Forty hours after treating her first coronavirus patient, on March 30, Angela Aston came home to her family with a cough. “Oh my God, your throat is itching,” her husband told her. She knew in that look that he had contracted Kovid-19. As a nurse practitioner, Ms. Ast Stun, 50, was confident she knew how to handle her symptoms, and she disappeared to quarantine and relax in the bedroom.
After 50 days of his illness, that confidence disappeared. In late May, she was still experiencing daily stress and fatigue. She used to sit in bed every evening that her breathing would get worse overnight. Particularly frustrating was the one she felt while explaining to her colleagues, friends and family that even after eight weeks she was sick.
“I felt like this stigma, ‘I’ve got this thing. No one wants to be around,’ said Ms. Aston.” It makes you indifferent, anxious that it’s never going to go away. People will tell my husband, ‘She’s not good yet.’ ? ‘ They think you’re making it. “
Ms. Aston found peace of mind in the support online support group set up by the wellness organization BodyPolitics, where more than 1,000,000 people share their experiences as Covid-1 “long-hulers” whose illnesses have been going on for months.
In addition to sharing their physical symptoms, many in the support group have been open about how their mental health suffered because of the disease. Dzan writes that his months of illness have contributed to anxiety and depression, including difficulty accessing medical services and disrupting his work, social and exercise routines.
At the onset of the epidemic, the widespread myth among patients and some health officials was that Covid-19 was a short-term illness. Only in recent months has there been more focus on long-hails. In support online support groups such as Body de Politic and Survivor Corps, long-hulers have submitted informal surveys and reports to study the course of their illness.
Natalie Lambert, a health researcher at Indiana University School of Medicine Medicine, recently surveyed more than 1,500 long-term patients through the Survivor Corps Facebook page and found many common psychiatric symptoms. She found that anxiety was the eighth longest stretching symptom, cited by more than 700 respondents. The difficulty in concentrating on the list was also high, and more than 400 reported “sadness.”
Dr. Te, a psychiatrist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Theodore Postola Lech estimates that between one-third and two-thirds of patients with Covid-19 experienced some form of mental health problem, including anxiety, depression, fatigue, or abnormalities.
Even people without the Kovid-19 infection are seeing their mental health amid the epidemic. A study published in June by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that there was a significant increase in anxiety and depression symptoms across the country during June 2020 compared to the same period last year. The study found that disproportionately adverse mental health symptoms were reported in young adults, black and Hispanic adults, and essential workers. The non-profit organization, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has seen a 65 percent increase in people reaching out for help with mental health resources since the outbreak began.
“The public health response to the Covid-1p epidemic needs to take into account its mental health outcomes,” said Mark Cesysler, author of the CDC study.
Chimer Smith, a 38-year-old middle-school teacher in Baltimore, marked his sixth month of Covid-19 symptoms in September. On March 22, Ms. Smith was on the phone with her therapist when she began to feel a tickle in her throat, which burned until the evening. Her symptoms became a “cycle of misfortune” moving between misery, diarrhea and headaches every day, he said.
Since then, she has been to the emergency room a dozen times. In mid-April she rewrote her will. She said the constant mental fog made it difficult to keep the sentences together, while before the epidemic she acted “like a walking thesaurus.” She cried when she realized that she could not return to teaching seventh and eighth grade English this fall due to fatigue.
By the fourth month of her illness, Mrs. Smith was considering taking her own life. “I said, ‘Who in the world would want to live like this?'” He said. “I wanted to jump out of my own body.”
Ms. Smith is one of many long-term people who, like Ms. Aston, said her mental health improved when she joined support online support groups Body Politic and Survivor Corps, where she exchanged tips for managing mental and physical symptoms. The members of these groups are Ms. Smith supported his removal of suicidal thoughts, he said.
Other Covid-19 patients turned to colleagues from such groups to make sure their symptoms were not imagined. Angela Vazquez, 33, of the Covid-19 patient in Los Angeles, said: “I feel like every symptom is echoed by dozens of others. “We can’t all collectively confuse the same features.”
Although social media groups provide recognition, there are also some risks. Groups that do not moderate their content may contribute to the spread of misinformation when users share unusual medical advice. (Survivor corps are needed to connect people to trusted resources, and the body deploys volunteers for political mediation posts.) Support group members also sometimes inadvertently reinforce each other’s fears by discussing their medical experiences in detail, says university psychologist Joe Denial. . Author of a recent study in the American Journal of Bath and Covid-19 and Mental Health.
Some long-term people said their doctors recommend limiting the time spent on these groups each day so they can take information without being overwhelmed.
