My experience with long Covid

Once again, there was nothing worthy of my rebuttal last week, so I’ll take this opportunity to tell you about my on-going bout with long Covid.

I contracted Covid-19 fairly early-on – July 2020. I was virtually asymptomatic, so I didn’t realize I had had it until after the long Covid set in. The first symptom was brain fog, though I didn’t know then that it was a symptom. But the next symptom, in August that year, got my attention. I lost my sense of taste and smell, and my appetite, completely.

With my loss of appetite, I lost weight rapidly. Fortunately, after about six weeks, I gained some sense of taste (but distorted) and managed to put together an ultrahigh calorie diet of foods I could tolerate. Along with that, my stamina plummeted and I had some shortness of breath. I don’t know if my physical symptoms were actually physically induced or if the Covid has just been messing with my mind: either way, the result for me is the same. I feel like my stamina is improving, slowly, but it may be I’ve just lowered my expectations.

I consider myself fortunate, in that I’m retired. I pity anyone who has to work while coping with the long Covid and symptoms like mine. And some have it even worse, with things such as severe migraines and significant damage to their heart and/or lungs. And to make matters even worse than that, doctors don’t yet have a handle on how to diagnose it, much less how to treat it. They’re working on it, but it’s still a work in progress.

The key point I want to make is that there is a world of difference between surviving a Covid-19 infection and actually recovering from it. There aren’t any hard statistics on what percentage of Covid-19 patients go on to develop the long Covid, but it is significant. The best way not to get the follow-on long Covid is not to get the Covid-19 in the first place. And the best way to do that is to get a two-shot vaccine and a booster.

John Terrell