Arnie Pye
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I have hypothyroidism which has caused my body temperature to be low for most of my life. I first discovered the temperature issue in my 20s.
Throughout most of my adult life my temperature range was about 95°F - 96.4°F.
Up until I had Covid last November, if I got ill from a cold or anything else "ordinary" my temperature would rise for about two days then very rapidly drop back to "normal for me".
I had Covid last November and I was really quite ill. My temperature got up to about 102°F, stayed there for 2 - 3 days, and then very, very slowly dropped to about 98°F, which is when I stopped monitoring it. I was severely ill for about two weeks, and then took several weeks to recover although I have never quite got back to my pre-Covid level of health (which wasn't good anyway).
Pre-Covid I had had major problems for many years with mouth ulcers which were hugely painful. I think my record was having 13 at the same time. It was very rare for me to have none.
I couldn't cope with any of the OTC mouth ulcer treatments - they always felt as though they were setting my ulcers on fire. There was one that worked for a few months which contained Liodocaine, but then the active ingredient was changed to Benzocaine and I could never tolerate that. I tried salt water but could only tolerate very tiny amounts of salt which was not helpful at all.
I was prescribed betamethazone by a hospital consultant. That worked very well, but getting a prescription for it from my GP was very difficult and it couldn't be prescribed on repeat. On the rare occasions I managed to get a prescription only one local pharmacy had it in stock (but just once) and most wouldn't order it. (Just one agreed to and he wasn't happy about it. It came in boxes of 100 and I was prescribed 70, so he had no use for the other 30.)
Then Covid arrived and one of my symptoms was "Covid tongue" which looked awful. After I had mostly recovered I realised that I could tolerate salt water and more mouthwashes than before. I still get mouth ulcers but they really don't hurt anything like as much as they used to, and usually there are far fewer of them. Previously I'd score the pain as 8 out of 10, but now it is no worse than 2 out of 10.
I have found that salt water is actually the most effective treatment for me now, and I use a small amount of a commercial mouth wash to get rid of the taste of the salt.
I can only assume that I had a life-long bacterial or viral problem causing the pain before Covid that needed to be "baked at high temperature" to kill it off.
So, I'm probably one of the few people on the planet who benefited from having Covid. I do have other issues post-covid that are common to lots of people, so it isn't all good news, but the reprieve from having excruciating mouth ulcers is very welcome.
Edit : I forgot to mention that my body temperature hasn't dropped back to "normal for me". It is still 98°F, which I can't come up with an explanation for.
Throughout most of my adult life my temperature range was about 95°F - 96.4°F.
Up until I had Covid last November, if I got ill from a cold or anything else "ordinary" my temperature would rise for about two days then very rapidly drop back to "normal for me".
I had Covid last November and I was really quite ill. My temperature got up to about 102°F, stayed there for 2 - 3 days, and then very, very slowly dropped to about 98°F, which is when I stopped monitoring it. I was severely ill for about two weeks, and then took several weeks to recover although I have never quite got back to my pre-Covid level of health (which wasn't good anyway).
Pre-Covid I had had major problems for many years with mouth ulcers which were hugely painful. I think my record was having 13 at the same time. It was very rare for me to have none.
I couldn't cope with any of the OTC mouth ulcer treatments - they always felt as though they were setting my ulcers on fire. There was one that worked for a few months which contained Liodocaine, but then the active ingredient was changed to Benzocaine and I could never tolerate that. I tried salt water but could only tolerate very tiny amounts of salt which was not helpful at all.
I was prescribed betamethazone by a hospital consultant. That worked very well, but getting a prescription for it from my GP was very difficult and it couldn't be prescribed on repeat. On the rare occasions I managed to get a prescription only one local pharmacy had it in stock (but just once) and most wouldn't order it. (Just one agreed to and he wasn't happy about it. It came in boxes of 100 and I was prescribed 70, so he had no use for the other 30.)
Then Covid arrived and one of my symptoms was "Covid tongue" which looked awful. After I had mostly recovered I realised that I could tolerate salt water and more mouthwashes than before. I still get mouth ulcers but they really don't hurt anything like as much as they used to, and usually there are far fewer of them. Previously I'd score the pain as 8 out of 10, but now it is no worse than 2 out of 10.
I have found that salt water is actually the most effective treatment for me now, and I use a small amount of a commercial mouth wash to get rid of the taste of the salt.
I can only assume that I had a life-long bacterial or viral problem causing the pain before Covid that needed to be "baked at high temperature" to kill it off.
So, I'm probably one of the few people on the planet who benefited from having Covid. I do have other issues post-covid that are common to lots of people, so it isn't all good news, but the reprieve from having excruciating mouth ulcers is very welcome.
Edit : I forgot to mention that my body temperature hasn't dropped back to "normal for me". It is still 98°F, which I can't come up with an explanation for.
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