My corona and sugar experience
By JIRARA
© JIRARA, October, 2022, Published by JIRARA on matrubharti.com
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Disclaimer: It is the same as in my previous articles published in matrubharti.com.
Preamble: Here (and may be in some future closely related articles) is my personal account of the health care that I and my BA (mother) have/had received from our family (and other doctors) over a period of more than last three to four decades. Here, I am going to mention the names of the drugs/medicines/tubes/drops (where applicable and based on my memory) used for our treatment/s, because it is very important to mention these for the sake of clarity and completion (and usefulness in the future); rather than hiding these names for the fear of adverse or over-publicity or being ‘dubbed’ as an advocate of the medicines and/or their manufacturers; and I want to ascertain here, that I am not the brand ambassador of any of these (allopathy or ayurvedic/herbal) medicines, and this story-article is not sponsored or suggested by any of the doctors involved in the treatment. I am writing a true story related to the health of some individual/s, and hence, it is important that I clearly and openly mention the true names of the doctors and the medicines without any hesitation; and I am not interested in any kind of my personal publicity.
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Dedicated To: My wife Smt. Virmati, and our son Mayur who had taken immense care of me during this phase (2020-2021/22). Also, to Dr. N. Ramakrishna (CMO, NAL-HC) for his very effective treatment during this very difficult phase of mine (corona and sugar).
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I specifically acknowledge the moral support provided to me by our daughter-in-law Amina Khan during the phase of 2020-2021/2022 when I had multiple fractures (and during the long recovery period after the operation) and subsequently during the CoViD19 infection. She was continually monitoring my progress of recovery, and was a great moral support not only to me but to my wife and my son (even much before her marriage, and afterwards); apart from being a regular logistics-support as a member of our family.
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I am also very grateful to Ms. Radhika Madhavan, our close family friend, and a well-wisher, for her moral support and the help to me by lending a wheel chair (during the post-operation recovery), and the electronic-oxygen-producing machine during the recovery from the corona infection.
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Also, I have been lucky to have the continual moral support from our daughter Mrs. Harshakumari H. Gohil, and her all the family members during these two phases (and even the earlier phases), despite they being far away from me; and due to which they were not able to visit me in India, and mainly because of their own pressing-compulsions (like jobs/studies), and a ban on the international travels.
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Also, I am very grateful to Mr. Habib Khan, and Mrs. Ayesha H. Khan, and their son Aamir Khan and their daughter-in-law Sanaa, for their unconditional moral support during these two phases.
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Acknowledgements: My medical treatment related stories are profusely dedicated to our family doctors: NAL-CSIR doctors (in Bengaluru): Dr. D. Amarnarayan (CMO, now retired), Dr. N. Ramakrishna (CMO, now retired), Dr. Mrs. Swetha Desai (CMO), Dr. L. Prakash, and Dr. Ms. Malvika; and the physiotherapist Y. Nagaraj (now retired); who from time to time had provided correct diagnoses, complete prescriptions of medicines, and proper referrals (including health care aspects/suggestions/treatments) to other doctors and/or Hospitals in respect of me, my BA as well as all the members of my family for several decades. In fact, due the treatment that I had received, my health-index had been very high, and my life has definitely prolonged by some years.
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I have had always received lot of moral support from my two younger brothers, Bhupendrasinh R. Raol, and Pradipsinh R. Raol, and their families; my younger sister Mrs. Kailasba M. Kumpavat and her family, and from my wife’s four Parmar brothers, and one sister; and their families (a huge family consisting of nearly 30 members). My mother was always near my bed whenever and wherever it was feasible to be despite her age of 95-97 years.
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Innumerable close friends of mine, and of my children, and my own job-mates and colleagues, and doctoral research scholars have had been a great source of inspiration and encouragement for several decades, especially during my two serious health problems of the period 2020-2021/22.
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Note: As I have said earlier, we all are mortals, and we basically need oxygen, water, and food (hence lot of energy) to sustain our lives on this planet. Most of our food is plant based, and these plants ‘prepare’ food by absorbing energy from the Sun. Even though, the most non-veg food comes from animals, these animals also eat mostly plant-based foods, and hence their stored energy in some form comes to us. Now, if there is any contamination in any or more of these ingredients, in most cases we fall sick: breathing problems, food-poisoning, vomiting, acidity etc. Also, if there is deficiency in any or more of these, we become malnutrition-ed; the balance of food is always necessary for usual and normal life sustenance. We also fall sick due to: i) over work (get exhausted, and weak and our immune system becomes weak, and might lead to other complications), ii) some genetic problems inherited from our parent/s, and iii) in many cases due to bacterial and/or viral infections. There are other diseases/ailments: a) blood pressure (BP), b) diabetes, c) vertigo (Chakkar), d) cancer, and others. Also some problems are related to i) liver, ii) pancreas (diabetes Type I and II), iii) kidneys (stones, failures), iv) intestines, v) eyes, vi) heart/lungs, and vii) brain. There are many more minor or major issues (urinary track infection/UTI, allergies, eye-infections, and so on…), since the human body is a vast system in the number of components it has, and the continuous functioning of these sub-systems and their interactions are so involved that a common lay person cannot understand, except only superficially.
