Over the past year(s) a lot of people have been dealing with the after effects of covid. While some had damage and issues from long hospital stays a lot of us just remained sick. Not visibly ruined but dizzy, fatigue, brains that didn’t work and the most overwhelming one of all – malaise. I went through my own journey and every time I thought I had figured it out and was all better I would start doing things at a rapid pace, trying to make up for weeks or months of inaction and then suddenly collapse again, unable to think, or focus or care. The last time it happened was late Oct 21 and I spent weeks dizzy, breathless, asleep, feeling as though I had caught covid again though the tests were negative.
The one thing I could do this last relapse was scour the internet and YouTube for information, what had we learned in a year about it. The following YouTuber has been revelatory. He works with medical personnel and physical therapist etc who also have experienced long covid and approach untangling it’s knots with science and care.
I’m not sure which video I heard it in but one of them gave me the most helpful understanding of the condition. Long-Covid is about a malfunction in the aerobic system of your body. It’s not getting the right amount of oxygen to make the amount of energy that a full on speedy life, or sometimes even just a slow crawl of a life, needs. Why this system fails is still unknown.
The way to manage the issue and heal is through Pacing. You need to stop using up all your energy or your system collapses, makes you sick and then you lose whatever gains and more that happened while you were feeling good.
If you’ve been lucky enough to avoid Covid and Long Covid so far there’s a new chance of getting sick with the new Omicron variant even if you are vaccinated and boosted. I’ve added the below video for folk to peruse in case it helps.
In the meantime, mask up, wash up, stay home. Omicron appears to be mild in most folks who have had their shots but the more things spread the more they change.