Long Covid diagnosis

[dizzy864]

Hi Everyone,

Having been unwell almost all of last year, I've just been diagnosed with long covid. I've had lots of different symptoms but the worse one is that I am so, so tired all the time, yet I can't sleep. I've never had problems sleeping - my problem has always been that I sleep for too long!! I started taking MenoSerene in early December. I had to stop taking it because it messed with my sleep. I not only could not get to sleep but could not stay asleep either. Stopping it, has made no difference. I still can't sleep. I had a telephone consult with my GP last Monday. I was very surprised when she confirmed that I did indeed have Covid last February. I thought as there was no test available at that time and the anti body test came too late for me, I would never know for sure. But after a long conversation with her, she confirmed it. It explains all of my many symptoms which I was never quite convinced could all be down to my thyroid - too many new problems. This means that I went straight from Shingles to Covid and then moved on to long covid!! It was probably a mixed blessing as I still had anti biotics and anti inflammatories in my system and I was still taking pain killers for shingles pain, when I got covid.

I've now been referred to my local long covid clinic. Is there any way of helping with my symptoms? I've had nine months of pretty much sitting doing nothing - too tired to do anything but the essential cleaning and cooking. I've been doing a few short walks ( no more than 15 minutes ) a few times a week. But I collapse in a chair as soon as I get home and stay there until I have to get up to cook dinner. Now I'm trying to do a little more but nothing helps with my sleeping.

I also have vision problems. My new glasses had to be sent back to be remade as my focusing had changed. I've got to take the remade pair back as everything is blurry and I get a bad head ache after wearing them for an hour.

Has anyone any advice for dealing with long covid? Has anyone attended one of these clinics? What should I expect? I have read that it may be a case of monitoring rather than treating.

It's been rather a shock as I never expected to get a confirmed diagnoses as I never had a positive test. I did lose my sense of taste for twenty four hours so always wondered about covid and long covid.

There was an additional reason for the diagnoses. My husband and I were both ill particularly during the first week of our Orlando holiday. I lost my taste on our second day. Our symptoms were different - I was very short of breath whilst he had a persistant cough. He's never smoked and never had a cough so it was odd. We were both really tired for the whole two weeks. He was then over it although he has had some odd moments mentally which he never had before and he is sleeping more. I was really tired for five or six weeks - going to bed every afternoon and sleeping for a few hours - something I never do. We were very surprised on our return to find that my two youngest sons and a girlfriend were all ill during our first week away. This is very significant - Covid is the only virus where people are ill at the same time. Every other virus people are ill one after the other. It's all due to the different infection patterns.

With Covid the period between infection and symptoms varies from almost immediate to up to fourteen days, resulting in everyone being ill at the same time. All other virus this time is constant usually a couple of weeks meaning everyone is ill one after the other. For this reason my doctor said I must have had covid and not any other virus.

What I could never understand was why my husband was ill ten or eleven days ahead of me when Covid is so infectious. Now we know - he just had symptoms earlier than me. I also could not understand why after getting over the virus I was really well for ten weeks and then became really unwell again. Long covid does this!!

Any help, advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.