Monday 12 July:BBC Panorama - Long Covid: Will I Ever Get Better?

[CFSKate]

Monday 12 July:BBC Panorama - Long Covid: Will I Ever Get Better? at 19:35 on BBC One

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57693637

Interesting. I’ll watch this - though I’d be surprised if they can tell us anything new.

Sadly I’m starting to think the answer to their question is “No”.

This should be compulsory viewing for all, especially the deniers and sceptics.

That's a bit totalitarian!!

SleepyMathematician - perhaps for those with a post viral type of long covid, a large percentage will improve within a couple of years. Certainly I am very worried, I have had ME/CFS for many years. But I don't think everyone who is ill now will stay ill. I think people underestimate time needed for convalescence.

I am very concerned that those who support the psychological explanations for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are now getting involved in long covid. I have posted before about people with CFS being sectioned.

There's so much we don't know about viruses and the immune system. It's interesting that Long Covid is affecting far more women than men. Women's immune systems function differently from men's because our bodies have to be able to tolerate a foreign body growing inside us for nine months. We're already known to suffer more from autoimmune conditions than men, e.g. rheumatoid arthritis.

I hope there will be lots of research into Long Covid as well as CFS/ME, leading to better treatment and preventative measures in the near future.

Well seeing as the current definition of ‘long covid’ includes people who have mild, lingering symptoms for 4+ weeks then I would say yes, the majority of people recover within 12 weeks.

They really need to update the definition to distinguish between that group and the people who have longer term, life changing symptoms. Perhaps the new blood test will help?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57776010.amp

One doctor is saying that he would expect symptoms to improve over 2-3 years almost universally.

This is SARS CoV-2. SARS-CoV-1 was in 2003. There were a few studies of the outcomes of patients in SARS-CoV-1, referenced here.

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02598-6
"Evidence from people infected with other coronaviruses suggests that the damage will linger for some. A study published in February recorded long-term lung harm from SARS, which is caused by SARS-CoV-1. Between 2003 and 2018, Peixun Zhang at Peking University People’s Hospital in Beijing and his colleagues tracked the health of 71 people who had been hospitalized with SARS. Even after 15 years, 4.6% still had visible lesions on their lungs, and 38% had reduced diffusion capacity, meaning that their lungs were poor at transferring oxygen into the blood and removing carbon dioxide from it."

Yes, most people probably will. I had terrible post-viral affects post- glandular fever. It knocked me out for a year. But I did get better. It just took time.

Some will be unlucky but most won’t.

@CFSKate

SleepyMathematician - perhaps for those with a post viral type of long covid, a large percentage will improve within a couple of years. Certainly I am very worried, I have had ME/CFS for many years. But I don't think everyone who is ill now will stay ill. I think people underestimate time needed for convalescence.

I am very concerned that those who support the psychological explanations for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are now getting involved in long covid. I have posted before about people with CFS being sectioned.

That’s interesting. I was diagnosed with ME back in my 20s after a bad viral pneumonia when it was only just being recognised as a thing. I more or less completely recovered within a couple of years.

I got Covid last March and am still not that good. It feels a lot like ME/ CFS now. I think if I look very long term, I’m overall improving, but with many relapses and setbacks along the way. I’m under the long Covid team but they can’t do much right now other than advise rest and to pace myself. It’s hard not to feel down about it at times though I daren’t say that to a medical professional or they will write it off as depression. I’m most certainly not depressed but I challenge anyone to cope with such a loss of their active way of life, the pain and exhaustion, and not feel frustrated and down over it sometimes.

I too was dismayed at some of the psychological “it’s anxiety/ in the mind” explanations hitting the media. It’s a travesty how people with ME/ CFS have been treated over the years. I really hope long Covid and the research that’s being done changes our attitudes to CFS as well.

It seems appalling to me that medical science can’t just say “we can’t explain this yet as we don’t have the knowledge” rather than “you’re imagining it”.