Tatarstan Health Care Ministry urges COVID-19 patients not to self-medicate

If you contract COVID-19, seek medical advice

“Our slogan is to “help yourself” isn’t the case of COVID-19. After reading and listening to recommendations from pseudo-doctors on social media, people often start to prescribe themselves medication,” complained chief visiting general practitioner of the Tatarstan Ministry of Health Care Lyutsiya Feyskhanova at the press conference.

The cases when antibiotics become the main drug in self-medication are frequent. As a consequence, after its intake, a person’s immunity goes down and stops fighting the virus, this is why acute complications arise, which are then harder to treat, health workers warn.

First of all, the specialist recommended that if there are coronavirus symptoms: weakness, high temperature, pain in the muscles, a bad headache, loss of smell and taste (the latter isn’t necessarily), one shouldn’t wait when it goes away or run to the pharmacy to buy medication. To start with, it is necessary to call a doctor who will prescribe treatment accordingly your symptoms.

“Yes, the doctors’ workload is catastrophically huge today. But if your condition isn’t critical — you have a high temperature, difficult breathing — you can go to the polyclinic or wait for a doctor to come. Considering his workload, he can come not on the day you called but next day.”

According to Feyskhanova’s information, people older than 65 years, citizens who have cardiovascular diseases, 2 type diabetes and obesity, smokers are often in the risk zone. And such patients shouldn’t postpone their treatment, the specialist of the Health Care Ministry stressed.

Rehabilitation will help cope with side effects

The Ministry of Health Care offers those who had a severe case of the disease rehabilitation. It is up to the patient, he can refuse the therapy. Though such cases across the republic are isolated, clarified head of Department of Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine of Kazan State Medical Academy Rezeda Bodrova.

Today rehabilitation courses after coronavirus run in 52 health establishments of Tatarstan. 2,200 out of 7,000 people who had COVID-19 have already done them. Such physiotherapeutic courses opened, for instance, in the polyclinics No. 7, 8, 16 and 21 in Kazan, in Central Urban Hospital in Nizhnekamsk, in Polyclinic No. 3 in Almetyevsk. Neсhama health resort in Petrovsky settlement was also repurposed for COVID-19 patients’ rehabilitation. 100 quotas were allocated here in Compulsory Medical Insurance, a third of which has already been used.

“Tatarstan perhaps is the only region in the country that also has equipment for physiotherapy in health posts,” Rezeda Bodrova emphasised.

Bodrova called general meanness, amnesia, a cough during physical exercise, disorders of the nervous system, panic attacks, general depression and loss of sleep as reasons to see a doctor for further therapeutic rehabilitation after coronavirus treatment. According to her, a special recovery system designed by physiotherapists helps to cope with them. It includes a breathing technique, ozone therapy, talks with a psychologist and so on.

Blood thinners, vitamins and healthy lifestyle will fight off the virus

As scientists found out, COVID-19 lands the main blow on the blood system, blood thickens, which, in turn, brings to thrombosis in vessels and lungs. “Micro-thrombosis usually starts to form 7-10 days after the harmful virus gets to the person’s organism,” said haematologist, assistant to Department of Basics of Clinical Medicine of Kazan Federal University’s Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology, Candidate for Medical Sciences Svetlana Safiullina.

Blood thinners help to cope with this side effect, according to the world’s coronavirus treatment practice. “And it isn’t Aspirin. There is proven effective medication. There is a special set of medication to treat this virus,” Svetlana Safiullin especially stressed.

“Many try to lower a high temperature with usual Aspirin. But its effectiveness is low. Only Paracetamol will help.”

Moreover, only a doctor can prescribe the dose of blood thinners after examining the patient’s blood test. Blood thinners are not only expensive but in many cases require nurses’ confident hand because they are injected in the belly besides pills. This is why it is important to see a doctor on time, the haematologist advised.

But the therapy with blood thinners should go on after hospitalisation from two weeks to 40 days — depending on the severity of the disease and co-existing diseases (diabetes, high blood pressure and pregnancy). According to the doctor, “the organism needs precisely this amount of time to completely recover”. Compression hosiery also come in handy, Safiullina reminded the audience, tights or stockings help avoid venous congestion in feet and prevent the formation of clots.

To avoid a severe course of the disease and prevent it, the doctors advised taking vitamins: vitamin D because there are few sunny days in the republic, vitamin C if your food has little citric fruits and other products rich in it, Omega-3 if your ration doesn’t contain food rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids 2-3 times a day. While iron supplements are, in contrast, dangerous in case of coronavirus because they raise the content of ferritin in the blood. Enough water intake is another method to get rid of thick blood, it is necessary to drink 30 ml of water per kilo of weight (for instance, it is 2,5 litres a day for a person who weighs 80 kg). The third way to avoid the ailment is a high physical activity, the haematologist noted. It isn’t lying on the sofa in front of the TV — stand up, walk along the flat, go upstairs and downstairs in the hallway or in the courtyard if it is a private sector. Most importantly, you should walk at least 10,000 steps.