Depressed mother in Hanoi had to be hospitalized for a mental illness after Covid-19

I think I have all kinds of diseases

Since giving birth to a son, Ms. Vu Thao Quyen (41 years old, Hanoi) thought she had overcome the most difficult and stressful period of her life. However, Covid-19 came, causing her life to appear unpredictable developments.

Ms. Quyen is the case that Dr. Doctor Tran Thi Hong Thu, Deputy Director of Mai Huong Day Psychiatric Hospital recently visited in mid-March.

Sharing about the above case, Doctor Tran Thi Hong Thu said that Quyen got married and gave birth to three daughters in turn. Family She belongs to the well-to-do category, so her husband encouraged her to give birth again, hoping that “the house has a boring routine”. Knowing her husband longs for a son, her husband’s family often asks “when to give birth again”, Quyen is extremely pressured.

To be sure, Quyen and her husband spent billions of dong to lead each other to Thailand to look for a “warm boy”. However, the time he went abroad to find his son did not achieve the desired results.

Returning home, she chose a local hospital for consultation and finally gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. For the past 4 years, Quyen has quit her job to stay at home, wholeheartedly taking care of her 4 children.

The epidemic broke out, Quyen’s housemaid was afraid of Covid-19 so she left her hometown. Unable to hire a satisfactory person, alone managing to do all the housework, supervise the children’s studies, Ms. Quyen always falls into a state of overload.

For more than 2 years, she used all ways to prevent the disease, but in the end, Quyen still contracted Covid-19. This woman is not difficult to overcome the F0 stage, but she is struggling to cope with the post-Covid-19 situation.

According to Dr. Thu, for a week before coming to the clinic, this female patient suffered from insomnia. She always feels exhausted, tired, more irritable, cries easily, loses focus, remembers and forgets, or thinks negatively. In particular, she often feels nervous, worried and stressed.

The state of anxiety is too much that Quyen cannot continue to maintain her daily work. She worries that she has all kinds of dangerous diseases.

Her husband took his wife to a general examination, a post-Covid-19 examination of the heart and lungs, cancer screening, careful ultrasound and scan. The results showed that Ms. Quyen did not have any serious physical illness.

After each time, she left with a dense prescription of functional foods, immune-boosting pills, vitamins, herbs…

Unfortunately, despite having spent a mountain of money looking for diseases and buying tonics, this patient still has insomnia and often has pessimistic and negative thoughts, health not improved.

Dr. Thu said that Quyen was under pressure during the 2 years of the epidemic. These pressures have not been resolved, but she has suffered from post-Covid-19 sequelae leading to severe anxiety disorder.

According to Dr. Thu, recently, the hospital has received a lot of cases of patients coming to mental health check-ups after contracting Covid-19. Quyen is just one of them. Many people in the past had normal health, and when they contracted Covid-19, their symptoms were also very mild, but after Covid-19 they faced many mental health problems.

Thu said, a 37-year-old female patient she consulted shared that, when she had Covid-19, she had almost no symptoms. However, after recovering, she often found it difficult to sleep.

One day, in the early morning, she felt that there was phlegm in her throat, difficulty breathing, heart palpitations, palpitations, trembling, sweating, and fatigue. The next morning, she rushed to the hospital for examination and was diagnosed with post-Covid-19 panic disorder.

Just want to commit suicide after becoming F0

In addition to new patients who have never had a mental health check-up, over the past time, Doctor Tran Thi Hong Thu has found that a large number of patients with a history of depression and anxiety have been aggravated after Covid-19.

Most recently, Dr. Thu examined patient Dang Thi Lam (44 years old). Six years ago, this woman suddenly felt bored, tired, irritable and lost all her old hobbies, absent-minded or forgetful, eating and sleeping poorly.

From a vivacious woman, Ms. Lam fell into melancholy, slowly, not wanting to do anything. At one point, she heated a pan of hot oil to splash in the face with the intention of committing suicide. But for a moment, the image of two children woke her up.

During that time of depression, Ms. Lam constantly searched online for ways to commit suicide. She once almost drank rat poison. Once, she imitated how to commit suicide with a pain reliever and fever reducer. She took a few dozen pills at a time but fortunately was unharmed, only felt itchy in the soles of her feet.

Her family knew about it and took her to the hospital for a checkup. She was diagnosed with depression by her doctor and prescribed medication. She has been taking medication very regularly every day for many years now.

In early March, Lam unfortunately contracted Covid with very mild symptoms, no cough, no fever. Although she tested negative and was cared for and encouraged by her husband and children, she always felt lonely, bored for no reason, easily irritable, easily cried, sometimes burst into tears. “Especially, the patient thinks about death and feels bored with this life,” said Dr. Thu.

At the hospital, share with Reporter Dan TriMr. Tran Van Doan (41 years old, Hanoi) said, for more than 2 years of the outbreak of the disease, he was almost at home because he did not dare to go out to contact anyone. He spends most of his time updating news about Covid-19, learning prevention measures, worrying about losing sleep and eating when he sees himself or family members sneezing and having a runny nose.

As a precaution, by February 2022, Covid-19 did not “let go” for his family. Becoming 1 F0 made Mr. Doan almost “collapse”.

Worry weighed heavily on this thin man, just over 40 kg. He imagined that he had all kinds of diseases and asked his wife to take him to a doctor and screen for many specialties. He takes antidepressants every day but still feels exhausted, extremely tired.

On March 21, this man was almost “flattened” in one place, so his wife took him to Mai Huong Day Psychiatric Hospital. The doctors asked him to be hospitalized for inpatient treatment.

Doctor Tran Thi Hong Thu said that patients who come to mental health check-ups after Covid-19 mainly have symptoms of anxiety disorders and depression. Patients often fall into a state of stress, fatigue, irritability, difficulty controlling emotions.

Many people with symptoms of physical illness (headache, body aches, shortness of breath, insomnia…) often suspect that they have a serious illness. When going to the doctor, the doctor wrote that he was monitoring this disease, that disease to do screening tests, the patient understood that he was suffering from that disease, so he decided to go to the doctor to find out the cause, find out the name for his disease. me.

Many people avoid the stigma about mental illness, so they refuse to get a mental health examination. Just because of the misconception that mental illness is merely “insane”, they deliberately ignore suspicious symptoms or go to other specialists. Therefore, causing unnecessary damage.

Thu gives advice, many post-Covid-19 symptoms are related to acute anxiety. Instead of panicking about screening for too many tests, patients should proactively undergo mental health screening. For example, high blood pressure due to stress and fatigue, priority should be given to anxiety medications and psychotherapy.

Patients with post-Covid-19 mental health problems need to practice deep breathing to immediately reduce episodes of stress and anxiety, along with taking appropriate specialist medication depending on the level. Only then, the patient can quickly balance the spirit, find the joy of living again.

* Patient names have been changed