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The medical doctors, in my opinion, are like our own ‘relatives’, and true friends; and the correctly prescribed medicines are our routine companions.
My corona and sugar experience
It was on 9th March 2021 that my wife and I had taken the first dose of the Covishield injection from Manipal hospital, Bangalore. Then on 27th March my mother and we two flew to Vadodara, with full precaution of masks and sanitisation.
I had already planned some further renovation for my house in Vadodara, for which I had already talked to a civil engineer, who is our relative, in Ahmedabad. We had stayed there for three weeks, and not visited anybody in the city or outside, except my wife’s elder brother who was staying there. We had not invited anybody as such to our residence, but my 2nd younger brother and his family had visited us; after some days my sister with her son visited us, all this mainly to meet our mother; because to pay a visit to her in Vadodara was much easier rather than coming to Bangalore, because that would cost lot of money as well take away considerable time and would require lot of effort; especially corona being prevalent during this time.
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Since, we had to interact with the contractor and his workers, we both used to wear masks continuously and even used to sanitise the bath rooms, toilets, and rooms with disinfectant sprays, especially after the workers have stopped the day’s work. However, I had to visit certain places in the city for procurement of some furniture, and for other related aspects, I used to go by autorickshaws, and in this way I had made nearly 13 transitions in three weeks’ time; but I always to keep my mask on, and used to keep hand sanitiser with me always.
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Our return flight was on 17th April, and during the time I was packing the luggage, and then when we reached the Vadodara’s airport, I was feeling very sick, it was mainly due to lot of heat during those days, and my exhaustion because of my frequent visits to the city for various works for which hardly I had any help. During last days of my stays in Vadodara my son and his wife had come to stay with us, and after staying for 3/4 days they left from there to Kashmir for a trip, and there after they were to reach Bangalore on 22nd April.
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And after reaching Bangalore, I found that I had no energy, and I had fever, and head ache, etc., so I took some Dolo 650, and took rest; and still my temperature was fluctuating, and was very high, and I had lost the taste, and some sensation of smell, etc., but we did not think it prudent to inform our son, because in that case he might advance their journey; and we did not want to spoil their vacation.
So, after they came back, he talked to our NAL-HC doctor Ramakrishna and explained the symptoms, and the doctor confirmed that it was corona, and he prescribed the course of medicines for one week; and my son also bought some herbal medicines, and I was then on regular treatment.
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The test was done for the confirmation, and its registration had automatically reached the files of the corporation, and there were enquiries from them, and the fear was that they would lift me up and send to some hospital or so; hence, to avoid this, because at home I was being treated properly, we dodged the answering to these authorities, and gave them the old address, and so on; but all this was done cleverly, to avoid further hassle for me as well to my family; because there were several reports of mal-treatment of similarly affected patients, and many bad results of this aftermath. Ironically, I did not know what was the result of my swab test for several days, until the time that I was in the final phase of my recovery.
I was in doubt whether I had corona or not, but not knowing the positive result was sort of a kind of ‘ignorance is bliss’ for me.
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My recovery
During this period of nearly first two weeks, I was on the medicines prescribed by the doctor, and some ayurvedic syrup (Nirocil) for immunity boosting, Koflet (for cough), and controlling fever (Jwarantak).
Also, the daily routine was as follows:
i) In the morning do steam inhaling.
ii) Do gargling with salt and turmeric power in warm water.
iii) Do the proning deep breathing exercise three times in a day.
iv) Check the temperature three times a day and keep record.
v) Do walking in the rooms, and make several rounds.
vi) Take ayurvedic decoction that was too bitter.
vii) Take proper rest.
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More important was the proning exercise to be done in three body positions every time you do: i) straight lying down on the stomach and deep breathing by keeping your arms folded below your chest; ii) lying on your right side, and iii) lying on your left side; and each time keep breathing deep, until there is a steady state reached in your oxygen intake which is measured by oximeter; this should be from 96 to 99 units, and if it is lower than 94 then your condition is not good, and if it is 97 it is acceptable.
It took nearly two weeks for me to reach to the level of 98/99; and when it used to remain steady in the three positions; like 96/97/98, etc. for at least one week, then I stopped measuring it, but I had continued this proning exercise for several weeks. Another problem was of coughing, after initial period of wet cough, it became the dry-coughing that was a bothersome, and it took several days to come under control.
Finally, after nearly 5/6 weeks I became almost normal, and then stopped the treatment, and the test was done that came to be negative; then my wife and I took the second dose of Covishield injection from the corporation centre on 9th June 2021; interestingly my wife (and my mother) did not have the infection except very mild symptoms of cold/allergy.
