This post is a continuation of my previous posts, Covid Day 0, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, and Day 8.
You’d think I would have known.
Nine days after getting Covid and thinking I had it licked, I was working at my desk mid-morning when I felt a familiar sharp pain in my throat.
I say familiar because I’ve had my share of strep throat. I used to get it pretty often when I worked at an ice rink teaching little kids how to skate.
I grabbed a flashlight and went to the mirror. Yep, looks like strep throat. Those little white patches.
Believe it or not, during the previous week I hadn’t looked in my throat once. If I had, I’m guessing I would’ve seen something similar about 3 or 4 days ago. I figured I must’ve been fighting off two infections at once.
In the past, I’ve tried to ride out strep infections, but they often just linger and are quite painful. So I didn’t waste any time and drove straight to the nearby Urgent Care on the presumption that I would be prescribed antibiotics.
As the father says in Maus, “This is where my troubles began.”
The doctor looked at my throat and decided that, because it was only on one side, it was shingles, not strep. We did a swab. The results would take about three days to come back, but in the meantime, I was to take an antiviral drug for shingles.
I bought this diagnosis for two reasons. One, my mom had shingles in her 50s, and I guess in a weird way I liked the idea that I would get it too. And it seemed like a particularly clever diagnosis, and I fell for the cleverness.
As you’re probably guessing, it was a misdiagnosis. Stupidly, I took the antiviral drug for several days.
What could possibly go wrong?
The adverse effects of the drug I was prescribed include coma, seizures and major shifts in mental state and behaviour. In other words, this drug has a major impact on the brain.
Here’s a partial list of the adverse effects, all of which I experienced. Many of these speak to the drug’s effect on neurotransmitters and the brain and the gut-brain axis.
Dizziness (my number one post-concussion issue)
Trouble concentrating (uh, what?)
Reduced mental alertness (I’m guessing this helps whilst driving)
Change in mental status (how’s that for ominous?)
Mood or mental changes (but in fairness, the same thing happens at an Abba show)
Changes in behaviour, especially in interactions with other people (again, not unlike going to see live theatre)
Discouragement (this is my favourite)
Feeling sad or empty (right then)
Irritability (might want to confine yourself)
Tightness in the chest (yes, this is very discouraging, wondering if I might die any minute)
Chest pain (lasted for about 20 minutes at one point)
Lower back or side pain (but who doesn’t have this)
Shortness of breath (“shallow, profane” as Wim Hof would say)
Constipation; Diarrhoea (it’s not like your brain needs anything from your gut)
And perhaps most hilariously:
Sore throat
Nasal congestion
Stuffy or runny nose
Sneezing
Coughing
I allowed myself to be betrayed, once again, by the malfeasance and nonfeasance of a doctor working in a fundamentally broken “system” with no access to relevant information (the kind of information that doctors have access to in nations where the word system can follow the word healthcare without needing to have ironic quotes placed around it).
When I realised what a fool I had been, I turned to my wife to tell her about the list of adverse effects, and she stopped me.
When it comes to medications, she said, “Many people’s lives are saved, and some people’s lives are ruined, and that’s just the way it is.”
In September 2021, I was working around the house with my headphones on, listening to a Huberman Lab podcast about influencing your dopamine levels by taking certain actions.
Around the 30:30 mark, Dr Huberman began telling a story about some kids whose dopamine circuits were destroyed by taking a drug. In the aftermath, they were left in an irreversibly lifeless state.
He then went on to describe an incident when he went to an emergency room.
“They put a saline line in to rehydrate me, and they injected something into the saline bag, and within minutes I felt more sadness, more overwhelming sense of depression—basically lower than I have ever felt in my entire life.”
“It was absolutely profound. I was crying. Endlessly. Without knowing why I was crying. I was miserable.”
“And I asked them, what do you inject? And they said: We injected Thorazine.”
“Thorazine is an anti-psychotic drug, actually used to block dopamine receptors. It’s what’s given to people who have schizophrenia, often… because schizophrenia involves, among other things, elevated levels of dopamine.”
“It was horrible. The experience of it was unlike anything I had ever experienced.”
“And so, I actually said to them, ‘What did you give to me?’ They said, ‘Thorazine’ and I said, ‘You have to give me L-Dopa. You have to give me something to get my dopamine levels back up again.’”
“And they did. They gave me an injection of L-Dopa that went straight into the bag, it went straight into my bloodstream, and within minutes, I felt fine again.”
I stopped the podcast, leaned against the kitchen doorframe, broke down and sobbed. My wife and son had no idea what had come over me.
My sister Kathy was prescribed Thorazine for years. She would cry. Endlessly. Every day. Year after year. Her life was utterly ruined by that drug. No one ever had an answer. In fact, the only answer we were ever given was to take the drug. We were all recruited into the effort of making sure she took that drug every day. When we heard her begin to cry in her room, the first words out of our mouths were, “Did you take your medication?”
Was my sister misdiagnosed? I’ll never know. She committed suicide. I was 13 at the time.
Yes, many people’s lives are saved by medications, and some people’s lives are ruined.
In my next post, I write about Covid Recovery Days 15 - 22.
Brainwave is an informational resource for people whose symptoms haven’t resolved after a concussion or mTBI. I aim to present this information in a clear and concise way, spelling out what’s backed by science and what remains unknown. Nothing here is meant as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. I am not a physician or a healthcare practitioner of any kind; I’ve had a lot of sports-related concussions and had to learn this stuff the hard way. If you found this information helpful or know someone who might benefit from it, please share and subscribe to Brainwave.