THE `LONG COVID' STRUGGLE
Even the young and healthy can suffer lingering, debilitating effects
Kat Guerin, 31, still experiences pain and fatigue since contracting COVID-19 in May. She's among the many who will deal with the effects long after the acute phase of the pandemic.
Ottawa's Kat Guerin was tired and fed up when she took to Twitter last month to warn others that COVID -19 is no joke.
“I am (was) a healthy 31-yearold, contracted COVID in May and still today I have debilitating pain and fatigue,” she wrote in a post that has been retweeted and liked by thousands of users. “It's not worth the risk, even if you think you'll be fine if you get it.”
Guerin, who works for an Ottawa-based non-profit, has been struck by how many people her age are dismissive of COVID-19, thinking they will be fine because they are young and healthy. Her own experience has taught her that even a moderate case of COVID -19 can leave a healthy young adult with debilitating after-effects. Guerin tested positive in May after her first dose of vaccine, despite limiting her contacts and closely following public health measures.
She is one of hundreds of people in the Ottawa area and millions around the world on whom COVID-19 has left a lingering mark. Health officials anticipate some 1,500 or more people in the Ottawa area will develop long COVID. Some of those long-haulers will be severely debilitated.
More than three months after her infection, Guerin still has a high heart rate, fatigue and nerve pain. She also has been left with
some lung damage. Still, her symptoms are relatively mild compared to some. She is able to work, even as she battles fatigue and pain.
Others cannot work or even perform basic functions of life, leaving them with serious financial as well as health issues.
Some people will be changed forever by long COVID, says Dr. Shawn Marshall, who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation at The Ottawa Hospital. Treating COVID -19 long haulers has become part of the rehabilitation work he does. And, with a fourth wave underway, there is no end in sight.
Marshall is among the health professionals who have piloted long-COVID clinics at The Ottawa Hospital. He also works with longhaul COVID patients from across Ontario through WSIB Ontario, the province's workplace compensation
board. Rehabilitation aims to help improve their breathing, their mobility and their ability to complete daily tasks of living after COVID-19.
The medical world is still learning about the health implications of long COVID, to the frustration of many sufferers. But Marshall says post-acute COVID-19 syndrome, which is the medical term for persistent symptoms or longterm complications of COVID-19, wasn't unexpected.
“Most of us had been expecting this. There is no way something like this goes through the population without a number of people being left with severe disability.”
Some studies suggest 20 per cent or more of people with COVID-19 will have lingering effects. A recent U.K. study found 14 per cent of children will suffer from long COVID.
Long COVID will be with some patients, and with the medical system, long after the acute phase of the pandemic has wound down. The most common symptoms are fatigue, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, coughing, joint pain, chest pain, problems with memory, concentration or sleep, muscle pain or headache, and racing heartbeat. COVID affects multiple organs and requires complex rehabilitation. Some, but not all, will recover or improve.
“There will be people who never completely recover from the effects of COVID -19.”
Many of the patients Marshall has treated through WSIB are health workers, who made up close to 20 per cent of all cases across Canada during the first wave of the pandemic and continue to become infected at a high rate.
Those patients include a nurse who couldn't pick up a bag of groceries without severe heart palpitations. She is a young mother who, before COVID -19, was healthy and able to work and look after her child.
Marshall has treated personal support workers who were very fit before contracting COVID-19 and afterward could barely make it up a flight of stairs.
“These are people in their 40s who cannot make it up a flight of stairs without becoming exhausted.”
For some long-COVID sufferers, part of the battle is trying to get their symptoms taken seriously by health professionals. Susie Goulding, founder of the COVID Long Haulers Support Group Canada, says that continues to be the case.
“There are so many people who are looking for a practitioner who will actually believe that they have long COVID. There is still a lot of denial.”
She said more research and funding will help. The U.K. and the U.S. have committed money to setting up special clinics and funding research to better understand how to treat long COVID. Goulding said Canada has lagged.
And, with the more virulent Delta variant now dominant across Canada, Goulding is hearing from more people every day. In recent weeks, 80 per cent of the support group's new members have come from Alberta, which has the highest COVID-19 case counts in the country.
“It has taken time to understand that the long-term impacts of COVID are very real for Canadians living with long COVID,” Goulding said.
“The magnitude of issues caused by the constellation of long-COVID symptoms is not well understood. Long-COVID clinical guidelines, treatment protocol and resources are critically needed to manage and support families.”
The long-haulers support group represents more than 14,000 Canadians with long-COVID symptoms, many of whom have felt left out of the pandemic response. Sixty per cent of people surveyed last May by the support group said they had to take leave from work, 60 per cent had to reduce their hours, and 25 per cent had to go on disability leave as a result of their continuing health issues.
Marshall says he sees how those struggling with long COVID suffer in multiple ways.
“Everyone would rather be back at work. These people are struggling day to day. There are emotional consequences. It wears you down.”
He is trying to get a message out to people who might not recognize some of their symptoms to see their doctors and get help.
“It really does affect people,” he said. “I am seeing people who probably don't recognize their lingering symptoms are COVID-related who might benefit (from treatment).”
Some of the rehabilitation work is helping those with severe symptoms to function and return to a more normal life. “We have data showing that patients do improve, and rehabilitation is a big part of it.”
Guerin, meanwhile, has been hearing from people around the world, some with much more severe symptoms of long COVID, as a result of her viral tweet. She wants to warn others to do everything they can to avoid becoming infected.
“This might happen to you. Is it worth the risk?”
I am (was) a healthy 31-yearold, contracted COVID in May and still today I have debilitating pain and fatigue.