It’s been three years because the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the medical community remains to be learning recent things in regards to the disease to this present day. One in every of the symptoms currently making buzz online is insomnia.
Surprisingly, the novel coronavirus also robs one among a restful night’s sleep. It’s even one of the crippling symptoms, not continuously talked about.
In an article for the web news outlet Axios, Priya Matthew shared her experience with mild COVID-19 that eventually led to long COVID with debilitating symptoms.
Matthew said, at one point, she had 23 symptoms, including persistent shortness of breath, heart palpitations and insomnia. Thankfully, her doctors didn’t find major organ damage. But she admitted that long COVID prompted her to make big changes in her life.
“Before getting hit with this life-changing illness, I frankly hadn’t taken great care of myself. I let stress and anxiety get to me. I ate poorly, drank an excessive amount of coffee and infrequently made time for exercise,” Matthew wrote.
She continued, “Very soon I spotted: If I’m going to get well, I would like to completely change my life. I’d never find a way to return to those bad habits.”
Speaking specifically about insomnia, Matthew told CBS News how difficult it was for her to go to sleep.
“Nothing worked. I might just lie awake in agony all night. It felt like electric shocks going through my body from my head right down to my toes,” she shared.
Explaining Matthew’s experience, Dr. Emmanuel During, a psychiatrist and neurologist, told CBS News that the insomnia of long COVID patients involves pain that’s proof against treatment. He said he saw the identical phenomenon in sleep patients at Mount Sinai Hospital.
“Pain, which might occur at night as well, and plenty of autonomic imbalance, autonomic impairment, which is the power of our body to manage heart rate and blood pressures — that may result in episodes of palpitation, night sweats,” During said.
A 2022 survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that just about a 3rd of Americans experienced sleep disturbances because the pandemic began. The phenomenon has been dubbed “COVID-somnia” by experts.
Matthew revealed that her battle with sleep deprivation made her unable to work for not less than a month. And since treatment only involves symptom management, she got here up with a plan for her recovery.
She said she began following a every day routine that involves maintaining a healthy diet, drinking a lot of water, taking supplements and attending pulmonary rehab. She also limited her every day activities to cut back energy expenditure based on symptoms. And her third secret was pondering positively, something she admitted was hard for her even before the pandemic.
In 4 months, Matthew saw positive changes. Though not all symptoms are gone, she’s pleased they’ve improved by 60-70%.
“But in a lot of ways, I’m healthier than I used to be before getting COVID,” she concluded.
Doctors recommend having good sleep hygiene habits to counter sleep deprivation. Following a daily bedtime schedule and never using devices with screens before hitting the sack are just a few ways to hamper sleeplessness.