Lena Dunham Says Having COVID-19 Felt ‘Like a Rave Gone

Lena Dunham shared her expertise battling the coronavirus as somebody who suffers from persistent sickness, saying her physique “revolted” and all the things felt like a “rave gone wrong.”

The actress revealed that she received sick in mid-March that started with “achy joints,” which was shortly joined “by an impossible, crushing fatigue. Then, a fever of 102. Suddenly, my body simply… revolted. The nerves in my feet burned and muscles wouldn’t seem to do their job. My hands were numb. I couldn’t tolerate loud noises,” she defined.

“I couldn’t sleep but I couldn’t wake up,” she added. “I lost my sense of taste and smell. A hacking cough, like a metronome keeping time. Inability to breathe after simple tasks like getting a glass of water. Random red rashes. A pounding headache right between my eyes. It felt like I was a complex machine that had been unplugged and then had my wires rerouted into the wrong inputs. This went on for 21 days … days that blended together like a rave gone wrong.”

After a month of self-isolating and measuring her oxygen ranges, she examined adverse for COVID-19. But even then, her signs didn’t disappear.

She says she nonetheless had “swollen hands and feet, an unceasing migraine and fatigue that limited my every movie. Even as a chronically ill person, I had never felt this way,” Dunham continued.

A health care provider decided she was affected by medical adrenal insufficiency, and her arthritis flared up and required an immune-modulator drug. “To be clear,” she mentioned. “I did NOT have these particular issues before I got sick with this virus and doctors don’t yet know enough to tell me why exactly my body responded this way or what my recovery will look like.”

Although she was reluctant to share her story as a result of she didn’t wish to add her voice “to a noisy landscape,” she mentioned she felt compelled to chronicle her expertise given the carelessness with which individuals within the U.S. are treating the virus.

“I feel compelled to be honest about the impact this illness has had on me, in the hopes that personal stories allow us to see the humanity in what can feel like abstract situations,” she wrote. “I know I am lucky; I have amazing friends and family, exceptional healthcare and a flexible job where I can ask for the support I need to perform. … BUT not everybody has such luck, and I am posting this because of those people. I wish I could hug them all.”

In 2019, Dunham revealed she had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a persistent illness that impacts the joints and pores and skin. She additionally beforehand shared that she suffers from endometriosis.

Other Hollywood figures who’ve shared their COVID-19 experiences embrace Idris Elba, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Pink, Daniel Dae Kim and Bryan Cranston.

See Dunham’s put up beneath (scroll inside it to learn her whole story).