My experience being sick with covid

I hate to even post about this because

1. We're all tired of hearing about it and few or no shits are given at this point

2. The people who need to hear it won't read it, and wouldn't care about my experience anyway


I'm 6'2" 185lbs 10% bodyfat, below age 40, no health conditions and exercise 5+ days a week for over 5 years straight.

I haven't posted about covid much or at all in the last 2 years but if I have I have consistently maintained that I believe most adults in the U.S. probably should get the vaccines based on relative risk for their ages, weights, health conditions etc.

When pestered I've said to friends and family I do not believe the relative risk makes the vaccine especially necessary for me. If I was similarly healthy but maybe 45 or over, I probably would have gotten it just based on my age. Or at my age but if I was overweight or didn't exercise, etc. and I've told them I ultimately think everyone should make their own assessment with what they're comfortable with which is what I had done for myself.



Anyway, fast forward to getting covid.

Day 1 started with alot of unusual muscle and joint pain to the point that it interrupted my workout. I assumed it was inflammation since I had already had a hard workout earlier that day and I figured I overdid it

Day 2 pain continued, constant headache and moderate fatigue set it. Assumed it was the follow-up to overdoing it working out the previous day

Day 3 and 4 pain and headache continued, extreme fatigue to the point that I barely got out of bed at all

Day 5 headache and fatigue so bad that I couldn't go to work, constant nausea set in, lost appetite and smell, started coughing and realized I was running fever above 101

Day 6 headache and fatigue not changing, cough getting worse. Went to the doctor and found out it was covid. Told I'm too young and don't weight enough for monoclonal antibodies, sent home with a cough suppressant and told to go to the ER if I get worse


Let me pause for a second here to mention that the Dr. McCullough / Joe Rogan topic is what made me think to post about this today, because McCullough's assessment of what's happening in doctors' offices and clinics is completely in line with my experience.


I was tested and basically told "go home and hope for the best. Nothing can help you. Bye. If you get worse go die in ICU."


So back to my timeline:

Day 7 no improvements, started getting shortness of breath just walking around my house, cough getting progressively worse and I started coughing up blood, fever hitting 103 and only dropping to 100 by taking 1000mg Tylenol and 800mg Advil together every six hours


Day 8 still coughing up blood, still no appetite, by now I had lost almost 10lbs, still constant nausea and unable to eat or drink, shortness of breath, fever still spiking to 103 and not wanting to drop even with medication

At this point I really thought this was it. I can choose to either get worse at home another day or two until my wife finds me unresponsive and an ambulance takes me to the ICU to die, or I can check myself in now and get on with it.


By chance I was digging through our bucket of random meds because I figured I would take an old hydrocodone or something to try to get some headache relief and I found a 7 year old bottle of doxycycline.

I remembered seeing it come up online over the last year or so as an effective covid treatment so I thought what the hell.


I started taking 100mg doxycycline twice a day from a 7 year old prescription.

Within 6 after the first dose I wasn't short of breath anymore, my appetite had returned, and my fever was actually fully responsive to Tylenol+Advil and I could get my temperature to below 99.

Between 12 and 18 hours I realized I was no longer coughing up any blood.

After 24 hours my nausea was gone and I felt good enough to go for a two mile walk.

After 48 hours I was down to using Tylenol and Advil once a day alternating and after 72 hours I was fever free.



Anyway, sorry for the wall of text but I feel like I had to tell somebody. This isn't even with full access to the rest of the drugs that should be prescribed for covid but aren't. This is just with what my wife luckily had leftover from some other illness 7 years ago.

There's not a doubt in my mind that I would be hospitalized right now if I didn't take the doxycycline.