“I had covid three years ago and I still can’t do the activities I did before”

Have covid long-term for three years. Even though I’ve made a lot of progress, I still suffer from chronic joint pain, a feeling of dizziness, fatigue, and brain fog most days.

If you look at me, you might think I’m fine, but it’s terribly painful for me not to be able to do the activities I used to enjoy.

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Before the covid, I rode my bike every day, and sometimes I did long distances just for fun. I even went on a bike trip through East Africa.

But three years after contracting the virus in March 2020, I am sitting on an exercise bike in a hospital ward in Glasgow with a mask on my face.doing respiratory and lung function tests, and with difficulty pedaling.

The nurse tells me that 80-year-olds come who do the same exercises with much less difficulty. I am 46 years old.

Of course, what has happened to me has no comparison with the situation of those who are still in the hospital or those who have lost loved ones.

Most days I feel incredibly grateful for all the support I have received from my friends, family, neighbors, and strangers. I am also grateful that now I can do much more than at the beginning.

But on bad days, I get terribly frustrated at being far from feeling 100%.

Dealing with the symptoms

I previously wrote about how I got sick with covid before even the first lockdown. For weeks I was very ill and even after the initial infection the symptoms would not go away.

Women much older than her can pedal without problems.

Months later I still had high fever, severe headaches, migraines, dizziness, joint pain, shortness of breath, gastrointestinal problems and chronic fatigue.

After seven months, I wrote about what it felt like to be what was then called a “long-distance carrier.” It took me weeks to do it. I wrote everything on my cell phone lying on my bed, using one finger.

Over a year after my first infection I did a show for the BBC (Panorama) about long-running covid, asking if I would ever get better.

As a result, people still ask me almost daily: “Are you better? What have the doctors told you? What is the treatment? What is the cure? What is the answer?”

The truth is that I have found ways to deal with my symptomsbut I’m afraid I don’t have the answers.

“There is no magic wand”

Three years later I wanted to check if I had missed any important discoveries, so I revisited some of the experts I consulted for Panorama in July 2021.

Dr. Elaine Maxwell, author of the first and second reviews on prolonged covid for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), tells me that there is no single medical treatment or medication that can cure the condition quickly and effectively.

Before he got sick, Adams went out almost every day to ride his bike.

“There is no magic bullet. But we are seeing research showing that specialist long-term covid clinics in England are helping people live with their symptoms,” he says.

“We’d like to find a cure, but in the meantime, we know a lot about how to manage the myriad of long-term debilitating conditions.”

Maxwell says experts haven’t learned much about the “causal mechanisms” of long-term covid since the summer of 2020.

“We don’t have evidence yet to say it’s a single thing with a single cause or a single treatment,” he explains.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, has been exploring the theory that, for some people, prolonged covid is a autoimmune conditionwhere the body is attacking itself.

It has early indicators of blood biomarkers, but no conclusions or treatment.

“I would say bear with us. We are really trying. Our investigation is going well. We have many clues but we don’t have the answers.”

“The consensus is not clear at all.”

Studies

Research reveals that between 2% and 20% of people who have contracted covid have long-term symptoms.

A CT scan revealed that Adams has no brain damage.

“It’s clear that vaccinated people have a reduced incidence of long-term covid, and the number of people who develop long-term covid appears to be declining,” says Maxwell.

“The difficulty is that there is a group that was infected with covid very early and still has symptoms, and yet attention and (health) policies have moved away from this problem.”

Alan Carson, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, tells me that he doesn’t need to see biomarkers in the blood to know that the symptoms people are experiencing are completely real, genuine and “dreadful”.

Carson compares those who suggest long-running covid is pure imagination to those who believe the Earth is flat.

He was the first to explain to me so that I could understand what was happening to me and how the communication systems between my brain and other organs in my body were failing.

I was one of the participants in his study investigating the impact of prolonged covid on the brain. That involved getting an MRI.

It was terrifying to wait for the results, but reassuring to know that there was no apparent damage to my brain and that I should make a full recovery.

Carson agrees that there is no silver bullet, but he strongly believes that there is proven rehabilitation processes that can help patients.

It also says that there are different subgroups of people with long-term covidincluding those who have permanent damage to their lungs or other organs and people like me who test negative but continue to have symptoms.

“The problem from the beginning was assuming that the covid was one thing,” he says.

Lucy Adams

“It’s like trying to study apples by looking at a whole source of fruit.”

“There is no question, for example, that some hospitalized patients have been left with permanent fibrotic scarring in the lungs, but pooling those patients in studies with those without damage is problematic.”

constellation of symptoms

Since I wrote my first article for the BBC, hundreds of people have contacted me.

Some suggest treatments. Others suggest I give up and accept that I will never get better. Most ask me what I tried and what worked.

I am clearly not an expert and I am not a scientist, I can only write about what helped me personally and what did not.

Many have told me that they think prolonged covid is basically exhaustion. In many ways, it is the least of it.

On bad days the whole room and everything in it is constantly spinning and my bones crack with pain.

But I have achieved do things that two years ago seemed impossible to meincluding going back to work – albeit part-time – and doing live television.

For me, stress is the main trigger that makes symptoms worse. I find it impossible to avoid it, but I try to at least manage it every day.

Exercise and mindfulness

Now I carry an eye mask and headphones with me, so even if I’m outside filming, I can find a corner and get away from the world since the sensory overload it’s still a problem for me.

I swim three or four times a week. I started swimming two minutes in September 2021. By September 2022 I was swimming for an hour.

The hyperbaric oxygen treatment was an interesting experience, says Adams.

I notice that if I don’t go to the pool regularly, the headaches and joint pains are intolerable. Sometimes I only have energy to swim for five minutes, but it still helps.

One of the biggest breakthroughs came when I was referred to the Glasgow Integrative Care Center, which specializes in long-term conditions.

There, Dr. Bridie O’Dowd helped me manage my days and my symptoms with her program of mindfulness (or full consciousness). It’s not something I would have considered before, but I still try to use what I learned every day.

As part of the program, O’Dowd helps her patients understand the need to do little things each day that bring us joy, even if that’s just reading a book or sitting in the garden.

I do breathing exercises and yoga whenever I can and try to control the pace of my activities. The singing lessons they helped me with my breathing and I recently joined a choir.

A year ago I started taking a medicine recommended by Professor Carson which is used for a variety of different purposes but for me it has meant a great reduction in the constant feeling of vertigo.

Relapse

In December of last year I thought I was better than ever, but then I got covid again and had a hard time recovering.

Frustrated, I tried hyperbaric oxygen. It was an interesting experience. I felt like it helped a bit but I didn’t come away energized or out of pain or brain fog.

I know some find its miraculous power. I’m happy for them, but it wasn’t a miracle cure for me.

I am now much more aware of how many people are quietly coping with invisible symptoms including chronic pain and fatigue for a variety of conditions, including long covid.

Adams hopes to one day make a full recovery.

I often feel overwhelmed by this and the fact that I can’t fix that even for myself.

I am writing this not because it is comfortable or fun to write about the condition, but because I am much better now, three years later, and I hope that in some way, telling this will help other people.

Ultimately, I’d like to know when I’m going to get better and if I’m going to get back to 100%, but I’m still grateful that I got to where I did.

Source: Elcomercio