Then, again in December 2021-January 2022, we travelled to Vadodara, and this time we had taken full precautions, but this time we had gone to meet three relatives in three different places; all the time with some fear of contracting the infection, but since we had two doses of vaccination, we were perhaps not affected by the corona. Then, after coming back to Bangalore, we took the booster dose on 9th March 2022, this was the third one.
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The following information is contributed by Mr. Pradipsinh, R. Raol, Civil engineer, and Builder; and matrubharti.com Gujarati and English author; and the views expressed here are his own).
The entire world faced pandemic covid-19. When disease spreads all round the world that is in many countries it is called pandemic. India too had its share of this horrific disease and lakhs of people lost their lives. Even my entire family of about 25 people and more passed through this pandemic from time to time but we all survived like many other people. In India who survived from this disease were called Corona Warriors! It was like winning a war. Other people who were actively involved in helping patients like nursing staff, doctors and so on were also fondly referred as "corona warriors."
Me and my wife were severely hit by corona virus for about 15 days and then it took us two months to recover. However, there are questions still lingering in my mind, and some logical conclusions that I have made depending on my observations which I thought to share here.
First, I would take questions:
1. Since there was no medicine to cure this covid why people were admitted to hospitals?
2. Since there was no definite medicine, the government and people were motivated to increase general immunity by taking traditional herbs like "kava" and lemon juice and other such things. However, people continued to die even who took kava regularly.
3. It is assumed that young people have more immunity power (ચડતું લોહી), but I observed that even many of them couldn't survive covid19 ! Why?
4. It is believed that older people have less immunity power and generally take longer time to recover from common or less common diseases, but many did survive covid19, why?
5. People take medicine and go to hospitals to recover fast but in this pandemic, it seems people were not much benefited by various kinds of treatments like costly injections, ventilators, oxygen machines, antibiotics etc. The death rate was very high.
Some possible answers or conclusions in above order are below.
1. People always go to hospitals when they are seriously ill in hope of recovery, in this particular pandemic doctors treated symptoms not the disease!
2. General immunity cannot be increased in short period of time. Also, your inborn immunity counts to fight a disease along with strong will power.
3. Many younger people died despite of best medicines because actually, there was no medicine! And their "genetic immunity" was not specific enough to fight this covid19.
4. Older people surprisingly survived, considered to have less immunity because they had "specific genetic immunity" inherited from their forefathers which helped them to fight covid19 successfully! The molecular biologists must look into this fact.
5. People died due to several reasons...No effective treatment available, No vaccine available, lack of will, lack of specific immunity; and fear of death as lot of deaths happening around the sick people.
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Unpleasant aspects:
Some unpleasant after effects of some medicines, which one could have caused it, we are not clear so we will simply guess and give our plausible reasons, and not be able to specifically ascertain that it happened because of a certain medicine or syrup.
i) Clots in urine:
One night during the recovery period (from corona), when I went to urinate, a couple of blood clots came out; and I really got scared, and then these kept repeating for a couple of times for two days; it was damn scary and I got really frightened as to what was in the store for me. We discussed with our NAL-HC doctor, and we were referred to Manipal hospital, in fact I did not go there at all, and my son went to the consulting specialist there, and got the diagnosis made, and we were told that it might be due the infection working or some odd thing incidentally working, and the urine test results had shown that I had also sugar, and that some red cells in the urine sample; and we were advised to go for the full check up after I recover from the corona infection.
I felt that the clots could be due to some ayurvedic syrup that I was taking for control of high fever, along with allopathy medicines; so, I stopped taking this syrup. Sometimes such medicines can cause exothermic reactions, and where and when this will spring up, one cannot judge.
ii) I got sugar:
Now, I got the sugar, that I never had in my life thus far; my mother also does not have it; and I do not know if my father had, because he had died at the age of 73 years in 1986, and no information was available on this aspect to me.
So, the medicine for sugar control (Metformin 500, SR sustained release) was added, and the diet became stricter:
i) No consumption of direct white or even brown sugar, no jaggery, no dates.
ii) No sweets of any kind, whatsoever.
iii) No rice, and limited wheat-products-intake.
iv) No potatoes, no sweet potatoes.
v) No honey, and maple leaf syrup.
vi) No millets even.
vii) No mangoes, grapes, sapotas, and bananas.
viii) Take greens, and other fruits; butter and yoghurt are fine.
So, a) morning I take green tea with nuts; b) then small breakfast, and tea or coffee without sugar (or add stevia, or sugar (calorie)-free sugar); c) in lunch only three chapatis and vegetables, and daal (lentils), and salad; d) then afternoon tea without sugar, and 2-3 (digestive with fibre) biscuits; e) then fruits in the evening; and f) for the dinner two chapatis and vegetables, and daal. Whenever bitter gourd is available, then its curry.
And regular limb exercises, and walking; sometimes I miss this, but in a week’s time I would have done this at least five times.
The sugar is under control.
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There are several aspects/incidences/events that are directly or indirectly related to my/our medical stories, and I plan to cover them in future article/s.
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