My Experience with Long-Haul Coronavirus

A word of caution to young people

I was worried about COVID earlier than most.

I had been following the updates day after day as they came in from China and beyond. The number of new cases, new deaths, how many new countries were being affected.

Like everyone, I was scared.

Hearing the news from places like Italy and Iran where the virus appeared to be ripping through the population with no sign of letting up, that was when I started to get shivers down my spine.

I had never imagined where I would be six months later.

At the tail-end of the worst illness I have ever experienced, the tail-end of a physical and emotional rollercoaster which has left me exhausted in every meaning of the word, financially hit (luckily not ruined as many have been), and trying desperately to regain my former strength.

During my long months of ups and downs contending with this ghastly virus, I have experienced fever, chills, shortness of breath, chest tightness, chest and lung pains, back pain, muscle aches and cramps, tachycardia and heart palpitations, heart pain and pressure, brain fog and difficulty concentrating, gastrointestinal issues, and most of all, extreme, bone-crushing fatigue.

I’m 21.

I first got sick at the beginning of April. The earliest signs were chills and a fever.

I was pretty sure from the start that it was very possible it would be COVID, as I’m not someone who gets sick very often, and definitely not someone who gets a fever.

I got in contact with my doctor who told me it was probably COVID, but that there was no real way to be sure since they were only testing serious cases at the time.

So I thought “okay, I’m young, I’m healthy, from what I’ve heard this should last no more than a couple of weeks”.

So I went through the first two weeks with fairly mild symptoms. I had a low-grade fever, chills, and what felt like a mild lung infection.

Suddenly after exactly two weeks, my breathing started to improve, I had no more chills, and I felt more or less normal.

Five days later, it came back.

That feeling of having a brick laying on your chest, of having to breathe for two people.

The chills came back, the fever came back, and this time all of that was accompanied by a raging headache and sore throat, along with the famous COVID fatigue which makes even the simplest tasks feel like climbing Everest.

For months it went like this, ups and downs, waves of symptoms which lasted around a week each time, punctuated by small periods of relief for a few days.

Then came the scariest part.

I woke up one day with a light pressure in the left side of my chest, which I didn’t think much of.

Throughout the day it got more and more intense, accompanied by sharp heart pains. I ended up having to lie down on my belly for the most part of a week, because it was the only position in which the pressure became bearable. I also began having some crazy heart palpitations, which, if you’ve had them before, you’ll know are pretty scary, despite most of the time being harmless. The tachycardia also started around this time, with my heart rate going up to around 100 when I got up to walk around, which is very high for me considering my active lifestyle.

By this time I had joined the Facebook group ‘COVID long-haulers’ and was aware of many people suffering from heart and cardiovascular symptoms. Many people had talked about their frustrating experiences with doctors and medical professionals when dealing with long-haul COVID symptoms. There always seemed to be one of two outcomes. After running every test under the sun, doctors would either claim that there was nothing wrong with the patient as all tests came back normal, and refuse to acknowledge the existence of a long-haul version of COVID which attacks every system of the body, claiming that the virus is ‘only respiratory, and lasts no more than two weeks’, or, they would believe the patient, but have no idea what was going on or how to fix it.

Because of the testimonies from so many people, I didn’t see why it would be any different for me if I had turned up at a hospital, despite having the urge to do so on several days during the week I was experiencing heart-related issues.

Unlike many, I had a very good GP, who was taking me seriously and believed that my symptoms were indeed due to long-term COVID, I was regularly updating her on my condition, even though she didn’t really know what could be done about it other than trying to manage and lessen the severity of some of the symptoms.

So I pressed on, managing my symptoms at home, drinking turmeric tea by the bucketload, along with any other natural anti-inflammatories I had read up on.

My heart symptoms slowly dissipated, and I was massively relieved, even though I was still dealing with a whole host of other issues. Since then there has been no other symptom that I felt scared about.

However, after COVID had decided it’d had enough of my heart, that was when the worst of the fatigue set in.

I am just now starting to regain my physical and mental energy after around 2 months of complete exhaustion.

During the worst of it, I would wake up after a 10 hour night’s sleep, and maybe have the energy for a single activity before I had to go and lie down again.

It was like I was given a minimal energy allowance each morning, and I could choose to do with it what I wanted. It might be doing the dishes, reading a book for twenty minutes, going to do some food shopping at a stretch, but after that one activity, my entire being was completely drained, there was nothing left in the tank until I had recharged again with an afternoon nap. My energy always seemed to pick up a little around 5PM, but not enough to do anything, just enough to walk around, and maybe sit down instead of lie down.

I have gained a deep deep respect for those who live with chronic fatigue syndrome and related conditions, it’s a desperate situation and one that doesn’t have any real effective solution yet. There were moments when I believed I too would be tired for the rest of my life, but fortunately I believe that now I’m starting to recover for real, but with the uncertainty and complete lack of research around long COVID, nobody can know for sure.

I am still suffering from many symptoms, including fatigue and occasional mild heart pressure, but they have eased off significantly, and I now feel like I am teetering on the edge of health.

This has been by far the weirdest and most frustrating illness I have ever experienced, attacking me in waves, targeting every system in my body.

Having experienced this, it does annoy me when people compare COVID to a bad cold.

COVID seems to be many things, it can be a bad cold, it can be asymptomatic, it can kill you, or it can put you out of action for months and months.

I think we should all stop trying to pretend we are doctors and admit that we don’t understand this virus, even some doctors should be a bit more humble and admit that they still know very little about what this virus does to the body, especially the long-haul version.

I consider myself fairly lucky to have seemingly gotten through long-COVID fairly quickly, and yes, six months appears to be a fast recovery time for those suffering from long-COVID.

I am aware that many formerly healthy, active, young people remain in desperate situations they can’t find a way out of. The medical system seems to ignore them as they suffer at home from every symptom under the sun.

Currently, the focus is rightfully placed on those with potentially fatal cases of COVID, as we appear to be entering a second wave here in Europe.

However, those suffering for months on end cannot be forgotten. More research needs to be done, people need to be listened to and not simply pushed to the sidelines.

COVID has taken six months of the best years of my life, and it will likely be longer before I’m back to my pre-COVID health.

So, if you’re too ignorant to put a piece of fabric over your nose and mouth when you go shopping, touting some worldwide conspiracy, spare me the pleasure of your company.