I had COVID-19 and now I can’t sleep

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Research has shown some people infected with SARS and Ebola experienced similar symptoms including fatigue, sleep disturbance, muscle pain and cognitive impairments for months and even years following infection. Photo: Pexels

 

(Vanessa Hrvatin/ Ottawa Sun) — I was a bad sleeper as a kid, but made up for it over the last 15 years. I’m quick to snooze in the aisle seat of a plane and I’m out like a light as soon as my head hits a pillow. I’m also good at staying asleep — I rarely wake up in the middle of the night and if I do it’s usually for no more than five minutes.

That all changed last November. I started feeling unwell at the end of a Friday. Chalking it up to a long week, I went to bed and — you guessed it — fell asleep right away. When I woke up Saturday feeling worse, I got tested for COVID-19. On Sunday, it was confirmed: I had the virus.

It took a week of chills, aching muscles, a nasty cough and a sore throat before I started to feel like myself again — well, mostly myself, except for one very noticeable difference: I was struggling to fall asleep.

And when I finally did, I’d wake up every half hour. At first, I rationalized that the sleeplessness was a result of being anxious about returning to work. Or perhaps I was still getting over the virus. But days dragged into weeks, and today, months after the original symptoms of COVID-19 appeared, I still can’t get a good night’s rest. (…)

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