Health tip - helping long COVID
Health Tip - Helping Long COVID
The topic of Long COVID is very personal to me. Over 13 years ago I had a really bad bout of Influenza and developed Post Viral Fatigue, which after 3 month got was recategorised as CFS / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, also known as ME / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. The symptoms of ME / CFS are almost identical to Long COVID.
Long COVID is the term used when certain symptoms last for weeks or months after the initial illness. Most people recover from COVID but some (about 10%) go onto have Long COVID.
Th symptoms of Long COVID may include:
fatigue
post-exertional malaise
breathlessness or shortness of breath
difficulty sleeping
anxiety and depression
heart palpitations
chest tightness or pain
joint or muscle pain
not being able to think straight or focus (‘brain fog’)
change to your sense of smell or taste
persistent cough
One of the most common and debilitation symptom can be the fatigue or the post-exertional malaise. What is very common is that you feel better and having a good day you do too much and then 24-72 hours later “crash” where you have very little energy. It causes a “push and crash cycle” which is not only incredibly frustrating can make your fatigue symptoms worse as the crash can take a while to improve.
What helped me recover from my CFS / ME was using pacing to help manage my energy levels. There is also other term which I prefer called the Energy Envelope. This is where you pace your activity into small sections and rest in-between.
To plan for this it’s useful to take a diary and note down every activity, not just physical, as just concentrating on a complex task can be fatiguing, or catching up with friends can be fatiguing. Write down as well how you felt and your energy level. You may even want to use a number out of 10. This way you can track and analyse what activities were taxing.
This way you can plan your day and week. If you know you have an activity which is fatiguing, for example supermarket shopping you rest prior, afterwards and don’t do any else taxing for the day. Planning gives you control which helps enormously with your mood and learning to defer or delegate tasks is essential
Another aspect to try to manage is your physical activity and ensure you don’t decondition too much. I wish I had been given this advice for during the 3 years when I had ME / CFS badly I lost a huge amount of strength and fitness. It was crazy but I was incredibly strong and fit prior to getting sick, after wards I was so weak, I struggled holding my arms up in a yoga class.
What helped me get back my strength was doing Pilates at a studio which tailored the exercise to me and gave me permission to rest between exercises if needed. At the time there were very few proper Pilates Studio’ s around the nearest was in Mavern. I did nothing else before the session and I rested before I drove home. Slowly I got stronger and had less “crashes”
One of the lingering aspects of ME / CFS has been that when I get sick, even just a cold or gastro, I tend to get very sick and take a long time to recover. So when I got COVID a couple of months ago I was very sick, it was horrible and I’ve taken a while to recover. Luckily I put all my knowing of pacing into action, and kept inside my energy envelope. I cut back my work, rested before and after teaching, cut back on unnecessary activities. My house was covered in dust and dust bunnies, ironing pile grew, napped, watched lots of Netflix but it’s really helped and I’m definitely improving and having much more consistent energy.
If you think you might have Long COVID or ME/CFS speak to your GP about getting a diagnosis and treatment options. I have only a small aspect of Long COVID and ME / CFS, there are many ways to help all the other symptoms so it’s important to get good advice early.
For a tailored way of improving your strength and exercise tolerance I can certainly recommend Pilates with me. We can make the sessions shorter if this suits your energy envelope. If you have any questions please contact me.