Some patients report symptoms Crown, the last few months. Nobody knows exactly how to treat it

Kayla Brim laughed when she was told that it could take 10 days to get their COVID-19 of the new test results. “I thought, ‘Okay, well, within 10 days should be fine,'” he recalls. This was later on July 2 a month, Tesa is far from being out of order. Before the 28-year pandemic of Caldwell, Idaho, juggling her work as a make-up artist homeschooling her two children she should open a salon in July. Now he suffers every day from shortness of breath, fatigue, excruciating headaches, dizziness, neuropathy, hypertension and loss of taste and smell. It feels like “a little ‘old lady,” all but eliminated from simple tasks, such as make lunch for their children. And ‘only enough to pay the bills of job help and the lease for his empty living room, but she has no idea when they will be able to work full-time again, and no idea of ​​how she and her husband succeed financially if you can ‘t. “Half of my time is spent trying to sleep, and the other half is trying to pretend I was fine, and I do not know when I’ll be all right,” Brim said. This is the “long haul” COVID-19 Even young, healthy people long drivers can (as many call themselves), left out of bed Disabled lead a normal life or a couple of days. The consequences for each individual can be devastating on a large scale and are impressive. Over time, long-distance Crown hundreds of thousands of people can from the labor force and in doctors’ offices, shoulder the dual burden of lost wages and medical expenses juicy for the indefinite future. To treat them the health care system can stretch already thin resources to the breaking point. It’s called “an impending tsunami of patients … over all the [usual] chronic care that we do,” says Dr. Chen Zijian, medical director of the Center for Post-COVID care in New York City’s Mount Sinai Health System, care dedicated to one of the few hospitals in the country for patients in the post crown infection. “At some point it becomes very prohibitive intentions, the system collapse” When most people think of COVID-19, imagine you have two options: a flu-like illness that clears on its own, or a dangerous disease for life who stay ventilation and requires a hospital. It is not difficult to see how the latter scenario, leads to long-term damage. Mechanical ventilation is incredibly hard on the lungs and sedated days or weeks in a hospital bed unable to feed themselves physical and mental strength. is in a small study published in 2011, almost all participants, required given intensive treatment for severe pulmonary lesions decreased physical performance and quality of life of five years after leaving the hospital. Some took years to get back to work. Patients hospitalized crown may face a similar fate. But with COVID-19, it is not only the most difficult patients that provide a long road back. A July 24 report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the non-hospitalized for about 300 but symptomatic COVID-19 patients, 35% were still symptoms such as cough, shortness of breath and fatigue for up to three weeks after experiencing diagnosis. (By contrast, more than 90% of patients with influenza not hospital fully recover within two weeks.) Recovery from COVID-19 can be for patients of all ages, sexes and above the levels of health of a long process “which can lead to prolonged absence from work, studies or other activities,” the report said. The CDC inspector checks only to humans, a few weeks after he tested positive for coronavirus, but growing evidence suggests a large subset of patients are sick for months, not just weeks, at the end. Dr. Michael Peluso, long-term COVID-19 results at the University of California, San Francisco, says about 20% of research participants is still sick studied between one and four months after diagnosis. The effects of this problem are enormous. Although only 10% of the more than 5 million (and growing) COVID-19 patients in the US suffer symptoms have confirmed that last time, half a million people have already or may soon chronically ill for the near future. When the Mount Sinai opened its post-COVID Center in May, the hospital advertised as the first in the country; a handful of others, has since opened in states like Colorado, Indiana and Illinois. Mount Sinai Hospital was opened after the practice of the hospital to be modeled treat survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “It ‘s very similar. It is a new group, and need special attention,” says Chen. The biggest difference, he says, is the size of the group. Significantly more people have COVID-19 survived, as they were directly affected by 9/11. Mount Sinai has only scratched the surface of this application, about 300 people, the treatment so far. The waiting time for new patients extends into October. The challenge for physicians as Chen is that no one really knows why COVID long-distance 19 happened, let alone how to treat it. Other viral diseases associated with long-term symptoms, such as HIV / AIDS, provide some guidance, but every day at the clinic is largely uncharted territory. One hypothesis is that the virus remains in the body in any form, leading to persistent problems. Another reason is that corona pushes the immune system into overdrive, and remains laps running even after the acute infection. But at this point, it is unclear which, if not corrected, or why some patients recover in days and others suffered for months, the theory goes, Peluso. Moreover, large acute differences COVID-19 symptoms that are not all long-term patients have the same problems. A researcher at the Indiana University School of Medicine in July 1500 questioned long-haulers of Survivor Corps, the line COVID-19 support group. They reported nearly 100 different symptoms of anxiety and fatigue to muscle cramps and respiratory problems. A study published in JAMA Cardiology July suggested many patients healed recently had persistent cardiac abnormalities associated with inflammation most often. Some long-term COVID-19 patients had abnormal test results or damage to a particular organ, doctors give clues as to how they should be treated. But for others, there is no obvious reason for their suffering, so that the processing of an educated guessing game. “We do not know why [still] symptoms. We do not know if our techniques work,” says Chen. “We do not know if they are going to come