Lisa Fitzgerald and her husband Chip fell in love with COVID-19 around the same time. The two exhibited telltale symptoms such as shortness of breath and fatigue, and tested positive for the virus in July. But even as Chip began to recover from the illness, Lisa experienced persistent symptoms.
His fatigue worsened and he even lost his hair.
“My symptoms are pretty mild at first,” recalls Lisa, a counselor in Chicago. “Even after 14 days of isolation I felt it in my chest, almost in a different way, almost as if I had been in a smoky room long after the first two weeks.
Today, he says, the lingering effects weigh on his life.
“I can still function, but I feel a lot more tired at the end of the day,” she said. “At five or six in the afternoon, I am ready to go to bed. “
Some COVID-19 patients pay for anything they didn’t ask for: a long-term illness that affects their lives. These other people with COVID-19, dubbed ‘long-lasting’, revel in a multitude of long-term symptoms, which has created new unfamiliar situations for doctors looking to fight the virus, and demanding new situations for patients who they seek to return. to painting or school, or just living your life in a general way.
In a multi-state CDC research report, 35% of COVID-19 patients who tested positive with symptoms had not returned to their previous physical state when asked two to three weeks after testing. test. Experts don’t yet know the exact percentage of other people who are likely to experience these long-term effects or the duration of symptoms.
According to a survey conducted through the British Medical Association (BMA) and reported in the BMJ, a third of the 3,729 physicians surveyed have treated patients with long-term symptoms of COVID-19, chronic fatigue and loss of smell.
“You will most likely see a patient complaining of a history of COVID, which is now typical,” said ABC News medical contributor and board-certified emergency physician Dr. Darien Sutton, who served on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York. “The symptoms that cause them are shortness of breath. Patients do not seem to be returning to normal. “
“The usual symptoms are lethargy and chronic fatigue,” Sutton explained. But the problem, he said, is that the medical network still does not perceive why this happens to some patients and others, and how long it can last.
“We don’t have enough instances to expand a trend and we don’t have enough studies to expand a fact,” Sutton said.
In addition to fatigue, some of the common symptoms that patients have experienced during their recovery from COVID-19 are accompanied by muscle weakness, loss of smell, and difficulty concentrating. But experts say it is too early to know if other people will have persistent symptoms that will last for months or years, as the pandemic is only about six months old.
Sutton is confident that even carriers with persistent symptoms will recover.
“Some other people have a longer history than others,” he says. “I don’t think it’s permanent. I think it’s something they have more time than the others. “
Other doctors are less optimistic, saying that COVID-19 can cause permanent harm to some people.
“The vital thing to keep in mind is that statistically in the long term they can be classified as other people who have recovered from the disease, but in reality their lives have been replaced and they will probably never be the same again,” said Dr. Sunny. Jha. an anesthesiologist treating COVID-19 patients at a special hospital in Los Angeles.
Some universities are creating clinics and centers to monitor patients whose symptoms persist after COVID-19. For example, Dr. Raul Mitrani of the University of Miami, a cardiologist specializing in electrophysiology, established an intermediate post-COVID-19 clinic to screen patients for residual intermediate problems. A post COVID-19 care center was also established at Mount Sinai in New York.
In today’s new popular of interacting with friends and family, as well as going back to paintings or school, experts are wondering how to treat others with persistent symptoms. Dr. Rebekah Gee, associate clinical professor at LSU’s schools of public health and medicine, says doctors love those who are recovering from the virus.
The United States outdoor health government is also taking note. Last month, LongCovidSOS, a long-distance patient advocacy organization in the UK, held an invitation-only assembly with senior officials from the World Health Organization (WHO). Earlier this spring, scientists met with officials from the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control to discuss how to help other people lead healthier lives in the long term.
For Lisa Fitzgerald, who has no underlying medical conditions, it is confusing to revel in the COVID-19 symptoms that persisted for months after her diagnosis.
“The only thing for me was accepting as true with your instincts what is happening in your own body,” she says.
For now, doctors continue to monitor Lisa and others like her to see if they can be more informed about the long-distance phenomenon. They hope that other people with long-term symptoms will eventually do so, and that possibly eventually there will be new remedies for others who continue to feel ill for months later.
“Even though it took a step forward and I can serve and survive my day, I am concerned about the long-term damage,” Lisa said. “It is a bit stressing”.
Alexis E. Carrington, M. D. , is a dermatology researcher at the University of California at Davis and a contributor to the ABC News unit. Jay Bhatt, D. O. , is an internist, assistant professor at the UIC School of Public Health, and a contributor to ABC News.
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