Lost races. Broken marriages. Rejected and incredulous through the circle of family and friends.
These are some of the emotional and monetary difficulties faced by covid patients years after their infection. Physically, they are weakened and suffering: they cannot climb stairs, perform a task, or hold down a job. With the federal public fitness emergency ending in May, many others experiencing the lingering effects of the virus say they feel angry and abandoned by lawmakers eager to move forward.
“Patients are wasting hope,” said Shelby Hedgecock, a longtime self-proclaimed survivor from Knoxville, Tennessee, who now advocates for patients like her. “We feel swept away. “
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in March that 6 percent of U. S. adults are not in the U. S. A number of U. S. residents, or about 16 million, suffer persistent or long-term physical disorders that persist or arise after an episode of COVID-19. Researchers estimate that 1. 6% of U. S. adults are in the U. S. In the U. S. , adults, or about four million, have symptoms that have particularly reduced their ability to perform their activities.
Although patients are no longer contagious, their physical disorders can spread and almost any and all formulas in the body. More than two hundred symptoms and conditions, adding fatigue and depression, are connected to a long covid, said Linda Geng, a physician who treats patients at Stanford Medicine’s COVID-19 post-acute syndrome clinic.
The severity and duration of long covid vary. Some other people in a matter of weeks, while a smaller number have persistent and debilitating health problems. Lately there are no tests, remedies or cures. There is not even an accepted medical definition.
“When you don’t have any evidence that shows something abnormal, it can be disabling and anxiety-provoking,” Geng said.
The physical and emotional toll has left some desperate. A 2022 study of adults in Japan and Sweden found that those in post-covid situations were more than twice as likely to increase intellectual fitness issues, adding depression, anxiety, and post-covid. Traumatic stress, than other people without them.
“A frifinish of mine committed suicide in May 2021,” Hedgecock said. “He had a mild covid infection, and gradually he had medical headaches that came on continuously, and they were so bad that he ended his life. “
In Los Angeles County, 46% of adults who contracted covid fully recovered a month later, but the rest, the majority, reported one or more persistent symptoms, according to a study of 675 patients by the University of Southern California COVID-19 Pandemic Research Center. The researchers found that chronic fatigue topped the list of fitness problems, followed by brain fog and persistent coughing, all of which are part of people’s daily lives.
Of those who knew they were living with long covid, 77% said their condition limited activities such as going to school, painting or socializing. A quarter reported severe limitations.
Taking antivirals reduces the risk of having covid for a long time in other newly inflamed people. But for others who are already suffering, medical science seeks to catch up.
Here’s a look at Hedgecock and two patients who have been suffering from covid for a long time.
Before contracting covid in the spring of 2020, Hedgecock’s life revolved around fitness. She worked as a private teacher in Los Angeles and competed in stay-power competitions on weekends. At 29, she was about to start an online wellness business, and then she started having difficulty breathing.
“One of the scariest things that happened to me was that I couldn’t breathe at night,” Hedgecock said. “You’re moving. You’re young, you’re healthy. You’ll be fine. “
Her number one care doctor at the time told her she didn’t want supplemental oxygen even though her oxygen saturation had dropped below the overall level at night, leaving her breathless and crying in frustration.
Her condition kept her away from one of her favorite hobbies, reading, for 19 months.
“I couldn’t glance at a page and tell you what it said. It’s like there’s a disconnect between words and my brain,” he said. “It’s the strangest and most discouraging thing of all. “
Months later, under the direction of a specialist, Hedgecock performed a test that measured electrical activity in the brain. It revealed that his brain had been deprived of oxygen for months, damaging the segment that controls memory and language.
He has since returned to Tennessee to be closer to his family. You don’t leave your apartment without a medical alert button that can call an ambulance. She works with a team of specialists and feels lucky; she knows other people on long COVID teams online who lose their fitness policy when Medicaid pandemic protections expire, while others remain unable to work.
“Many of them have their savings. Some are homeless,” he said.
Julia Landis was busy as a therapist before contracting covid in the spring of 2020.
“I was able to help other people and it was a wonderful task and I enjoyed my life, and I lost it,” said the 56-year-old, who lives with her husband and dog in Ukiah, California.
As of 2020, Landis was living in an apartment in Phoenix and receiving telehealth treatment for his covid-related bronchitis. What started as a mild case of covid turned into a severe depression.
“I stayed in bed for a year,” he said.
Her depression continued, accompanied by debilitating pain and anxiety. To make up for his loss of income, Landis’ husband works longer hours, exacerbating his loneliness.
“It would be great to live in a place where there were other people seven days a week, so I wouldn’t have to spend days terrified of being alone all day,” Landis said. “If it’s cancer, I would live with my family. ” I am sure of that.
Landis describes herself as a professional patient, filling her days with physical therapy and medical appointments. She gradually improves and would possibly socialize from time to time, this leaves her exhausted and possibly taking days to recover.
“It’s scary because there’s just no way to know if it’s going to be for the rest of my existence,” he said.
Linda Rosenthal, a 65-year-old retired high school paraprofessional, has long had covid symptoms, in addition to chest swelling that makes it difficult to breathe. You have difficulty getting medical care.
She called and set up a remedy plan with a local cardiologist near her home in Orange County, California, but five days later she got a letter telling her she could no longer provide medical services. The letter did not explain whyfor the cancellation.
“I was so surprised,” she said. And then I felt betrayed because it’s horrible to receive a letter where a doctor, in his right, says he no longer needs you as a patient, because it makes you doubt yourself. “
Rosenthal discovered another cardiologist willing to make telehealth visits and wearing a mask in the workplace even when the state rule had expired. However, the practice is more than an hour’s drive from your home.
If you or you know you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or tap the Crisis Text Line by sending HOME to 741741.
This article is from a community that includes LAist, NPR, and KFF Health News.
This article was produced through KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an independent publishing arm of the California Health Care Foundation.
This article was reprinted khn. org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent fitness policy research organization that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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