When I was working full-time with “mild” ME/CFS, I rarely got colds or flus. On rare occasions when I did come down with a cold, I would feel normal - as if I didn’t have ME/CFS - for about 12-24 hours before the cold symptoms would develop.
However, as my ME/CFS became more severe, each cold would inevitably morph into bacterial bronchitis, with symptoms of fever, severe fatigue, and headache. I eventually was diagnosed with mild bronchiectasis following a chest CT scan. Bronchiectasis can cause upper respiratory infections to be hellish.
I have had ME/CFS for 22 years now. The bronchiectasis is a comorbid condition that I believe developed as the indirect result of small fiber neuropathy, which caused a chronic vocal fold paralysis that results in aspiration of stomach contents into the lungs. As an ME/CFS patient, I would not worry about Covid. But now that I have additional diagnoses of small fiber neuropathy and bronchiectasis, I am more concerned that I am in the high risk category for Covid.
Time will tell soon enough, I think, as my wife developed Covid symptoms on Tuesday following way too many errands to grocery stores and the post office in the prior two weeks, my 21-year old daughter started coughing and running a fever yesterday, and we live together in a small New York apartment in close proximity to each other, meaning I cannot really isolate myself from them.
