‘The Virus Simply Started to Take Over’ (Unique)

TikToker Lilly Downs, 19, has been residing with Lengthy Covid for 4 years and says when sickness strikes, “my immune system…will simply hand over”

Lilly Downs was taking part in soccer competitively each day and taking honors lessons in her Golden, Colo., hometown, residing what she known as the “typical lifetime of a junior in highschool.”

After which the Covid pandemic hit in March 2020.

On the time, it was extensively believed that young people didn’t undergo extreme signs from the respiratory sickness. And that was Downs’ expertise when she first caught the virus in November.

“I woke as much as prepare for college and I used to be about to depart and I used to be identical to, ‘I can’t do that. I would like to return to mattress,’” she tells PEOPLE solely of her “unhealthy fatigue.” Later when she awoke, she had all of the “traditional Covid signs,” like fever and chills.

However 9 days later, Downs ended up within the hospital with respiratory signs — after which developed “painful” lesions throughout her pores and skin.

“They have been throwing max doses of steroids at me, which we predict ended up making issues a lot worse as a result of that suppresses your immune system,” Downs, who spent two months within the hospital that first time, tells PEOPLE. “The virus simply started to take over.”

Two months after she was despatched residence, Downs ended up again within the hospital with lesions in her abdomen — and one other case of Covid. It was then that she was formally identified with Long Covid.

However as Downs, now 19, tells PEOPLE, “all of it simply type of snowballed over the course of that yr.”

“We might attempt to repair one downside after which one other downside would come up as a result of we mounted the primary downside. It was only a sport of Whack-a-Mole.”

As she explains, “We may repair one factor after which it will trigger one other.”

For instance, she was prescribed antibiotics, which prompted her to develop C.Diff., a situation that may happen after taking antibiotics that causes diarrhea and colon irritation, in line with the CDC.

Associated: Children May Be More at Risk of Developing Diabetes Following COVID-19, According to CDC Report

Subsequent she developed gastroparesis — which means, her abdomen stopped digesting meals — so Downs wanted surgical procedure to have a feeding tube positioned. In truth, she ended up needing two surgical procedures, as she had issues with the primary tube.

“My intestines have been simply not retaining it down and it was flipping again up into my abdomen,” she tells PEOPLE. “I had developed a syndrome that causes an obstruction in your intestines known as SMAS,” which causes bowel obstruction, in line with the National Institute of Health.

Covid additionally triggered the autoimmune issues Small Fiber Neuropathy, which causes burning ache, says the National Institute of Health, and Ankylosing spondylitis, which the Cleveland Clinic explains “is a kind of arthritis that impacts the joints in your backbone, inflicting typical arthritis signs like ache and stiffness, but additionally digestive signs, rashes and weight reduction.”

PEOPLE spoke with one of many docs who handled Downs. As Dr. Theodore Stathos, the previous director at Rocky Mountain Pediatric Gastroenterology, tells PEOPLE, “Lilly’s case, the autoimmune portion, actually grew to become extraordinarily tough as a result of she could not struggle off infections that have been very typical. Issues that you simply and I’d don’t have any points with, they might land her within the hospital, land her within the ICU and change into a life-threatening occasion.”

That’s what occurred throughout her senior yr of highschool, when she discovered herself within the ICU with a sepsis an infection — on the day of her promenade.

“One in all my favourite docs was like, ‘We’re gonna get you to promenade. I’ll actually be your escort there and sit behind the room,’” Downs tells PEOPLE.

However she was too sick to attend — so the hospital threw Downs her personal promenade.

“I received to dress up in my gown and my hair and all my nurses have been so excited,” she says.

However the restoration afterwards, she tells PEOPLE, was a tough highway, as her an infection left her so weak that, “I just about needed to relearn the best way to stroll afterwards.”

“That is when my purpose actually set in of, ‘I have to bodily stroll at commencement.’”

One way or the other Downs made it, and he or she tells PEOPLE that although she needed to sit up entrance close to the stage since she couldn’t stroll very far, “I very pleased with myself and relieved that I had made it to that time.”

However her battle is much from over, as Downs — who had one other case of Covid just a few months in the past — was hospitalized with a fungal an infection in December, triggered by her feeding tube’s diet answer.

Associated: Bethenny Frankel Details Long COVID and Autoimmune Disorder Journey: ‘It Felt Dangerous’

“The an infection got here on fast and slapped me within the face. as a result of I used to be very very similar to, ‘Oh I’ve my freedom, you recognize, doing nice blah, blah, blah,’ after which I used to be simply not,” she tells PEOPLE.

As she explains, “My immune system simply type of like, one thing will come at it after which it will simply hand over and let it run its course, like, as quick as potential.”

She’s been documenting her well being journey on TikTok, the place she has greater than 135,000 followers who watch her day-in-the-life movies.

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She’s additionally educating her followers on what it’s wish to handle her well being — for instance, she maintains an extensive binder filled with all her medical data and sticks to a sophisticated night-time routine of medicine.

Because the CDC notes, “Residing with Lengthy Covid could be laborious, particularly when there are not any speedy solutions or options” — and provides that they are nonetheless working to “higher perceive” the long-term ramifications of the virus.

However as Dr. Stathos tells PEOPLE, “I believe that there is a effectively above 95 p.c, 99 p.c likelihood she would have simply lived her life as a standard child with out Covid coming into the image.”

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