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By Dani Blum
Q: It’s been a week since I tested negative for Covid, but I’m not feeling any better. Why am I sick?
Fortunately, the immediate control is finally negative after a week of dark red positives. Technically, you’re done with Covid, but the virus doesn’t seem to be done with you, as fatigue, coughing, or a general “blah blah” feeling persists. .
If symptoms persist for 4 weeks or more after a negative test, that’s when they may first be referred to as long Covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But for some people, a murky intermediate step: Your Covid test is negative and you still feel sick, but you’re not technically in the long Covid territory yet, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco.
“A lot of other people recover very quickly” after a Covid infection, said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. But for a lot of other people, “it takes two, three, four weeks to fully recover,” he said.
Here’s what could happen.
For most people, the immune formula temporarily calms down after battling Covid. For some, however, it remains active.
Researchers don’t know exactly why this happens. This may simply be because low levels of the virus persist or because the immune formula acts as if the virus is still there, even though it’s no longer there, Dr. Chin-Hong said.
Still, it’s not unusual for some symptoms to persist after a viral infection, said Dr. Joseph Khabbaza, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Cleveland Clinic. Inflammation can persist: people’s airways would possibly swell, causing wheezing or coughing, or their sinuses would possibly swell, causing congestion.
Covid-related fatigue can last for weeks in some people, even after a negative test. Covid can continue to disrupt sleep, which can leave you even more exhausted.
“You end up with almost crippling exhaustion,” Dr. Chin-Hong said. “You’re not right, you just crawl out and go to the gym and you can’t get through. “
The more severe the symptoms of your illness, the longer they can last, Dr. Chin-Hong said.
And Covid symptoms that in the past resolved can reappear — or “recover” — over the course of about a week after a negative test, a phenomenon rarely linked to the antiviral remedy Paxlovid. But even if you haven’t taken Paxlovid, tiredness, coughing and pain can return, Dr. Chin-Hong said, potentially because your immune formula is still in defense mode.
However, not everyone with lingering symptoms will develop Covid in the long term, Dr. Al-Aly said; Most people will do it before they get to this month.
There is no undeniable solution to Covid; Most of the time it’s just a matter of time, but experts said there are some steps that can be taken to make the procedure more manageable.
Try to rest as much as you can, Dr. Al-Aly said. Your body may still be trying to conserve the energy it needs to fight off the virus, he said. Therefore, getting enough sleep can help you feel less tired during the day.
Similarly, you should start slowly if you want to get back to exercising, Dr. Chin-Hong said, especially if you’re still feeling exhausted or your other symptoms get worse when you work. Listen to your frame and don’t “take a look to get out of this,” he said.
If you still don’t feel well after 30 days, contact a primary care doctor, who may offer methods to manage your symptoms. You may also need to check to see if there is a medical center near you, such as a study center. hospital, which specializes in long recovery from Covid, pleaded Dr. Marc Sala, co-director of Northwestern Medicine’s Comprehensive Covid-19 Center in Chicago.
However, for many people, symptoms go away in a matter of days or weeks, Dr. Chin-Hong said. Unfortunately, he said, they may not go away “immediately. “
Dani Blum is a journalist at Well. Read about Dani Blum
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