What is Long Covid Care
Do the symptoms following your COVID-19 infection have you thinking: could I have long-haul Covid? If any of the symptoms you experienced have lasted longer than six weeks it’s quite possible that the answer is yes. So what really is Long Covid?
The Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance provides a great overview:
The Long Haul COVID-19 Syndrome (LHCS) is an often debilitating syndrome characterized by a multitude of symptoms such as prolonged malaise, headaches, generalized fatigue, sleep difficulties, smell disorder, decreased appetite, painful joints, dyspnea (shortness of breath), chest pain and cognitive dysfunction (brain fog). LHCS is not only seen after the COVID-19 infection but it is being observed in some people that have received vaccines (likely due to monocyte activation by the spike protein from the vaccine). A puzzling feature of the LHCS syndrome is that it is not predicted by initial disease severity; post-COVID-19 frequently affects mild-to-moderate cases and younger adults that did not require respiratory support or intensive care.
The good news is that these symptoms are similar to other conditions like Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndromes (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Long haul Covid, unlike the other chronic syndromes tends to improve slowly over time, but can benefit from treatment. Using what we know about similar conditions and our experience with LHCS, various treatment protocols have been created that can target your specific concerns.
Although it is not a one to one response, treating Covid early in the illness to decrease viral load will likely decrease your chances of having prolonged inflammatory symptoms.
No matter where you are in your Covid journey connecting with healthcare providers who can listen and understand is an important part of your healing process.
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