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- I'm Susan Taylor with Scripps Health
in San Diego, California.
You have just been diagnosed with COVID-19,
now what?
What steps do you and your loved ones need to take?
Joining us to talk about this is Dr. Siu Ming Geary.
She's the vice-president of primary care
at Scripps Clinic in San Diego, California.
Dr. Gary, thanks so much for being with us.
- Hi Susan, thank you for having me.
- All right, so the test comes back positive.
What's the first thing that you need to do?
- So if you've been diagnosed with COVID-19,
the first and most important thing to do is isolate,
so that you don't spread the virus to other people.
- How long should you isolate for?
- If you're symptomatic,
you should isolate for 10 days until you're symptom free,
and also for 24 hours,
you have had no fever without taking
a fever reducing medicine,
and your symptoms are actually improving.
- What if you are asymptomatic?
Let's say you test positive,
but you're showing no symptoms?
- Good question.
In that case,
you use the date that you were diagnosed positive
as the starting point and isolate 10 days from that point.
- And what if you have a severe case of COVID
or you are immune compromised, or let's say you're pregnant,
what should you do in those cases?
- In those case,
we recommend that we individualize how long you isolate,
because if you were in the ICU,
or you have acute illness that was very severe,
you may actually be shedding virus
for longer than the anticipated 10 days.
So we really want you in those cases,
to talk to your doctor to find out should you isolate
for 10 days, or 20 days,
or somewhere in between.
- Let's say you share your house with your family,
or let's say that you're at school,
and you share a room, a dorm room with your roommate,
what should you do in those cases to isolate?
- So I think it's important to remember that
to prevent the spread of virus,
you really want to minimize your exposure to other people.
So if you have the ability to have
your own separate bedroom,
your own separate bathroom,
and you can spend your isolation there, that's ideal.
If you actually have a small space,
and there's only one bedroom,
but you're sharing,
you have a roommate and you share a bedroom,
maybe that person can sleep in the living room.
They can sleep on the couch.
They can go and stay with their sister
or a friend during that timeframe.
Really the whole point is stay far away
from other people as much as possible
while you're potentially contagious.
And if you have to be in a shared space,
make sure you're always wearing a mask,
you're washing your hands often,
sanitize any shared surfaces at least twice a day,
and after every time you use it.
- And what about food?
- So recognizing that you're gonna,
if you're gonna be handling food,
if you live alone, not a problem, right?
But if you have a shared space,
being in that shared kitchen,
or when you take off your mask to eat,
make sure that you're not in those shared spaces
at the same time.
So the best scenario would be if you're isolating
in a bedroom, and somebody can bring you food,
and drop it off in front of your bedroom door,
you bring it in, eat in your room,
and then take the dishes out.
That's the best case.
- And what about laundry?
- So it's important to know that you can actually have,
you can wash the clothes of somebody with COVID
with the clothes of somebody without COVID together.
Make sure that whoever's doing the washing
is wearing a mask, they're wearing gloves,
and wash the clothes at the highest temperature
that is deemed safe for the laundry.
- What about quarantining?
Okay so you're quarantining,
should the other members of your house also be quarantining?
- Yes.
If you've been diagnosed with COVID,
you will receive recommendations for anyone
that you've been exposed to, to also quarantine.
And they should quarantine for 14 days.
If they're not symptomatic and they were exposed
to the incubation period before they show symptoms
or becoming contagious could actually be anywhere
from two to 10 or 14 days.
So yes, everybody that is in your household
will also be quarantined at the same time.
- Let's talk about the COVID symptoms,
mild, moderate, and severe.
- Good to know.
So most people, if they have symptoms and they're mild,
they may include maybe mild muscle aches, mild headache,
maybe some congestion, sore throat.
They may actually have loss of sense of taste or smell.
It's important to know that any
of those mild symptoms can become severe
or moderate or severe,
and so you can actually have mild muscle aches
or very severe muscle aches.
But the moderate ones we tend to think of
are also shortness of breath,
abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, maybe diarrhea.
