'Long Covid' / 'Covid Long-haulers'

I think this is worth a separate thread. The Guardian article below gives figures of cases of 'Long Covid' as follows:

Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London who runs the app-based Covid symptom study, said around 300,000 people had reported symptoms lasting for more than a month.

A minority have been suffering for longer; up to 60,000 people have reported having symptoms for more than three months.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/08/60000-may-have-long-covid-for-more-than-three-months-uk-study

It affects younger people:

Although Covid-19 is considered most dangerous to the elderly or immunocompromised, the study noted that one in five respondents aged 18-34, without prior chronic medical conditions, said they hadn’t completely recovered.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/19/we-know-too-little-about-covid-19-long-haulers-we-need-a-comprehensive-study

Here are three serious cases:

https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/health/long-covid-hackney-downs-woman-unable-to-walk-five-months-on-1-6832999

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/26/im-a-covid-19-long-hauler-im-still-dealing-with-pain-fatigue-and-misery

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/13/i-was-infected-with-coronavirus-in-march-six-months-on-im-still-unwell

A 9yo daughter of a friend of mine has been unable to walk for six months, after a Covid19 infection. It's heartbreaking.

Oh God, no. How horrible. :(

Wow. Friend of a friend (in her 40s) is housebound 3 months after her fever, etc. She can’t cook or use stairs, let alone play with her kids. Her extended friend group take turns cooking lunch and dinner for the family, while the husband does breakfast, work and looks after their kids.

Meanwhile I got a dirty look from some fat fnck at the Velodrome because my elderly father in law and I were wearing masks...

There was a good programme about it on radio 4 sunday evening . Really heartbreaking how it has affected some.

An ex-colleague of mine is in a position similar to the writer in the article above, 30 in good shape and a healthy lifestyle - 4 months later still can't hack stairs

^ I have a friend the same of this, mid 30's fit and healthy and 4 months later has just been allowed to go back to work 1 hour a day and it completely wipes him out, really affecting him mentally as well

Sounds bad but if I hadn't seen how it impacts him, I would probably be more in the it only impacts old people camp

Sorry to hear about all those cases. It seems to be such a lottery. That extreme exhaustion sounds horrible. You live but can hardly do anything. I wouldn't be surprised if we also saw a higher suicide rate among people affected like this. I really hope that somehow people will be able to recover, but it also sounds as if irreversible (?) lung damage is involved.

Definitely not in the same ballpark as some cases mentioned in this thread but I feel like I haven't fully recovered from Covid - which I had back around March.

I feel completely knackered and I've been unable to regain my fitness. I just feel totally fucked, which now feels like its getting worse as I've lost the motivation/energy to keep up with exercise. I've not run in weeks because it just became such a ballache - putting loads of effort in but just being left feeling fatigued rather than making improvements like I normally would. This has also led to me being back at my heaviest weight in years. I've picked up a cold (not Covid again fortunately, as confirmed by a test I had to take related to something else) - which seems to be exacerbating the feelings of shittiness.

I'm just a bit fed up and came to the Covid forum to moan and see if anyone else was feeling the same way post Covid and saw this thread. In my head I've been rationalising that it'll just take time and hopefully I'll be in a better place this time next year. I'm not really used to feeling low on energy or feeling tired generally - not very good at adjusting to it.

A colleague of mine was just yesterday saying how his brother (in his 50s I think) avid cyclist, 100kish a week on weekend fairly fit healthy lifestyle. had Covid 3 months ago and still hasn’t fully recovered (struggles to walk and such)

That sucks, mate. Don’t mean to pry but what, if any, treatment options have you been offered? It doesn’t sound like many cases like yours are being formally diagnosed, has yours?

I hope you have a quick recovery.

Some really awful stories here. Do they know if ‘long-Covid’ sufferers are infected with the virus for the length of their symptoms or if it’s some kind of post viral thing?

Post Viral I believe.

Like a post viral fatigue / ME type thing.

I haven’t sought any tbh. Both my parents are doctors so I just asked them. Not sure there’s a lot you can do tbh. As I understand it it’s just lasting damage from the infection. Hopefully time will bring things right again. Recovery from infection can take a lot longer than people realise apparently.

I literally could have written this myself

I feel completely knackered and I've been unable to regain my fitness. I just feel totally fucked, which now feels like its getting worse as I've lost the motivation/energy to keep up with exercise. I've not run in weeks because it just became such a ballache - putting loads of effort in but just being left feeling fatigued rather than making improvements like I normally would. This has also led to me being back at my heaviest weight in years. I've picked up a cold (not Covid again fortunately, as confirmed by a test I had to take related to something else) - which seems to be exacerbating the feelings of shittiness.

The difference being that I think I had it but don't know (had a private antibody test late May which came back negative, but they've since said that in most people antibodies only last 2-3 months and all the private antibody tests are basically scams, so who knows).

Also, I started doing turbo at the end of March, it was horrific at first - splitting headaches by the end, destroyed for the rest of the day, that sort of thing - but I got fitter, lost weight and was feeling much better, although it took a lot more work than it would normally to get me to a certain level of fitness.

Then I got what I thought was sciatica* at the end of July, had to stop riding, got less fit, put on weight again and now I seem to have gone backwards. I've had a persistent problem with headaches - which I never used to get - and I'm about to call in sick because I have a stinking one, again, today and I can't face looking at a screen.

*Which was possibly not sciatica and I currently have something called foot drop where I can't walk properly which my physio thinks is somehow related to my arteries, as it doesn't correspond with nerve endings. But I've never seen a physio so stumped and I'm starting to wonder if it's also related...

The similarity which really gets me is the feeling exhausted after exercise thing, like it's not making you fitter like it normally would. I've really got this right now.

I've had a persistent problem with headaches - which I never used to get

Absolutely this. Never had them my whole adult life unless I was hungover (and even then it was rare), and now I have them pretty often.

Re. The headaches. Have you had your eyes tested recently? I started getting blinding headaches a couple of years ago turned out it was my eyesight or lack of eyesight causing it. Glasses sorted it out.

Good question but yeah just before lockdown, and they hadn't changed on the last time I'd had them tested (for the first time ever I think).

This is me basically:

Never had them my whole adult life unless I was hungover (and even then it was rare), and now I have them pretty often.

Except they seem to have gone away again, at least for the moment, so now I'm just wondering if it was a symptom of the coldy thing I had. I'm going to try and exercise myself better again anyway as that seemed to stop them before.

I know what you mean... if I go up the stairs i can really be blowing for no good reason.

If I go and do 'proper' exercise is seems better, but there's certainly something lingering. If I do a fair amount of exercise I can get a really hoarse voice as well.
I also seem to get ill really easily now

Fox... I now get headaches as well, never have before.

Was talking to a lad at work who had it back in March. He went to his doctor sometime in June because he was still suffering with breathlessness and general exhaustion.

Really sorry to hear it's affecting so many people on here, too. So far, it seems early days and there's not much knowledge about long-term recovery yet, but I hope that this is possible and the symptoms reversible.

Here's another article about 'Long Covid'.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/04/long-covid-the-evidence-of-lingering-heart-damage

It does seem as if MD in Private Eye's description of the virus as a 'dirty bomb' is a very good way of describing it.

Two more articles about the crazy mix of symptoms that can result, this time 'brain fog' and hearing loss:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/09/brain-fog-the-people-struggling-to-think-clearly-months-after-covid

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/13/covid-may-cause-sudden-permanent-hearing-loss-uk-study

Thanks to @Hjusth for posting this in the chat thread:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54540544