Advice from a Respiratory Therapist about COVID.

Doc

Admin
Staff member
Gold Site Supporter
Advice from a Respiratory Therapist about COVID.

Just in case you get the virus and develop symptoms, here’s some good advice from a respiratory therapist to help stay out of the hospital and recover quickly.

CORONA Common Sense

Since they are calling on Respiratory therapist to help fight the Corona virus, and I am a retired one, too old to work in a hospital setting. I'm gonna share some common sense wisdom with those that have the virus and trying to stay home. If my advice is followed as given you will improve your chances of not ending up in the hospital on a ventilator. This applies to the otherwise generally healthy population, so use discretion.

1. Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. Tylenol, Advil. Motrin, Ibuprofen etc. will bring your fever down allowing the virus to live longer. They are saying that ibuprophen, advil etc will actually exacerbate the virus. Use common sense and don't let fever go over 103 or 104 if you got the guts. If it gets higher than that take your tylenol, not ibuprophen or advil to keep it regulated. It helps to keep house warm and cover up with blankets so body does not have to work so hard to generate the heat. It usually takes about 3 days of this to break the fever.

2. The body is going to dehydrate with the elevated temperature so you must rehydrate yourself regulaly, whether you like it or not. Gatorade with real sugar, or pedialyte with real sugar for kids, works well. Why the sugar? Sugar will give your body back the energy it is using up to create the fever. The electrolytes and fluid you are losing will also be replenished by the Gatorade. If you don't do this and end up in the hospital they will start an IV and give you D5W (sugar water) and Normal Saline to replenish electrolytes. Gatorade is much cheaper, pain free, and comes in an assortment of flavors

3. You must keep your lungs moist. Best done by taking long steamy showers on a regular basis, if your wheezing or congested use a real minty toothpaste and brush your teeth while taking the steamy shower and deep breath through your mouth. This will provide some bronchial dialation and help loosen the phlegm. Force your self to cough into a wet wash cloth pressed firmly over your mouth and nose, which will cause greater pressure in your lungs forcing them to expand more and break loose more of the congestion.

4. Eat healthy and regularly. Gotta keep your strength up.

5. Once the fever breaks, start moving around to get the body back in shape and blood circulating.

6. Deep breath on a regular basis, even when it hurts. If you don't it becomes easy to develope pneumonia. Pursed lip breathing really helps. That's breathing in deep and slow then exhaling through tight lips as if your blowing out a candle, blow until you have completely emptied your lungs and you will be able to breath in an even deeper breath. This helps keep lungs expanded as well as increase your oxygen level.

7. Remember that every medication you take is merely relieving the symptoms, not making you well.

8. If your still dying go to ER.

I've been doing these things for myself and my family for over 40 years and kept them out of the hospital, all are healthy and still living today.
Thank you all for sharing. We gotta help one another. Quarantine is 10 days if you have it.
 

California

Super Moderator
Staff member
Site Supporter
Generally good advice but Covid isn't a virus, so the specialists who are learning about now it may have additional specialized advice.

If Covid is suspected, or before, additional research would be a good idea.

Related - the way things are going, there may not be space in the hospital or sufficient staff, to help you if you go critical.

California is going to major shutdown in most counties because all resources are close to 100% capacity and the consequences of Thanksgiving and then Christmas family gatherings, and then New Years, is expected to push hospital demand well past 100%. If cases surge as expected there won't be anywhere for an ambulance to take you. And our cases per million population isn't close to the numbers in some other states. Please everybody mask up, wash hands, and avoid contact wherever possible.
 

California

Super Moderator
Staff member
Site Supporter
I think it was sparsely-populated North Dakota that my daughter was talking about - a remote rural community has only a couple of ambulances. When one carries a critical Covid patient or crash victim to the nearest hospital - a half day round trip - the other one may be busy going an hour out to a farm, leaving no vehicle or EMT team available in the region for hours. Nearby regions are equally stressed, nobody is going to send in help when they are in crisis over their heads. The state may lose some people after the inevitable holiday family parties. Grandma's last Christmas ....
 
  • Like
Reactions: Doc
Top