COVID “long haulers” in Central Florida search for treatment

ORLANDO, Fla. — When Amanda Cravey got here down with COVID-19 in December 2021, it felt like a light chilly – till every week later, when she mentioned that “all of her systems went haywire.”

Her coronary heart raced, she struggled to breathe and she or he skilled bouts of mind fog: a standard neurological impact of COVID-19. But the signs didn’t go away. Ten months later, Cravey remains to be recovering. 

Cravey is amongst an estimated 7.5% of adults in the U.S. affected by post-COVID situations lasting greater than three months. Despite broad public curiosity in the problem of Long COVID, therapies for the situation fluctuate in effectiveness from individual to individual, and aren’t broadly obtainable. 

There aren’t any Long COVID clinics in the Orlando space, which implies sufferers like Cravey are compelled to reconcile with lengthy drives to COVID-19 clinics across the state and even longer wait-lists. 

“The long-haul COVID clinics out there, ours for example (are) swamped with patients,” mentioned Dr. Irene Estores, a doctor who runs a Long COVID clinic in Gainesville by means of UF Health.  “The patients have to wait.” 

For some, arriving at a Long COVID clinic comes solely after repeated fruitless makes an attempt to search out therapies elsewhere.

“I’d seen a ton of different specialists and doctors and nobody could figure out what was going on,” mentioned Cravey. On a number of events, she was hospitalized after her coronary heart fee spiked and she or he fainted. 

Many Long COVID sufferers battle with their psychological well being.

“There are some people who do have nuances of anxiety and depression from Covid,” mentioned Dr. Estores. “But even when that weren’t the case, simply residing with an sickness or a situation that has modified your life and you’ve got all this stuff to take care of may be very emotionally and mentally distressing.”

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that for COVID survivors, charges of despair, anxiousness and even suicide are greater than in the remainder of the inhabitants. 

For Megan Prevost, who lives in Orlando and has been in search of treatment for post-COVID situations since she initially got here down with COVID-19 in 2020, residing with extended COVID-19 signs got here with worsened anxiousness. The price of therapies compounded that anxiousness.

“I have about $14,000 in medical debt,” she mentioned. “I’ve actually canceled appointments because I just couldn’t afford it.” 

Since she obtained sick, Prevost developed such intense fatigue that strolling lengthy distances turned unimaginable. Without the cash to afford a wheelchair, she is crowdsourcing the funds to purchase one on-line. 

The drawback of unaffordable therapies is compounded by the truth that many individuals affected by post-COVID situations are unable to work.

An August examine by the Brookings Institute means that as much as 4 million folks have left the workforce as a result of persistent signs following a case of COVID. 

Cravey, who teaches fourth grade at an elementary faculty in Orlando, took practically two months of unpaid depart whereas her signs had been at their worst.

“I would lay in bed, and I would always wait to put my feet on the floor. Because I would always pray, ‘please let this be the morning I put my feet on the floor and be normal again’ and it just wasn’t,” mentioned Cravey. 

For her, restoration began with leaving the home and strolling only a block. After months of bodily rehabilitation and remedy by means of the Mayo Clinic, Cravey just isn’t solely in a position to stroll larger distances, she’s additionally again in the classroom educating. She says letters from her fourth grade college students gave her hope. 

“I was listening to my husband manage the house yet again another night and I was reading through the cards and the tears were just rolling down my face,” mentioned Cravey. “I just knew that I needed to get back.”

Dr. Estores mentioned outcomes for Long COVID sufferers can be improved if higher funding choices existed for clinicians specializing in the situation.

“There must be an investment to support long-haul COVID clinics,” she mentioned. “I mean, this is a clinic that I am running on a shoestring.” 

The Gainesville doctor is much from alone in ringing the alarm about post-COVID-19 situations. In October, a examine of a Scottish inhabitants discovered that nearly half had not totally recovered from COVID-19 months after an infection.