MailOnline/
A nurse who spent 28 days in a Covid coma fighting for her life has been saved after medics gave her Viagra as part of an experimental treatment regime.
Double-jabbed asthmatic mother-of-two Monica Almeida, 37, from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, was admitted to hospital on November 9 after testing positive for coronavirus on October 31.
She was moved to intensive care a week later before doctors put her into an induced coma on November 16.
Almeida says they were just three days away from having her ventilator turned off when her condition started to improve and she woke up on December 14.
When she woke up doctors at Lincoln County Hospital revealed they had given her a large dose of viagra as part of an experimental treatment regime that she agreed to before going into a coma.
The erectile dysfunction drug enables greater blood flow to all areas of the body by relaxing the walls of blood vessels, and Almeida says it caused her condition to improve in just a week and the level of oxygen she needed to drop by half as it opened up her airways.
“I had a little joke with the consultant after I came round because I knew him.
“He told me it was the Viagra, I laughed and thought he was joking, but he said ‘no, really, you’ve had a large dose of Viagra.”
“It was my little Christmas miracle,” she told the Sun.
The specialist respiratory nurse, who works for NHS Lincolnshire and was born in Portugal, first tested positive for the virus in October.
Despite being double-jabbed, she lost her taste and smell and was coughing up blood on the fourth day.
After visiting hospital when her oxygen levels dropped, she was discharged – but soon after was rushed to Lincoln County Hospital as she was unable to breathe.
As her condition deteriorated she was taken to the ICU where she was placed in a medical coma on the 16 November.
The nurse was so ill that her parents were advised to fly over from Portugal to say their goodbyes.
But in the eleventh hour doctors decided to use the unusual treatment which had previously been suggested as a way to treat Covid patients as it dilates blood vessels and opens the airways.
She emerged from her coma in time for Christmas on the 14 December and was allowed to return to her family on Christmas Eve.
Tests are being carried out to see whether Viagra could be used to boost oxygen levels – in the same way as inhaling nitric oxide.
Currently the drug can be given to Covid patients in Britain if they have agreed to be part of a study on experimental drugs.
“It was definitely the Viagra that saved me. Within 48 hours it opened up my airwaves and my lungs started to respond.
“If you think how the drug works, it expands your blood vessels,” she told the Mirror.
Recovering with her husband Artur and their two sons, nine and 14, Almeida is now urging people to get the vaccine.
She told the Lincolnite: “There are people out there saying the vaccine has killed people. I’m not denying there are people who react and get poorly with the vaccine, but when we look at the amount of deaths we have in unvaccinated people there is a big message there to have your jab.
“It does worry me, especially in Lincolnshire, that people are against having the vaccine.
“I never expected at 37 years of age to get as ill as I did. I never thought this would happen to me and I want people to take it more seriously.”
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