PRACTICE BMJ: first published as 10.1136/bmj.m3026 on 11 August 2020. Downloaded from 1 Nuffield Department of Primary Care PRACTICE POINTER Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK Management of post-acute covid-19 in primary care 2 West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Watford, UK Trisha Greenhalgh, 1 Matthew Knight, 2 Christine A’Court, 1 Maria Buxton, 3 Laiba Husain1 3 West Hertfordshire Respiratory Service – Central London Community What you need to know Box 1: A patient’s account Healthcare, London, UK • Management of covid-19 after the first three weeks My wife, kids, and I all had symptoms of presumed Correspondence to: T Greenhalgh is currently based on limited evidence covid-19 in early April 2020. They were soon fine, but I
[email protected] was more unwell and ended up in bed extremely fatigued, • Cite this as: BMJ 2020;370:m3026 Approximately 10% of people experience prolonged lethargic, and without appetite for four days. illness after covid-19 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3026 The only person whose symptoms persisted was myself, Published: 11 August 2020 • Many such patients recover spontaneously (if slowly) and the fatigue which I had experienced was still with holistic support, rest, symptomatic treatment, lingering in the background. From this point onwards, it and gradual increase in activity became difficult to engage fully in day to day activities • Home pulse oximetry can be helpful in monitoring with my normal energy levels. Exercise, of which I do a breathlessness fair amount, was not at all possible.