A senior doctor who was diagnosed with coronavirus has described how she beat the bug with chicken soup, lemonade and paracetamol all playing a part.
Dr Clare Gerada, 60, caught the deadly virus after returning from a conference in New York.
She was bed-ridden for days at her south London home, but has now recovered, and has explained what it is like to live with coronavirus.
Dr Gerada, former head of the Royal College of GPs, said she went to work just a day after returning from New York, and it was then the symptoms started to kick in, with a dry cough and fatigue, although she initially thought it was just because she had only recently been on a long flight.
But soon after she was suffering from a sore throat, shivers and a high temperature.
Dr Gerada then decided it would not be wise to go back to work, and took to the internet to try and find out more information.
She told MailOnline : “So I emailed 111. When I didn’t hear back, I went to a testing pod at a local hospital.
“I knew it was the coronavirus, as I am never normally ill and the flu season was all but over plus I’d had my jab.”
After her temperature read at a whopping 102F, Clare’s coronavirus experience had begun, and would stay in bed for the next five days only getting up to use the toilet.
And after the five days, her symptoms disappeared apart of intense tiredness, but said three items helped her recover.
“Despite now being on the ‘other side’ of youth, I have no underlying health conditions and two paracetamol three times a day and lemonade was all I needed,” she said.
“I had God’s penicillin, chicken soup, which seemed to have a miraculous effect of bringing back my appetite.”
Clare said coronavirus was the worst illness she has ever had, and could only compare the bug to giving birth.
She added: “It was painful, and frightening, the fear not because I thought I would die but because being unwell is just that, frightening.”
