#COVIDDispatch – Woman tells of recovery from COVID-19 using natural remedies 

Prayers and natural remedies are what one recovered COVID-19 patient said kept her going after she contracted the highly infectious disease. The woman, who gave her name only as Paulah, believes Barbadians need to not only go back to eating healthier but also know their bodies and get any underlying conditions checked by a doctor. 

Paulah, who is now feeling like herself again, six weeks after the ordeal, explained to COVID Dispatch that she came down with the virus after her workmates tested positive. She experienced an array of symptoms, including coughing, diarrhea, dizziness, minor body aches, loss of smell and taste, and an elevated temperature. Her 10-year-old daughter also contracted the virus and experienced loss of smell and taste, headache and fever, but she recovered relatively quickly. 

Public health officials have warned persons experiencing COVID-19 symptoms against self-diagnosis and self-treatment, noting that this sometimes ends in death. Director of Medical Services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) Dr Clyde Cave also disclosed that there is overwhelming evidence of community spread well beyond what the daily numbers suggest. 

However, Paulah, an entrepreneur and mother who suffers from hypertension, maintained that she did not get caught up in worrying or feeling afraid. 

“This is my mantra: when it’s your time, you gotta go, regardless of whatever. I suffer from panic attacks, and something as simple as my ear being blocked would send me in a panic. I destressed myself from worrying too much. Usually, at night I would say my prayers – ‘God, thank you for life. If it is your will for me to see tomorrow, I thank you’.”

Paulah’s daily routine, apart from the mandatory temperature checks, includes taking her blood pressure and drinking her concoction of ‘bush tea’ made with lemongrass, turmeric and ginger. She also tried to get as much sunlight as she could bear, which she says energised her when she felt at her weakest. 

Even though she is now feeling like her “vibrant self” once more, Paulah said she has been left with a nagging cough. 

She explained to COVID Dispatch that she is partially vaccinated, having taken the decision to get inoculated on doctors’ recommendations.  

“I wouldn’t tell nobody to get the vaccine nor I wouldn’t tell nobody don’t get it. It is up to them. They gotta know for themselves. I went and get it because of what they said concerning high blood pressure and so on,” she said. 

Paulah believes that home isolation can work once patients follow the protocols and stay in the confines of their home until given the all-clear. She disclosed that even after she felt better, she stayed at home for a while longer before going back out to work. 

“Isolating yourself is a must because you can affect the others in your home. I always walked with my bacterial spray and I would spray behind me, spray the handles, and so on,” she said. 

This article appears in the November 12 edition of COVID Dispatch. Read the full publication here.