When you’re sick*, your entire body becomes inflamed, even your nervous system, and that fucks everything up. Further, if you are more sensitive and have sensory needs (almost certainly do), you’re being overwhelmed by unwanted sensations (body aches, heightened sense of smell, headaches, runny nose, coughs) and are unlikely to have the energy to stim to help regulate.
Best course is to try to minimize all the unwanted sensations and check out mentally until your immune system does its thing. AKA, get some rest.
I wouldn’t put much hope in current medical science with this question, they still have no idea what the heck COVID does, mechanically speaking, just that it fucks shit up in a way that may lead to respiratory failure. And that’s with all the money in the world. No one is doing deep dives into how someone that’s neurodivergent feels differently bad when they are sick. Heck, they don’t really deal with anyone’s symptoms while they are sick, it’s just basic painkillers and barely better than placebo cough syrup. The only mental vital they even take is pain, which ND people either answer very low to (resulting in being told to go away), or very high to (resulting in being told you are exaggerating, drug seeking, and to go away). Maybe if they could measure the level of stimulation and figure out a safe baseline, and at what point we start becoming traumatically overstimulated, then medicated for that, I’d have a bit more faith in the system. Since they can’t even measure pain, maybe at least ask us how stimulated we feel instead of our pain levels. Anything over a 7 should be treated with something that helps us cool off. But what the fuck do I know.
Yep, it’s a total shitshow with most research and popular science news. More results are coming together about various ND conditions being strictly genetic, yet there’s still a ton of people out there talking about what could trigger issues after birth, and cures. You can no more make a zebra into a horse than you can make an ND person into an NT person.
Some of the things people consider issues are unproblematic and natural within ND populations, but NT people rule the world and since they deem it weird, we have to change. I’m at least hopeful that this ND awareness spring we seem to be in, where a lot of adults are becoming aware that they are (and always have been) healthy ND adults, will give rise to some improved acceptance and eventually help shift how we treat ND children to avoid the everyday traumas that I think lead to unhealthy ND adults. I’d be even more optimistic if I’d weren’t for the constant denialism and pushback from everyone, including professionals, and even people gatekeeping in the ND population.