{"id":176110,"date":"2021-01-04T12:01:25","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T12:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=176110"},"modified":"2020-12-29T06:39:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T06:39:42","slug":"im-a-consultant-in-infectious-diseases-long-covid-is-anything-but-a-mild-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/01\/im-a-consultant-in-infectious-diseases-long-covid-is-anything-but-a-mild-illness\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m a Consultant in Infectious Diseases – ‘Long Covid’ Is Not a Mild Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine months on from the virus, I am seriously debilitated. This is how the new NHS clinics need to help thousands of us.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

27 Dec 2020 – <\/em>With the excitement of the Covid vaccine\u2019s arrival, it may be easy to forget and ignore those of us with \u201clong Covid<\/a>\u201d, who are struggling to reclaim our previous, pre-viral lives and continue to live with debilitating symptoms. Even when the NHS has managed the herculean task of vaccinating the nation, Covid-19 and the new mutant variants of the virus will continue to circulate, leaving more people at risk of long Covid. Data from a King\u2019s College London study in September suggested\u00a0as many as 60,000<\/a>\u00a0people in the UK could be affected, but the latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics suggest it\u00a0could be much higher<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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I was acutely ill in March, though \u2013 like many people with long Covid \u2013 mine was defined as a \u201cmild\u201d case not requiring admission to hospital. Nine months on, I am seriously debilitated, with crashing post-exertional fatigue, often associated with chest pains. On bad days, my brain feels like it doesn\u2019t want to function, even a conversation can be too much. I have no risk factors, I\u2019m in my 50s, and have always been fit, but remain too unwell to work \u2013 ironically as a consultant in infectious diseases. Watching the pandemic unfold from the sidelines when I should have been working in the thick of it has only added to the frustration of my protracted illness.<\/p>\n

My acute symptoms were over within 12 days, and I presumed I\u2019d be back at work the following week. How wrong I was. In the following weeks I developed dramatic hair loss (similar to that post pregnancy) and continued to feel fatigued, usually falling asleep in the afternoon. I tried to steadily increase the amount I was exercising \u2013 but suddenly in mid-June I started to experience severe post-exertional fatigue. It could happen on a short walk or it could be while cooking dinner. It was completely unpredictable. When I felt really terrible, I would get chest pains, which I\u2019d not had during my initial illness, and my body seems to need intense rest \u2013 and a lot of it. Graded exercise, an approach that has been used to manage patients with other post-viral fatigue, wasn\u2019t working; in fact it seemed to be detrimental and could leave me floored for days. The one thing I realised early on was that pacing was vital.<\/p>\n

For months it seemed there was no recognition of what was happening to so many of us, with numerous anecdotal reports of people being dismissed as anxious, depressed or histrionic. It felt as if we had been left in limbo, not followed up because we weren\u2019t ill enough initially to be treated in hospital, but most without appropriate medical care and support for the duration of their illness. I am fortunate to have an excellent GP who has been extremely supportive throughout, but I could hear her frustration at the lack of anything concrete to offer or refer me to.<\/p>\n

In May, with no resource to turn to, I set up a long Covid yoga group (I am also a yoga teacher) for others I knew who were similarly affected. I focused on particular exercises to help them relearn how to access their lungs and breathe again.<\/p>\n

Much about this novel virus remains unknown, and we are all learning as the pandemic continues to unfold. With its myriad symptoms and presentations, Covid represents a major challenge to the compartmentalised specialist services that hospitals have become. But one thing has been evident for some time: this is not a straightforward post-viral syndrome, and requires a different approach.<\/p>\n

The announcement in October of\u00a0\u00a310m funding for clinics offering help for long Covid<\/a>\u00a0couldn\u2019t have come soon enough. And then the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice)\u00a0updated guidance<\/a>\u00a0on \u201cpost-Covid syndrome\u201d (as long Covid will now be known), including a definition, as well as plans for the 40 clinics across England.<\/p>\n

These\u00a0clinics<\/a>\u00a0will bring physicians and therapists together to \u201cprovide joined-up care for physical and mental health\u201d, and will include physical, cognitive and psychological assessment.<\/p>\n

I am yet to be seen by a physiotherapist, but who\u2019d have thought the perching stool sourced by an occupational therapist for my elderly mother would become a necessity for me to cook dinner and brush my teeth?<\/p>\n

There will also be allocated funding from the National Institute for Health<\/a>\u00a0Research for much-needed investigations into the mechanisms behind the long Covid symptoms. It is vital that long Covid is quantified and monitored in the same way we have been doing for hospital admissions and deaths. Additionally, there must be easy access to social services for people who need a care package because they can\u2019t feed or wash themselves, as well as financial support and employment advice.<\/p>\n

Crucially, like many multi-disciplinary teams for chronic conditions, there should be a single point of contact with a nurse specialist who coordinates different team members, and helps direct access to other services. A comprehensive one-stop shop is vital for people who can\u2019t manage multiple visits to different specialists.<\/p>\n

It may be enough for some that they are simply listened to, and it is understood that they are not fabricating their symptoms. We also need to cease classifying all cases that were not admitted to hospital as \u201cmild\u201d. Those experiencing long Covid have anything but a mild disease.<\/p>\n

At last it seems that those of us with this debilitating condition are gaining the recognition and support we have been crying out for. We are only just acknowledging the potential of this virus to have devastating and life-changing consequences months after the acute symptoms. That at least is a good start.<\/p>\n

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When fit to work, Joanna Herman is a consultant in infectious diseases in London, and teaches at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

27 Dec 2020 – Nine months on from the virus, I am seriously debilitated. This is how the new NHS clinics need to help thousands of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":157522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2236],"tags":[2017,244,271,1879,1829,1868,530,289,744,401,710,1937,2115,1864,2186,1102,723,304,1447,1998,124,1836],"class_list":["post-176110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid19-coronavirus","tag-airborne-contagion","tag-china","tag-community","tag-compassion","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-cuba","tag-economy","tag-empathy","tag-environment","tag-health","tag-lockdown","tag-orthomolecular-medicine","tag-pandemic","tag-pcr-tests","tag-public-health","tag-research","tag-science","tag-science-and-medicine","tag-swiss-policy-research","tag-united-nations","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}