NEW YORK (AP) – COVID-19 came early for Catherine Busa and never really left.
The 54-year-old New York school secretary had no underlying health problems when she caught the coronavirus in March and returned home from Queens.
But some symptoms persisted: fatigue he had never experienced in his growing years at 5 in the morning for work; pain, especially in the hands and wrists; a changed sense of taste and smell that made the food unattractive; and a probe depression. After eight months of suffering, he made his way to the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center – to a special clinic for post-COVID-19 care.
“I felt in a kind of hole and I couldn’t look at the bright side,” Busa said. She did not feel helped by visits to other doctors. But it was different at the clinic.
“They validated the way I felt,” she said. “That helped me get through everything I’m struggling with.”
The clinic is one of dozens of such facilities that have appeared around the United States to address a puzzling aspect of COVID-19 – the effects that some people can stubbornly suffer weeks or months after the infection itself has disappeared.
Program approaches vary, but they share the goal of trying to understand, treat, and give credence to patients who cannot get rid of the virus that has infected more than 24 million Americans and killed about 400,000.
“We know this is real,” said Dr. Alan Roth, who oversees the Jamaica hospital clinic. He has experienced body aches, fatigue and “brain fog” characterized by occasional forgetfulness since his relatively mild attack with COVID-19 in March.
Like many others in the pandemic, the scientific image of so-called long carriers is still evolving. It is not clear how common long-term COVID problems are or why some patients continue to suffer, while others do not.
The current indications are that up to 30% of patients continue to have significant problems that enter their daily lives two to three weeks after a positive test. Up to 10 percent may still be affected three to six months later, according to Dr. Wesley Self, an emergency physician at Vanderbilt University and a researcher who co-wrote a report in July. from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Doctors have known for months that intensive care patients may experience extensive recovery. But many long COVID-19 carriers have never been critically ill.
At the University of Texas Post-COVID-19 Clinic in Clear Lake, patients are between the ages of 23 and 90. Half were never hospitalized, said clinic director Dr. Justin Seashore.
“They were told they should feel better and not,” he said. Instead, they were left with fatigue, shortness of breath, anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating or other problems they had not had before.
Some have been told that they will have to consume oxygen for the rest of their lives. A highlight was the fact that he helped many of them give up on him through treatment that may include respiratory therapy, occupational therapy, mental health checks and more, Seashore said.
Long-term care for COVID-19 has been launched in environments ranging from large research hospitals such as Mount Sinai in New York, which has more than 1,600 patients, to St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, a network of community clinics in South Los Angeles.
Instead of focusing specifically on patients who are still feeling unwell, St. John’s aims to schedule a physical exam, a behavioral health visit and monthly follow-ups with all those who test positive at one of its clinics, said CEO Jim Mangia. Nearly 1,000 patients came for exams.
Since Luciana Flores contracted the virus in June, she has been experiencing back pain, stomach problems, shortness of breath and anxiety. The mother of three lost her job at a laundromat in the middle of the pandemic and is not feeling well enough to look for work.
St. John’s helped, she said, by diagnosing and treating a bacterial infection in her digestive system.
“I think it’s very important that other patients get the same care,” said Flores, 38, through a Spanish interpreter. “I do not feel the same way. I don’t think anything will ever be the same, but there is no other way around it: I have to move on. ”
There is no proven cure for long-term COVID problems. But clinics aim to provide relief, not least by offering patients somewhere to return to if their regular doctor can’t help.
“We wanted to create a place where patients could get answers or feel heard,” even though there are still unanswered questions, said Dr. Denyse Lutchmansingh, senior clinician at Yale Medicine’s Post-COVID Recovery Program.
At the Jamaica Hospital program, patients receive mental health assessments, the attention of a lung specialist, and physical exams that deepen more than most of their lifestyles, personal circumstances, and sources of stress. Several hundred people have been treated so far, Roth said.
The idea is to help patients build their own healing capacity, said Dr. Wayne Jonas, former director of the National Institute of Alternative Medicine’s Office of Health. He is now with the Samueli Foundation, a non-profit organization in California that works with the hospital to combine alternative ideas with conventional medicine.
Long-distance carriers do exercise and diet plans and group or individual mental health sessions. Recommendations for supplements, breathing exercises and meditation are also likely. This is in addition to any prescriptions, recommendations or primary care that are deemed necessary.
“We’re not just saying, ‘It’s all in your head, and we’re going to throw you herbs and spices,'” Roth said. Without an orderly and proven answer to the complex of symptoms, “we take a common sense approach and take the best to treat these people.”
The bus received a test that determined that he has sleep apnea, which causes people to stop breathing while sleeping and often feel tired when awake. She receives a device for this and uses the wrist straps and makes injections to relieve her pain. Her schedule also includes psychotherapy appointments, supplements and new daily walking routines, stationary cycling, and writing in a journal about what she needs to feel grateful for.
Busa feels that he is coming, especially in terms of mood, and gives credit to the clinic.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said, “and there are people and doctors who can connect with you.”