Adam Perry, who recently starred in Frozen on Broadway, came down with COVID-19 in March.
He tested negative for the virus in April but still has many lingering problems breathing and worries for his future.
He has been a dancer for 20 years and described himself as being very healthy prior to contracting the virus.
“I was coughing and I felt tightness in my chest. I was constricted. I was having trouble breathing,” Perry, 39, told Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang. “I just chalked it up to allergies, and then I got extreme fatigue.”
“I had 14 days of symptoms that were very scary, and then after the 14 days, it kind of just went to breathing and coughing only,” he added. “And that almost intensified. It was almost kind of like the fallout from the virus was almost worse than the virus.”
Perry revealed that he still has problems with breathing and coughing, and that these symptoms will go away long enough for him to think he's recovered before coming back.
When he spoke to ABC News on Wednesday (July 1, 2020), he said he had a little tightness in his chest, but that it is “a better day.”
“What happens is so constricting that you have to, like, physically think to inhale and exhale, and use extra muscles to do it,” he said of his symptoms. “You get really uncomfortable and it's concerning and scary.”
Perry said he's “very concerned” about being able to sing and dance on stage again. In an effort to improve his lung capacity, he said he's been working out his lungs.
“It's scary. I mean, I've been dancing and singing on Broadway for the past 20 years and, all of a sudden, I just don't have the capacity that I had anymore. So I'm hopeful for the future that they will get back to normal.”
Watch Adam Perry's interview with ABC News below.
