LONG COVID’S FOG
Eight-month wait for treatment as doctors overwhelmed
DATA scientist Anna de Sterke used to cycle and go to the gym six days a week but now barely walks 2000 steps a day. Lauren Laing was just as active but now can’t even recognise her own home.
Both women have suffered debilitating chronic fatigue and brain injury after catching mild cases of Covid-19 in December last year.
Together, with an estimated 1.4 million other Australians, they have a condition called long Covid.
Waiting lists at clinics and doctors who treat the condition are more than eight months long as thousands of people seek medical attention for the condition.
“Before I had a job helping out families practically and emotionally and I would walk five kilometres a day, I would cook many meals a week to give out to people, but today my life is worlds apart. I don’t feel like myself any more,” Ms Laing, 35, said.
Her poor health meant she had to stop working in December at a job she loved – the “brain fog” was so bad that she could not recognise her own home.
“I couldn’t recognise any of the driveways including ours so I had to slow down and look at the numbers to make sure I was driving up the right driveway,” Ms Laing said.
Like Ms Laing, Anna de Sterke has also been feeling the terrible lingering sideeffects of catching Covid.
“It’s really daunting to be six months into an illness that doesn’t have a cure and to see people who’ve been sick for over two years,” the 27-yearold said.
Ms De Sterke suffered liver damage that resolved but finds she gets full really quickly and can only eat a few bites of food. Both women suffer terrifying heart palpitations.
Ms Laing has been diagnosed with inflammation of the lining of her heart and after 30 minutes of activity needs to go to bed for the day.
Professor Steven Faux who runs a long Covid clinic at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney said between 10 and 20 per cent of Australians infected with Covid will get the condition.
Many of them are so sick they are unable to work but, unlike the US, Australians with the condition can’t get the disability pension.
As yet doctors aren’t sure how to diagnose it or how to treat it.
“It’s a bit like building the aeroplane while you’re flying. We don’t have a lot of treatments,” Prof Faux said.
St Vincent’s clinic has 100 people on its waiting list but a shortage of doctors means just 10 get treated each week.
“We’re seeing very high functioning workers, you know, office workers or professionals who can’t return to work after three months,” he said.
The clinic is using Tai Chi exercises to help people recover, cognitive behavioural therapy to help them learn to slow down their activity and is assisting them with graduated return to work.
“We’re not set up to trial drugs yet. That will be the aim to involve people in research once those drugs are ready for trial,” Prof Faux said.
In the UK up to 12 per cent of people who were double vaccinated and caught Delta have long Covid and 5-9 per cent of vaccinated people who caught Omicron have the condition, Professor Faux said. In addition to long Covid people who had the virus are 28 per cent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.
There is an urgent need for funding to run long Covid clinics and the nation must work harder to bring in migrant health workers to cope with the crisis Professor Faux said.
“I hope that there is a change in the support system medically, financially and emotionally and for this condition to be recognised,” Ms Laing said.
“I hope that people who are experiencing it realise they are not alone, that they’re not going crazy.”