Maybe you're not able to hold down your fluids.
Severe symptoms are when those actually
either involve breathing,
or if you're not able to stay awake,
if you become extremely lethargic or sleepy,
or you're having severe pain in the chest, in the abdomen.
Those are times when you really need to
seek emergency medical attention.
- And then after COVID you might feel better for a while,
and then you experience a flare up of symptoms.
How common is that?
And what should you do if you get that flare up?
- So there is a condition that we are starting to learn
about call long COVID or post COVID syndrome.
And some people get COVID,
unlike the vast majority,
they may have symptoms that actually lasts much longer
beyond the 10 or 14 days.
They may last months.
And in some cases,
symptoms may get better and then flare up again.
We're learning about that.
And if you have symptoms that don't go away,
make sure they contact your doctor to see
if you have this long COVID syndrome,
and as new treatments and more research is done,
we can actually use that to help treat your condition.
- And what's the importance of staying hydrated?
So it's important to stay hydrated,
particularly during any kind of febrile illness,
because as you have a fever,
or maybe you don't have an appetite,
you may not be eating or drinking as much,
staying hydrated allows your body
to actually not only stay healthy,
all these central functions to work,
but also to fight the infection.
So making sure that even if you don't feel like drinking,
that you are drinking enough fluids.
That could be water.
It could be juices.
It could be soups.
We recommend stay away from sodas,
but making sure that you don't become dehydrated
is important,
especially when you're not feeling well.
- About losing your appetite,
because people say they do lose their appetite
when they have COVID?
Should you be forcing yourself to eat certain foods?
- Well, making sure that you're nourishing your body
as much as you can during acute illness is important.
You don't want to starve your body,
because it's gonna need the nutrients and energy
to actually fight the infection,
and also just to run your daily bodily functions.
So even if you don't feel like it,
try to eat regularly healthy food,
vegetables, fruits, lean proteins,
and stay away from processed foods,
saturated high saturated fats, things like that.
- And then talk about the importance of deep breathing.
- So COVID can affect the lungs.
And so what we really want you to do is to make sure
that you're taking big breaths on a regular basis
to make sure that the air pockets in your lungs are aerated.
they're actually expanded.
Particularly as people with COVID may be very tired,
they may spend a lot of time laying down or in bed,
that actually allows the lungs to be more likely to collapse
and thus get infected.
If you do have pneumonia,
or you have other conditions affecting your lungs,
make sure you're staying up,
sitting upright, leaning forward if you can,
at least a few times an hour,
taking those big breaths to open up the air pockets,
and take pressure off the lungs is important as well.
- And so if you have COVID,
you shouldn't be spending the day in bed,
you're saying actually you should sit up,
and then to kind of lean forward,
because that helps to expand the lungs.
- That would be helpful.
It's also important that if you're isolating,
try to do your normal activities when you're isolating.
If you're feeling well, get up, walk around.
If you can do light exercise, that's okay.
Really try not to stay in bed the whole time
that you're isolating when you have COVID.
- Any final thoughts Doctor?
- Yes.
Being diagnosed with COVID is scary,
but we're going to get through this together.
I think the most important thing to remember is that
if you've been diagnosed with COVID,
in addition to paying attention to your health,
and knowing when to contact your doctor,
is also to prevent the spread.
So isolate for at least 10 days as we mentioned,
wear a mask, especially if you're around other people,
wash your hands frequently,
and if you have any additional questions,
or you're not feeling better to call
your primary care doctor to make sure
that you get the care that you need in a timely manner.
And finally,
as soon as you're able to, and you're eligible,
please get the COVID vaccine.
- Doctor thanks so much.
We really appreciate you taking the time to be with us.
- Thank you, Susan.
Thank you for having me.
- If you want more information on what to do
after being diagnosed with COVID-19,
please click on the link,
or to scripps.org/videos.
Want more critical information about your health?
Please subscribe to our Scripps Health YouTube channel
and follow us on social media @ScrippsHealth.
I'm Susan Taylor.
Thanks for joining us.
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