Reply To: 19 Year-Old Dies from COVID: GBS also suspected

Hi Robert. I am 62, and a year ago at this time I was holed up in an acute rehab hospital for what turned out to be a month’s stay, give or take. My initial treatment was IVIG. My first week in rehab coincided with the low points of my condition: terrible night pain, severe leg weakness, loss of bladder control, numbness moving from my feet up to my knees…

What followed was several weeks of intense rehab, mainly physical therapy. After a month I went home — still dependent on a walker — and continued outpatient PT and workouts at home. A month later, I graduated to a cane. A month after that, I was starting to walk on my own. Other symptoms were markedly improved. My recovery was really accelerating during this time. I was driving and returned to work by early January, and not long after that I was able to run some and walk long distances unaided. By Spring I was maybe 80% recovered, by my estimation, and I continued to improve with each month. I’m a very active person, and I think that being in decent shape and doing a lot of physical activity had a lot to do with my recovery.

The symptoms I have still have are numbness in my right foot, what one might call “slightly reduced” bladder control, as well as occasional trips or stumbles that seem attributable to the GBS, and possibly the foot numbness. Perhaps the it’s damage to the same nerve area that causes all of these things. But these are pretty minor things compared to what many people are experiencing, so I consider myself extremely lucky.

How about you?