to 100% or 90% or 80%.” With little evidence to turn some doctors Crown long conveyors away or try to convince his symptoms are psychologically. Marcus Tomoff, a 28-year-old in Tampa, Fla., The second in his month is debilitating fatigue, back and chest pain, nausea and anxiety after a Corona attack saying it was not taken seriously by friends or even his doctors. “Several times I cried in front of my doctors and they say, you’re dealing with it, you’re young, ‘” he says. The test system haphazardly in the US has continued to search for complex care patients. Mount Sinai on post-COVID center, for example, accept only patients who tested positive or COVID-19 its antibodies, and Chen feared potential patients who could not take the test or were determined false-negative results can fall through the cracks . The best thing you can do now, refer to specialists and hope that they find a doctor who can help. For 46 years, Andrea Ceresa, better is a full time job, not the paycheck. Ceresa had to stop working as director of the New Jersey dental office after she got sick with mid-April, they and their doctors believe, was COVID-19 (It is negative for the virus and its antibodies, but the their doctors think they were false-negative results.) more than 100 days later, she is in regular contact with their family physician, an integrative physician and a cast of specialists rotation hopes can their persistent gastrointestinal problems, listen and treat vision problems, weight and hair loss, heart palpitations, headaches, dizziness, neuropathy, fatigue, nausea and anxiety. They finally got an appointment with a post-COVID program after weeks of waiting, but put together mostly left to their care team. Ceresa COBRA program has paid for their health insurance through the federal government, since they stopped working, they brought in a precarious financial situation. “I have a stack of bills and I’m just starting to open right away,” he says. “I’m sure at this point to go into the hole thousands of dollars. I collect unemployment. I know I’m going to go on disability.” Even then, he says, might not be enough to pay the bills. Soon many patients as it can be, says Dr. Ceresa Bhakti Patel, a pulmonologist at the University of Chicago Medicine who studies the long-term effects of intensive care. Patel says that patients with long-term questions about Crown survived a number of obstacles could be addressed. Patients who are too sick to return to work (or who are unemployed due to the economic situation) by the health insurance the employer for the time needed forgiveness. Younger patients who do not qualify for Medicare, but public need for insurance is likely to be funneled to Medicaid, which Patel says is “already abused.” Patients require services long distance crown similar to physical therapy and mental health care to the access can be difficult, especially on insurance public networks such as Medicaid, says Patel. The bottleneck will only get worse if more people are in need of public assistance. Since patients with an emerging disease, -lunghe drivers also need to “intensity outpatient care and know-how” than on what the average family doctor is able to offer, says Peluso. Very few doctors are experienced symptoms long range and is “lived” in the treatment and among those, a relative term. “This was not a specialty of three months ago,” says Chen. People who can not get into a dedicated mail program COVID that allows a number of specialists have to look for before you find what an expensive and exhausting game of trial and error can help. (These are patients taking appointments get togethers with specialists like pulmonologists and neurologists, who are often few and far between outside of densely populated areas.) The most serious patients long distance can also be expensive and difficult to achieve rehabilitation need or home care, other medical expenses. If a family member to give up work to be a caregiver, which can have serious economic consequences. Some long-haulers will likely have to file for disability instance, own a Byzantine system that the risk of being run over. From 2008 to 2017, only about a third of the people who work for disabled workers performance have been applied in the US initially approved by the Social Security Administration data (SSA). It can be especially difficult without a clear diagnosis or the cause of the disease for patients because SSA requires applicants to provide “objective medical evidence” of available impairment. With some other available resources, thousands of long-transporters, sought help when talking about virtual self-help groups, such as Survivor Corps and political corps members about their symptoms and celebrate signs of recovery. Programs like COVID Bootcamp 101 series of online pulmonary rehabilitation nonprofit Wellness Foundation ran, trying to fill the gaps in the delivery. The scientific community is doing its best to catch up, but Chen says that the aid solutions Government long-term needs to be developed which alleviates the economic long-term consequences crown symptoms, such as a medical safety net program (like He has done for HIV / AIDS patients) or financial support for COVID-19 patients (as it did for 9/11 survivors). Without clear answers to know what happens next, all doctors can offer to the public is another appeal to take the crown, because it seriously right now, the only surefire way to be long-carrier is not COVID 19 to get to all that does not help people like Ceresa, though. feel bad after more than 100 days, Cersa says they are “confused” and yet it always happened to her, an active woman and in good health who has been a vegan for decades. She stayed at home throughout April, except for a couple of trips to the grocery store and still had their lives destroyed by the virus. You can not work, singing in his band or plan their wedding, after a couple of weeks before the stroke of a pandemic laughed. She tries to console himself thinking about ways it could be worse, it could be cancer, but the truth is that things go wrong. “You try to be somewhat of hope and think, by some miracle, you go to be better, and that does not happen,” he says. “I can not imagine for one more day to live, let alone for the rest of my life.” At this point, no one knows if they will. This story has been updated Andrea Ceresa admission to a post-COVID program.
Photo copyright Angie Smith for time to think