WASHINGTON — A MedStar telehealth doctor said about 8,000 of their patients had COVID-19 symptoms, but only about 12 to 15 percent qualified to be tested. The rest of those patients are waiting it out at home and not getting tested.
"We’re in a really odd situation in the sense that when people get sick, not everyone's able to go to the hospital and get tested, so you want to optimize your chance of recovering if you believe you might have it at home," Bobby Mahajan, director of the interventional pulmonology and complex airway disease program at Inova Fairfax Medical Center, said.
Mahajan said for patients recovering at home, there is a crucial thing they can do to optimize their chance of recovery - breathing exercises that expand your lungs.
"So what we try and do is say take deep breaths if you can, keep your lungs as expanded as possible," Mahajan said. "The problem you run into, is it's very easy to forget to do that."
Mahajan said to try and take some deep breaths and hold it in for about five seconds and then breathe out. He said to repeat that five times every hour, or during commercial breaks, if that's easier to remember. Mahajan said this is a similar practice used in hospitals.
If you're experiencing respiratory symptoms, Mahajan recommends trying to sit up rather than laying down all day.
"Your first inclination is to sleep and lay down, which is part of the healing process provided," Mahajan said. "When you start to feel better, if you're not sleeping, we want you sitting in a chair, and part of that is because it gives you the anatomic kind of benefit of being able to expand your lungs and use gravity to do that."
Mahajan said the majority of people who get the coronavirus are going to be able to tolerate their symptoms at home, and by avoiding hospitals it prevents the medical system from getting overwhelmed.
Author J.K. Rowling said she too used breathing exercises when she experienced COVID-19 symptoms, and it helped.
"Eighty-one percent of people are going to be able to take care of this at home, Mahajan said. "They'll be characterized as mild disease, but you want to give yourself the best chance of avoiding becoming a severe or critical case,"
Mahajan was quick to remind that going to the hospital is still the best option if you are having trouble breathing or experience worsening symptoms.
"Doing these breathing exercises, staying hydrated, sitting in a chair and walking are great, but if you do feel as though things are getting worse, or you feel like your oxygen levels are getting worse or you're having more difficulty breathing, then we want to reinforce that doing it at home is not going to be the trick," he said. "We want you to go to the ER the hospital and get a higher level of care."