am so sorry. How devastating. That surely makes your anxiety worse.

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Hi and thank you for this question. I’ve frankly bees afraid to discuss this issue before now. I have always been fearless, me and my mom use to laugh together bc we thought something was wrong with us bc we feared nothing! Post Covid, I have become fearful about most anything . I do t even know how to handle the new emotion of fear; it’s foreign to me.

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