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‘I could bench-press 100kg. Now, I can’t walk’: Lucy’s life with long Covid (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 8 months ago by mecfs@lemmy.world to c/unitedkingdom

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I was incredibly strong and fit,” says Lucy Keighley. And she looks it, in the photo she is showing me, taken a few years ago. She is with her best friend, Lorna; they have just completed a 15-mile race on the North York Moors. “It was a brutal race,” she says. “But it was great. I was happy.” Today, although it’s quite dark in the room (she doesn’t get on well with bright light), I can see a tear rolling down her cheek. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get back there.”

In the most recent findings by the Office for National Statistics, released in April, an estimated 2 million people in England and Scotland (3.3% of the population) self-reported experiencing long Covid, meaning symptoms that continued for more than four weeks after infection, although many reported their symptoms had lasted two years or longer. Of those, about 1.5 million felt their day-to-day activities were affected, while 381,000 said their day-to‑day activities were “limited a lot”. Worldwide, at least 65 million people are estimated to have long Covid.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 4 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Your vocabulary has become limited; you find it hard to follow conversations, books, films and TV, instructions and directions.

There are more physical symptoms: breathlessness, joint pain, headaches, hair loss, chest pain, palpitations, tachycardia (fast heart rate), hearing loss, tinnitus, vertigo, constipation, diarrhoea, oedema (swelling caused by fluid buildup), hypoxia (low oxygen levels).

Having an effect on the immune system is another: “One of the things that we see quite a lot is activation of so-called mast cells, so that drives a lot of the allergic-type symptoms and rashes.” Then there is disorder of the autonomic nervous system, which is “the body’s control centre for all the stuff we don’t have to think about – digestion, breathing, blood pressure, heart rate”.

Work, the gym, vice-chair of the local rugby club, friends, a busy social life, gardening, decorating, reading, gigs, travel, cooking …

Lucy finds some comfort in online groups of long Covid patients, meeting people who are going through similar experiences and sharing tips.

We hear on social media groups that people have recovered and are climbing mountains and doing all sorts of things, but for me it doesn’t feel like that’s going to be possible and if I think about it I get really upset.

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