A Day in the Lyfe: Symptoms pt. 2

In my last post, I talked about how bad I'd been feeling, and I postulated a few factors that might be contributing to that: exercise, diet, exertion, general sickness cycles, etc. Well, there was another factor I wasn't considering at the time.

About a week before the post, I took my last dose of an antibiotic, Azithromycin. I was on this antibiotic as a precautionary measure while my wife and I battled COVID-19. Precautionary meaning that we were hoping to ward off any bacterial infections while my body was so busy fighting a viral invader. Since our symptoms had largely resolved, I let the antibiotics run out. It occurred to me some time after I wrote my last post that coming onto and off of antibiotics have both often been associated with big swings (positive and negative) in my health. 

I didn't think of this at first for a couple of reasons: 1) Unlike many times in the past, being on those antibiotics wasn't part of my core treatment regimen, so coming off of them didn't register as a change to my protocol, 2) Azithromycin is an antibiotic I've been on multiple times in the past. Most notably, from January to September of 2019. They were very helpful and effective at first, especially in controlling my sinus symptoms. Over time, they became less helpful, to the point where my fatigue and brain fog didn't seem to be mitigated by them at all. We discontinued them and have since moved on to other treatments.

So, while feeling terrible last week, it occurred to me that I had recently gone off of antibiotics, and it was also becoming clearer that my symptoms were pretty sinus-centric. They were continuing to get worse, to the point where I'd characterize it as "sinusitis," though not yet to the point of producing green mucus. I had a stockpile of Azithromycin, and so on Friday morning, I popped one.

Within an hour, I was feeling significantly better. The headache and pressure around my sinuses was dissipating. I felt myself perking up, more alert and aware. I'm more functional, and these effects have essentially continued since.

Now, this new finding unfortunately doesn't invalidate the effects of other factors I considered, and pulling back some symptoms puts the others in sharper contrast. I've since exercised a couple more times, and each time still does a number on me, wiping out fragile energy reserves. Carb intake still introduces a good deal of inflammation that I feel in the form of headaches and sinus congestion. Exertion of all kinds still puts me in spells of fatigue, though these are lasting hours rather than days for right now. 

My body's not spending as much of its resources fighting whatever infection is being handled by the antibiotics, but there are other things lying beneath that, unresolved. I believe those that remain are system-wide issues that we're attempting to coax back into health through more subtle, system-supporting interventions.

I'm very thankful for the relief. My wife is thankful to have her husband back. I don't know how long it will last, how long Azithro will be effective, or perhaps how long whatever it’s subduing will be the primary contributor to my symptoms. This is what I refer to as the "whack-a-mole" quality of this illness. 

That's all for now. Tune in next time for more adventures of the Super Sick Sleuth!