What happened here? Sudden illness recovery

[JackTheManiac]

This is some conspirationist's post I read on FB. So, it's in french, but I can reproduce it here if you want. I'll just do a short recap for now.

Basically, this all started an evening while he was at work. He started to feel sick, so he left for his home earlier than usual. Says he felt dizzy and his lungs "kind of itched".

The next day, he woke up at 10AM, he had dry cough, irritated lungs, dizziness and vertigo. So he went on Google and self diagnosed with coronavirus. For a while, he could only sit in his armchair and rest, no energy to do anything else. Then, stressed by the fact he has no more sick days and doesn't want to have a note on his file, that he doesn't want to cause sanitary problems by showing up, and that he doesn't want to be reported as a COVID case by his boss, he starts reflecting.

• "I am a Reiki Master"
• "But, I am also a Qi Gong ( Falun Gong ) practitioner. True Qi Gong practitioners are immune to sickness"
• "I will ask Qi Gong to solve my problem".

So he decides to delay his decision to call in sick at work until his normal departure time, 1:15PM.

Until then he stays in his armchair, having no energy. He drinks a coffee, and decides to "chase off negativity from his mind"

At 1h05PM he starts making his lunch and says he is not tired anymore

At 1h15PM he says he's back in perfect, healthy shape, only some residual cough. Goes to work, fully energized.

 

There are many things wrong with this story. My bet was it was never COVID in the first place, in all cases.

It could be entirely false. This could be a man starved for attention, who wants to feed his conspirationist narrative and need to be seen as special.

Assuming he was really sick however, how did he recuperate so fast? Is there a disease that fits the bill better and can be resolved in 2-3 hours?

 

My question is about sudden self recovery of cold/flu like symptoms.

Assuming his tale really happened and he's not lying, what's the scientific explanation for what happened?

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by JackTheManiac

[zep73]

3 minutes ago, JackTheManiac said:

So he went on Google and self diagnosed with coronavirus.

That's all that's relevant in the story.

[JackTheManiac]

That's not what I'm asking about. I'm asking about sudden self recovery of cold/flu like symptoms.

Assuming his tale really happened and he's not lying, what's the scientific explanation for what happened?

[bison]

It's possible for the human body to fight off an infection fairly rapidly. Perhaps the exposure in this instance, if that's what it was, was weak one. The expectation that it will take x number of days to recover from a certain illness is based of a typical case. There will always be a distribution of recovery times, from shorter than normal, to longer. In any case, since this was a 'self-diagnosis' we have no way of knowing what was really going on. For all we know, the symptoms could have been psychosomatic. 

[zep73]

12 minutes ago, JackTheManiac said:

That's not what I'm asking about. I'm asking about sudden self recovery of cold/flu like symptoms.

Assuming his tale really happened and he's not lying, what's the scientific explanation for what happened?

Perhaps allergies. They can seem like a cold or flu, and vanish quite fast.

[JackTheManiac]

8 minutes ago, bison said:

It's possible for the human body to fight off an infection fairly rapidly. Perhaps the exposure in this instance, if that's what it was, was weak one. The expectation that it will take x number of days to recover from a certain illness is based of a typical case. There will always be a distribution of recovery times, from shorter than normal, to longer. In any case, since this was a 'self-diagnosis' we have no way of knowing what was really going on. For all we know, the symptoms could have been psychosomatic. 

I didn't know a lot about psychosomatic symptoms, that's quite interesting. From what I gather, put simply they have for instance the actual flu symptoms but their cause being psychosomatic, they can go away fast. Having not experienced that myself, it's hard to imagine how it feels, but I think I understand a bit.

Edited June 13, 2020 by JackTheManiac

[XenoFish]

Thoughts of being sick + worry = nocebo effect. 

[Kittens Are Jerks]

Dry cough, irritated lungs, dizziness, exhaustion... could be the result of a number of things (some of which have already been mentioned). It's also possible that he suffers from sleep apnea and had a particularly rough night. It could be anything, to be honest, which is why Google should never be used as a source for medical self-diagnosis.

But to answer your question, yes, it is indeed possible to feel like crap for a day, then get back to normal the next.

[papageorge1]

52 minutes ago, JackTheManiac said:

 

Assuming his tale really happened and he's not lying, what's the scientific explanation for what happened?

 

It seems possible to me that coronavirus weakness can be shaken off after only minor to moderate symptoms. Some have no noticeable symptoms at all. Reiki can help the immune system too.

[JackTheManiac]

Gonna have to ask you to source that m'good sir.

[Kittens Are Jerks]

17 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

It seems possible to me that coronavirus weakness can be shaken off after only minor to moderate symptoms. Some have no noticeable symptoms at all. Reiki can help the immune system too.

According to the CDC, those with mild cases typically have symptoms for a few days (not a few hours) and feel better in a week or so. Most will have symptoms for about two weels or longer. As for Reiki, it only works as a placebo.

[HandsomeGorilla]

49 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Thoughts of being sick + worry = nocebo effect. 

Yep. Our minds are much more powerful than we realize. You can practically will yourself sick. 

[papageorge1]

6 minutes ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

According to the CDC, those with mild cases typically have symptoms for a few days (not a few hours) and feel better in a week or so. Most will have symptoms for about two weels or longer. As for Reiki, it only works as a placebo.

Some are mild to asymptomatic which sounds like it borders on mild and could appear to some as disappearing quickly. I think Reiki does have an effect at the energy levels above the physical.

Edited June 13, 2020 by papageorge1

[XenoFish]

11 minutes ago, HandsomeGorilla said:

Yep. Our minds are much more powerful than we realize. You can practically will yourself sick. 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150210-can-you-think-yourself-to-death

We have long known that expectations of a malady can be as dangerous as a virus. In the same way that voodoo shamans could harm their victims through the power of suggestion, priming someone to think they are ill can often produce the actual symptoms of a disease. Vomiting, dizziness, headaches, and even death, could be triggered through belief alone. It’s called the “nocebo effect”.

But it is now becoming clear just how easily those dangerous beliefs can spread through gossip and hearsay – with potent effect. It may be the reason why certain houses seem cursed with illness, and why people living near wind turbines report puzzling outbreaks of dizziness, insomnia and vomiting. If you have ever felt “fluey” after a vaccination, believed your cell phone was giving you a headache, or suffered an inexplicable food allergy, you may have also fallen victim to a nocebo jinx. “The nocebo effect shows the brain’s power,” says Dimos Mitsikostas, from Athens Naval Hospital in Greece. “And we cannot fully explain it.”

[zep73]

1 hour ago, papageorge1 said:

Some are mild to asymptomatic which sounds like it borders on mild and could appear to some as disappearing quickly. I think Reiki does have an effect at the energy levels above the physical.

People with mild or barely any symptoms are dangerous, because they don't isolate themselves, so they spread the disease. And if you add superstitious superpowers to that, it becomes even more dangerous, because they will think they have beaten the virus, without actually having done that.

Edited June 13, 2020 by sci-nerd