My Family’s COVID-19 Experience

Today I am happy to report that my son Max, now 29 years old, has survived COVID-19 . Thankfully, his experience of the disease was no worse than a standard flu. I thought all of you might be interested in hearing about this experience, how homeopathy helped, and some lessons learned.

Max lives in Los Angeles and has worked for many years as a motion graphics artist, generally working in advertising for the movie and television industry. He spent March and April in lockdown on his own. For May and June, he came up north to the Bay Area (where my husband and I live) and stayed with us, but was anxious to return to LA at the end of June. Unfortunately, this was also when cases started to surge there.

Like many young people, Max wanted to get back to some semblance of his normally active social life. While he had been very careful about social distancing before he came up north, he became more lax upon his return to LA. He marched in a Black Lives Matter protest (that’s not where he got it) and started seeing some friends.

Max started feeling sick on July 25. He called all his recent contacts and they all got tested. Based on the results, it looks like Max got COVID from a friend who came to his apartment and was an asymptomatic carrier. Max later gave it to another friend the day before he felt sick. Happily, the asymptomatic carrier has remained well and the other friend got well within a week . Max, however, needed to spend a full two weeks at home before really feeling well.

So what did we do and what remedies did he take? The quick answer: during the entire two week period, Max only needed to take two doses of his standard constitutional remedy. Since this remedy (which had been prescribed by his homeopath about a year ago) helped him with another acute illness and because it happened to be a mineral remedy that included Phosphorus as a component (Phosphorus is one of the leading remedies for COVID), I was fairly confident it would be helpful for Max’s case of COVID — and it was.

Here’s a recap of Max’s symptom progression:
– Onset — tiredness, fever (which reached a maximum of 100.9 F), headache, and what he described as a “light-headed” feeling.
– This was followed by diarrhea, which lasted for several days.
– After taking the first dose of the remedy, Max’s fever went down below 100F and never went above that again. He felt more energy and the headache lessened. The diarrhea slowly diminished and normal stools reestablished by the end of the first week.
– I kept monitoring Max’s respiratory situation each day, but he never felt out of breath. The only respiratory symptoms he eventually developed were some nasal congestion, post nasal drip, and a bit of coughing.
– We called him twice a day and monitored his temperature. He also bought an oximeter online so that we could monitor his blood oxygen and it was always normal.
– After the first week, Max’s improvement seemed to stagnate and his fever went up slightly, so he took another dose.
– Over the course of the second week, his fever dissipated completely, the headache and lightheadedness went away, and all that remained was some nasal congestion and a bit of tiredness. He was also now able to do some work.
– According to the contact tracers who had called him after his positive COVID test, Max was free to come out of quarantine when there was no fever whatsoever for 3 days, and he emerged on August 10.
– After this, Max was still feeling a bit wiped out and didn’t feel 100% (eager to do work, exercise, etc.) until two weeks later, a month after he came down with symptoms. During that time, he took one more dose of his constitutional remedy, on the advice of his homeopath. It is also interesting that Max has been retested for COVID a couple of times since recovering and has had mixed results — both negative and positive. Apparently, you can test positive for a couple of months after recovering, even though you aren’t contagious anymore.

So what lessons have we learned?
– He was prepared. Max had kits of the 100 top remedies in both 30c and 200c potencies, which I had supplemented with some more obscure COVID-related remedies when he came to visit us. So I knew he was well prepared.
– The constitutional remedy is a good first line of defense, especially for healthy people. I am thankful that Max is under the care of a good homeopath, so we knew this remedy in advance.
– Guard and boost the immune system. Ever since the beginning of March, Max and the rest of my family have been taking daily doses of vitamin C (1000mg) and D3 (2000 IU = 50mcg). While he was sick, Max dosed with vitamin C three times a day. He will now reduce back down to once a day gradually (I have found that it’s important not to cut back on vitamin C too quickly).
– Stay in touch. Although Max doesn’t normally want to talk to Mom and Dad two times a day (what 29 year old does?), he was thankful for the fact that we were touching base frequently, especially since he was going through this alone. It was a big comfort to him (and to me!). At one point, some of his friends dropped some flowers and chicken soup outside his door, which was also a big morale booster.
– Asymptomatic carriers. I must admit, Max’s experience alerted me to the pervasiveness of asymptomatic carriers, especially among young people. Don’t get careless, even if someone is well, and especially if you’re not really sure of their behavior.
– Use tools to keep anxiety at bay. In general, Max stayed fairly calm throughout this experience. I’m proud to stay that I stayed pretty calm too — especially given that I tend to be an anxious person. One thing that helped both Max and me quite a lot was listening to the Logosynthesis meditation each day during this experience. I have mentioned the utility of this meditation in previous newsletters. I do it any time I feel any kind of anxiety about our collective experience of this virus. I can’t emphasize enough how helpful it has been! You can find it at this Youtube link. The essential component of the meditation starts at 5:40 and ends at 27:45, though I advise watching the full 30 minutes your first time around.

The good news is that hopefully! Max is now immune to COVID-19 going forward. The jury is still out on that. But if he’s not, then a vaccine will be of no use to anyone either (not that I’ll be standing in line to get one!). In the end, I believe the only way out is through. This experience, like every virus in history, must eventually run its course.