Outbreak of Corona virus>
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated September 4, 2020
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What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
- At first, the coronavirus seemed to be primarily a respiratory illness – many patients had fevers and colds, were weak and tired, and breathed a lot, although some did not show many symptoms. Those who looked sick had pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome and received supplemental oxygen. So far, doctors have identified many more symptoms and syndromes. In April, the CDC added to the list of signs of the onset of sore throats, fevers, colds and muscle aches. Gastrointestinal discomfort such as diarrhea and ause baka have also been observed. Another telling sign of infection is that a sudden, profound decrease in one’s sense of smell and taste can occur. In some cases, adolescents and young adults have developed painful red and purple lesions on their fingers and toes, called “covid toes” – but some other serious symptoms.
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Why is it safe to spend time outside together?
- The risk of outdoor gatherings is low because the wind spreads viral drops, and sunlight can kill some viruses. University of Leicester virologist Dr. Julian W. Tang said that open spaces prevent the virus from infecting and inhaling concentrated amounts, while infected people can breathe in confined spaces for longer periods of time. Julian W. Tang said.
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Why does it help to stand six feet away from the other?
- Coronavirus is mainly spread through your mouth and nasal drops, especially when you cough or sneeze. The CDC, one of the organizations using the measure, relies on a six-foot recommendation on its feet that when coughing or sneezing, most of the large drops that people emit will fall to the ground within six feet. But six feet has never been a magic number that guarantees complete protection. For example, sneezing can drop as much as six feet, according to a recent study. That’s the rule of thumb: You should be safe outside six feet, especially when the wind is blowing. But always keep the mask on whenever you think you are too far away.
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I have antibodies. Am I immune now?
- For now, that seems likely, at least for a few months. The second quarrel of Kovid-19 seems to have been a terrible reckoning of the people. But experts say that while these patients may have a course of pulling the infection, the virus takes slow weeks to months after initial exposure. People infected with the coronavirus usually produce immune molecules called antibodies, which are protective proteins made in response to infection. Harvard University immunologist Dr. “These antibodies can only last two to three months in the body, which is worrying, but they are completely normal once the acute infection subsides,” said Michael Meena. It is possible to get coronavirus again, but early infection will make it possible in a short time or make people sick a second time.
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What are my rights if I am worried about returning to work?
Immunologists speculate that the symptoms of long-term patients remain the same because they are not infected with a piece of viral genes but they stimulate violent immunity. There is limited knowledge of the delayed effects of Covid-19, both because the disease is still new and because of the wide gaps in understanding the long-term effects of viral infections.
Many long-term people said their mental health suffers when they face skepticism about their symptoms from friends, family and medical providers. Female long-haulrs drew attention to numerous studies that showed that medical providers were less likely to underestimate women’s pain levels and misdiagnose their conditions. Ms. Smith said that in the first week of his illness, his male doctor suggested he could get a sinus infection instead of Covid-19. Ms. Vazquez was told that her difficulty breathing could be a cause for concern. Gina Asfe, a consultant in Washington DC who helped write BodyPolit’s report, said that over the course of six weeks of her Covid-19 course, she asked her doctor if her symptoms could be a bad allergy.
“It felt like gaslighting,” Ms. Asaf said. Her friends were suspicious of her delayed symptoms. “I stopped talking to many of my friends about it because they felt they didn’t understand.”
Epidemics cause mental stress in many people disrupting social, work and exercise routines. But these interruptions are often worse for longer walkers. Some people distance themselves from the community – partly because they are sick, but also because it is disgusting to explain physical and mental problems that they do not understand themselves. The activities that they usually rely on to overcome a problem like stress, such as exercise, are difficult or impossible. In Dr. Lambert’s long-term survey, “inability to exercise or be active” is the fifth most common report cited by 161 reported respondents.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, being unable to work and feeling unproductive can also be a barrier to mental health. Losing income and health insurance brings its own form of anxiety.
“The most serious thing is to break the full strain,” said Jenna Bitter, 28, of New York, and was put on leave in March by her employer. “But how can I avoid stress when I don’t even know if I can pay my medical bills?” I don’t have a job. “
Long. For long-distance Covid-19 patients, a supportive mental health tool is a recognition from friends, family and colleagues, Lambert said. He also called on primary care physicians to stay up-to-date on new research so that they can properly inform their patients, and for clinical researchers to continue studying the mental health and cognitive effects of the disease.
D Bath. Daniels, a psychologist at the University of Bath, said researchers should study strategies to improve mental health, a lot of people who turn to negative remedies like substance abuse.
Many long-haul lords said they are learning to be gentle with themselves, as they adjust to a new normal in their work and family life.
“I’ve had three fine days, but I’m hesitant to share it, because it could go away,” Ms. Said Smith. “Long-haulrs will tell you that. We preface every conversation when we feel better than this, ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’ ”
