COVID-19 “Long Distance Carrier” Suffers from Symptoms Weeks and Months Later

Denver (AP) – Early in the morning of April, Marea Anderson woke up at Erie’s home and felt like ice water had exploded into the upper part of her spine. She had a severe headache and tried to get out of bed and go to the bathroom, but her limbs did not cooperate. She was afraid of having a stroke.

Her partner, Randy, took her to the emergency room. Doctors suspected she had COVID-19, but could not be tested. At the hospital, a 53-year-old brain scan returned to normal and there was no stroke. She returned home from the hospital again.

It was her second visit to the emergency room in a few weeks and her third since March. She has made countless remote medical appointments with various primary care doctors, consulted a specialist, started taking supplements such as vitamin D and zinc, fatigue, brain fog, fatigue, headaches, dizziness. , Shortness of breath, chest pain, muscle pain.

One day she feels better. Then she crashes again.

“I got to a place where I could walk and probably go to dinner, so I got up and made coffee, and I would decide how the day would go,” Anderson said. It was. “Most of the day I went back to bed. It would be nice if I could plan a meal for my family. And otherwise I was in bed.”

Anderson is not alone. There are over 102,000 members of a Facebook group called Survivor Corps for those who call themselves “long-distance carriers.” The World Health Organization estimates that 80% of COVID-19 infections are “mild or asymptomatic” and patients recover after 2 weeks, but those who are still suffering question the concept of “mild” cases. Is throwing.

Dozens of people have been reported to have a variety of symptoms in Colorado, including shortness of breath, elevated heart rate, fatigue and malaise, headaches, digestive problems, body aches, and brain fog.

“I call it a triple win,” said Cindy Maesold, who lives in Snowmass. “But when I feel tired, I go for a walk, come back, just sit down and do nothing. It doesn’t mean I’m lazy. I don’t have the energy to do anything. “

Prolonged symptoms of COVID-19It is not clear how many people have prolonged symptoms and how many will move forward. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a multi-state telephone survey of adults who tested positive for the virus found that 35% did not return to pre-COVID-19 health 2-3 weeks after testing.

A small study in Italy, which examined 179 patients, found that 87% of hospitalized patients remained symptomatic 60 days after they began to feel sick. A small study in Germany found that 78% of COVID-19 patients had heart problems for 2-3 months.

In Colorado Springs, Dr. Robert Lamm and his medical students began investigating COVID-19 patients after they were discharged. The survey asks about mental, physical and financial health. At first, the psychological effects of isolation and loneliness were prominent, but some patients began to notice that they had not recovered.

“Our first results showed that up to a quarter of patients still had COVID symptoms, which was something we didn’t expect,” Ram said. Told. “We are not seeing the patient recover completely, so we are beginning to feel hints and concerns that there is probably a possibility of long-term lung damage.”

Because the Lamb patient population spent time in the hospital, the long-term effects were those who had never been hospitalized like Anderson, had never used a ventilator, and had never been treated with COVID-19. Will be different.

To further complicate matters, many patients, such as Anderson, were unable to undergo PCR testing during their illness due to lack of testing in the early months of the pandemic. It also distorts the situation of how many people are infected with the virus and how many are still infected with the virus.

Many remain unclearOn January 15th, 58-year-old Ty Godwin traveled to South Africa. He is in business and travels abroad dozens of times a year. That night he woke up to sweaty sheets. Like most people in the United States, he hadn’t heard about COVID-19 yet, but he was traveling abroad for work. He thought he would have been suffering from a common cold or flu for weeks.

“I did three CT scans. I have two echocardiograms. I did a $ 25,000 PET scan all over my body,” Godwin said. “And I’ve been tested on everything you can imagine, from Lyme disease to HIV.”

None of these tests led to a diagnosis. As he learned more, he began to suspect he might have had the coronavirus. Although it took time and a lot of testing, his doctor now believes the culprit is COVID-19. Early on, he had all the common symptoms, although his antibody test returned negative.

He has been to the doctor at least 40 times since January and has recorded a fever at some point every day of the day.

“I think people have figured out not to ask me, are you feeling better today? There is no good day. There is a good time in the day. Usually the morning is pretty decent, but you know Yes, I had a fever at 10:30 am yesterday, “Godwin said. “Sometimes I call it witch’s time, where more debilitating fatigue begins at the end of my business day, and sometimes it sneaks into the daytime.”

After months of research on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19, many of the diseases it causes remain unknown. There are no approved treatments or vaccines yet. As a result, doctors can focus on treating their symptoms using treatments.

“If you run traditional tests, look at CAT scans and functional tests, look at the data and everything is fine, you don’t know what to do, and the documentation there is also frustrating,” he said. Dr. Nir Goldstein, Pulmonologist at National Newish Health. “I don’t seem to need to fix anything and I don’t know how to fix it. We can at least provide these patients with some guidance and at least make them feel not lonely and crazy. I can do it.”

Some patients struggle with doctors not believing in them, and this phenomenon is more often recorded in female patients. Anderson met with a new primary care provider for more answers. She was telling her about shortness of breath when he suggested she was probably anxious.

“It was like I wasn’t worried,” she said. “And he’s still just taking me seriously, but I introduced him to a neurologist, and uh, she heard, but they don’t know. What’s happening? I just don’t know if they are. As you know, they prescribed me half a low dose of anxiety, and that didn’t really help. “

And not everyone has found their community to be more supportive.

“When I talk to someone who knows I was using COVID in May, when I talk to them now, they find that I’m still recovering and they tend to be really surprised. Yes, “says Paul Nielsen, a 60-year-old architect living in Colorado Springs. “I don’t think people understand how much damage it does to your body.”

Nielsen turned to the internet to find communities in online forums like Survivor Corps and helped him navigate the process of illness. He also found a community of people who understood his experience. However, some other Facebook groups don’t understand.

“I’m annoyed by people feeling that the pandemic is hoax, just politicized, or doesn’t need to wear a mask, or to Z-Pak in addition to hydroxychloroquine. It’s easy to treat with the addition of zinc. ” “From my experience, I know that COVID diseases are much more complex than diseases such as simple.

Treatment of symptomsThe life of a person with prolonged symptoms has flattened, often reduced to fatigue, racing heart rate, and prolonged bouts of brain fog.

“I would like to say that it is relatively intelligent and somewhat clear, but now it’s not completely clear and I feel like I can’t compose a story in any logical way,” he said. Said Tara Schumacher, who became ill at the time. march. “If you don’t write it down, you can’t get back what I intended unless you make a list before you go to the store.”

Schumacher, 47, is a landscape photographer who runs Airbnb from his home in Fort Collins. The worst of her symptoms lasted until May. Now she has a long-lasting brain fog. This week, almost five months after her first symptoms, she was diagnosed with post-COVID pneumonia.

Until more research on long-distance transport, doctors can do everything they can to treat their symptoms.

“And it’s mostly supportive care, and we really don’t know what’s best. We’re going to try them out and see how people are doing. And as more information becomes available, we will read, develop, and modify the literature, “Goldstein said. “And hopefully we would like to share our own experience, but that is actually a lot of learning about working with these patients. There are no established guidelines or exams that can guide you.”

In the meantime, the patient has been waiting and wants to get better soon.