<
https://www.covidhealth.com/article/covid19-reinfections-disabling-people-long-covid>
"Becky Letts and her 12-year-old son, Alex, have both had long COVID since
early 2020. While the debilitating disease drastically reduced the quality of
life for both of them, Becky said multiple reinfections led to new and worse
symptoms. So far, she has had six confirmed COVID infections, while Alex has
had five.
Following her first reinfection in September 2021, Becky said she developed
severe irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), while a reinfection in January 2022 led
her to develop facial tics. A third in June 2022 triggered a chronic migraine
condition she still hasn’t figured out, as well as more severe POTS symptoms
that have caused her to faint. All of these infections “have been on a scale
from awful to life-and-death scary during the acute infection,” she told me.
“But the worst part is what comes after them.”
Reinfections, rightfully, are feared by people with long COVID,
infection-associated chronic conditions (IACCs), and other disabilities.
According to
The Economist, global excess deaths show that COVID-19 has
killed around 28.5 million people worldwide and more than 5,000 people in the
U.S. have died of long COVID, though that estimate is likely an undercount. It
shouldn’t have to be difficult to avoid reinfection, but our society has made
it difficult, as there are few mitigations to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2,
not even in healthcare settings or hospitals. As the JN.1 wave — possibly the
second largest of the entire pandemic — continues to wash over the country,
many people who have been living with long COVID have been pushed into the
lion’s den yet again.
I’m one of them. I recently experienced my second reinfection — and it left me
testing positive for over 20 days, increased the severity of my symptoms, and
brought new ones. The reinfection also led my baseline, or where a person
places themselves on the broad spectrum of their health, to plummet. With
chronic illness, baselines are influenced by numerous factors and always
evolving, but are a marker to help track the change of advancing or declining
health and quality of life.
It’s been deja vu, as my first reinfection during the Omicron wave set me back
years after making significant improvements since becoming disabled in early
2020 from my first COVID-19 infection. In the fifth year of the pandemic, we
still have little data or research about the impact of reinfections on people
with long COVID (and people without long COVID), which has led to a complete
lack of clinical guidance about treating reinfections."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: February 22, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-98981451
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
