SALT LAKE CITY – “More than 99% will survive.”
“It’s just the flu.”
Those are the beliefs about COVID-19 that Lisa O’Brien is tired of hearing, as several months after having the disease, she continues to experience serious – and mysterious – health problems.
O’Brien is one of thousands of people in the U.S. who call themselves COVID-19 “long-haulers” – those who are considered recovering from active infections but still suffer from chronic conditions that doctors are just beginning to see. to view. Many support groups with long sleeves have surfaced on social media, including one created by O’Brien for Utahns.
“A lot of us started to realize we weren’t getting better, and our bodies were doing crazy things – heart problems, neurological problems,” O’Brien said.
‘It’s not just about life or death. There’s this middle ground where some of us sit, and it can take weeks or months, and we do not know if we’ll ever go back to who we were. There’s just a lot of uncertainty and unknown, and it’s scary. It’s not at all like the flu. This is not like any flu I’ve ever had, ‘she explained.
The 42-year-old Roy woman first experienced the symptoms of the novel coronavirus after returning to Utah in March from a trip to Hawaii. After she was told she did not have to test and assume she had the infection – advice that many received in the pandemic early when test capacity was lower – O’Brien finally got a test two weeks later the onset of symptoms. They test negative.
Although false negatives are common, that has made doctors getting their situation seriously more difficult, she said.
“And I had a hard time getting doctors like anyone here to believe me,” O’Brien said.
She is not alone. About 40% of the population with longer haul in the Facebook support groups O’Brien says they test negative, “so it’s just that the tests are not reliable,” she added.
But the former postman – who says she would walk miles a day for 20 years, who travels monthly and has no history of heart problems or previous underlying conditions – soon began experiencing blood problems in her lungs and arms, and would be awakened with an increased sleeping heartbeat. When she entered the ambulance, doctors often suggested she was just scared – until they ran tests and found the blood clots.
“There are some people in my group who used to walk miles a day, and now they can barely walk. Some just have the fatigue, others still have the heart problems and neurological problems. And we have nothing left to turn to because our GPs do not know what to do with us, “said O’Brien.
“We’re kind of the ones who manage our symptoms at home, so we’re not sitting in statistics,” O’Brien said. “We’re kind of stuck with the recovered stats, but we’re not really recovering.”
With the help of patient-driven advocacy, some researchers and hospitals have begun to look at the conditions of long-distance carriers and figure out how to treat them.
After New York City-based health care system Mount Sinai recovered from the onset of the city’s first illness, it set up a center for post-COVID-19 care, said David Putrino, director of rehab innovation for Mount Sinai, speaking to group of long readers ‘Survivors Corps’ on Facebook Live.
Long-term common symptoms include an irregular heartbeat, palpitations, intolerance, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue and gastrointestinal problems, Putrino said.
Putrino said some who have a COVID-19 infection later experience a condition that is similar to dysautonomia, a syndrome that causes a dysfunction of nerves that regulate body functions, including heartbeat.
“Effectively, all these things, all these conditions are syndromes. Which means there is no blood test that tells you you have them. “The doctor will count the various symptoms you have, and if you turn off seven of the nine boxes, you have this syndrome,” Putrino said.
A survey conducted by the Indiana University School of Medicine and Survivor Corps found that symptoms experienced by langoustines are “much more numerous than what is currently listed on the CDC website,” researchers wrote.
“Although the impact of COVID-19 on the lungs and vasculature has received some media and medical attention, the results of this survey suggest that symptoms of brain, whole body, eye and skin are also common health problems for people recovering from COVID. -19, ”according to the report.
O’Brien also participates in a study conducted by Mount Sinai on long-distance.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not released comprehensive information on the long-term effects of the disease, the centers say that “non-hospitalized COVID-19 disease can result in prolonged illness and persistent symptoms, even in young adults and persons with no or few chronic underlying medical conditions. ”
“In contrast, more than 90% of outpatients with influenza return within about two weeks of having a positive test result,” according to the CDC.
Although at the beginning of her illness it was difficult for her to find information as a guide to health – and to be taken seriously – the condition is beginning to be recognized nationally and statewide, O’Brien said, thanking him for the work that went into it. the medical community to understand and treat it.
She said she hopes a Utah post-COVID-19 survivor clinic will eventually be created, as Mount Sinai has done in New York.
New Utah case
Utah officials on Monday reported the lowest daily number of new COVID-19 cases in two months on Monday, as well as a decline in hospitalizations.
On Monday, 242 new cases of the new coronavirus brought out 3,268 tests, with a positive rate of 7.4%, according to the Utah Department of Health. The last day when less than 250 new cases were reported was on 8 June.
Now, Utah has confirmed 46,894 cases since the pandemic began testing out of 601,795 people – an overall positive rate of 7.8%.
The rolling average of seven days for new cases is 354 per day, and the positive test rate is 9.6%. Currently, 139 patients are in Utah hospital with the disease, 25 fewer than on Sunday.
Two more coronavirus deaths were also reported Monday: a Salt Lake County woman between the ages of 65-84, and a Utah County man over the age of 85, both of whom were hospitalized when she died.
One death was removed from the state total for further investigation into its cause, health officials said. The state’s death toll now stands at 364.
Just over 38,000 of Utah’s cases are considered recovering after surviving the point of three weeks since its diagnosis.
