Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, medical professionals are advising members of the community to wear masks when not able to practice social distancing around others. Dr. Mallory Shillinger is an internal medicine specialist with Piedmont Physicians Hawthorne Medical in Athens. She says the protection they offer is worth the effort.
Shillinger knows firsthand just how devastating the coronavirus infection can be.
“I had an intractable fever for eight days where I was taking ibuprofen and Tylenol around the clock and couldn't get the fevers to go away. I couldn't breathe, and the simple task of going to the bathroom, I would have to stop before I would even get there and I lost my sense of smell, probably the mildest of the systems that I had, with the fevers I was in excruciating pain in my joints.”
While she wasn’t hospitalized, the effects lingered.
“I got very depressed because it wouldn't go away. It wasn't just like the flu where you have it for two days and it's gone. After my fever went away after day eight, it lingered for three to four weeks afterward or sometimes up to six, I’ve seen studies saying up to six. You don't want to eat, you're very fatigued, you have shortness of breath, you have a cough. It's not just something that just goes away right away.”
The doctor also encourages flu shots to avoid the possibility of getting COVID and influenza together this year.
