Long COVID patients enduring symptoms and looking for answers

I'm Del Walters live in Atlanta, this is the news from tonight's scripts, it's a disease that millions of people live with every day, many of them suffering in silence, so tonight we're going to take an in-depth look at it. what is it. likes living with

long

covid

and what is being done to find a cure, plus an investigation into a track safety system designed to save lives that is not being used enough and also why some major retailers are worried about that what is said in the Trail campaign could end up affecting their results and yours, welcome to the scrips news tonight.

I'm Dell Walters and tonight we're going to take a close look at the

long

Co. The US is in a CO surge, we know this because we study the concentrations of

covid

in our wastewater virus levels in our wastewater are high The Sewage levels were recently at their second highest level and we should note that the virus still kills and sends thousands of people to hospital every day, but some people never get better and instead live with what is known as long covid.

symptoms

that persist for months years and yes, in some cases we think it could be the rest of their lives is severe fatigue memory loss difficulty thinking heart problems and a long-term loss of taste and smell the CDC estimates that approximately one of Every 15 Americans have had Covid for a long time, meaning 18 million of their friends and yes, their neighbors wonder how long they've had that cough, but that's just the beginning in 2022.

The Brookings Institution found that up to 4 million of people are out of work for a long time. covid, if you contract it, there is no approved cure, vaccines reduce the risk, but we still don't know how many scrips news. National correspondent Clayton Sandell has more for us and Clayton, what life is like for the people who have it. Hello Dell, good evening. We know that people with long Covid tell us that dealing with minor to severe

symptoms

can cause a tremendous amount of anxiety, especially with so many questions about whether long Covid is your new normal Whitney, we're coming for you here we go in the pre-Covid era. covid-19 Danielle Mortell biked, hiked and snowboarded her way through life.

She was healthy, she was very active. She had climbed to the Mount Ever base camp in Nepal. She had climbed Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States. She was working full time at Google and snowboarding like living the active Colorado lifestyle and yes, everything changed when the 33-year-old tested positive for Covid in May 2020. She started with incredible fatigue. He then he was taking three four-hour naps during work days. A few days after that great fatigue, I remember waking up and not being able to catch my breath. Mortel had to leave her job and for the past three and a half years she has endured a long list of persistent symptoms.

She is one of the millions of Americans facing. with long covid over the last year, about 15% of adults infected with the virus report symptoms lasting more than 3 months Emma is a 21-year-old college student, she asked us not to use her last name, doctors told her that your symptoms would last about 6 months it's been 2 years even now i can't take an impes academic class because my head hurts and my brain will start to hurt very easily and my memory i can't take a test because it's too tiring it ruins my day and then two like I don't remember enough to do well on a test.

The University of Colorado campus near Denver runs one of only three postco clinics in the state. Dr Sarah Jolly says the flood of long Covid

patients

hasn't slowed down, we still have 50 to 100 referrals in a week, 50 to 100 a week, right, but with that many

patients

coming in, we have more referrals than doctors who can care for them, so we certainly need more clinical resources dedicated to the care of patients with long covid. The challenge that Dr. Jolly says is that there is no single treatment, each patient is different; There is a large proportion of patients who have long-term symptoms that do not necessarily return to baseline, so they may have some improvement in their symptoms, but they are still some way off. from where they were before they got sick, Dr.

Jolly and the UC Health team are enrolling hundreds of patients in major studies and clinical trials in hopes of solving some of the long-standing mysteries of CO. Do we know why this happens to some people and not others? Now I don't think you understand the risk factor and why Co in particular seems to affect people who were previously healthy and high functioning. We still don't have that answer these days. Mortell is documenting her recovery by traveling with her husband. Mike and his pets to places like Alaska. I have been working with functional medicine professionals for my long covid and they are big advocates of cold water immersion therapy to help with nervous system function.

We have yet to master the art of filming these efforts, but I can report that Mike and I stayed home for 10 minutes. Many days are still difficult. My heart rate of 130 beats per minute is due to a condition called dysautonomia. It basically means your autonomic nervous system, which controls things like breathing, heartbeat, and digestion. dysfunctional in some way, if you control your energy you can usually be more successful in getting to a better place with your symptoms and yes, in my case, I have had times where I am doing pretty well and times where I push myself too hard. and then I'm out for a while, Mortell says he's optimistic about his future, but worries that many will forget him too quickly.

I think it's difficult if people don't know someone with long Covid to actually get it and understand what it can be like. disable it for years or even life, the world definitely seems to be moving forward and those of us who are here a little stuck now, one important way that doctors and researchers say consistently reduces the risk of long covid symptoms, get vaccinated Dell every patient is different Clayton send us Dell with a photo of life with Long Co Clayton as always thank you very much we know millions of you say you feel ignored suffering in daily life when most of the country has moved on Miles Griffith is a reporter In times of illness he covers long Covid and the challenges Co still poses.

He has been living with Long Co since early 2020. That's Aaron Durkin. She used to work at Politico at New York's Daily News. She has had Long Co for an infection in July 2022. I will be with you miles before I jump to the public response, please describe your symptoms, yes, thank you very much for having me. I struggle with a lot of neurological symptoms, so really easy tasks, like writing, you know, something simple day to day. Day to day things like driving, as well as tiredness, these things really impact me, to a point where my quality of life feels like it has collapsed, a lot of people say, oh, you look healthy, you look great, but That's not how I feel. and I am very lucky to live with milder severity of long covid.

There are many people who are completely confined to bed and home and are completely unable to live their lives. When did you discover you had a lot of time? Yeah, so, um. I got infected with covid in July 2022, as you mentioned, and never recovered from there. One day, shortly after finding out about my initial infection, I felt a little better and tried to go back to working from home and found. that my heart was racing my heart rate was going up to 130 140 uh I was extremely dizzy I couldn't think clearly I had extreme brain fog um and that was the first sign that I wasn't having a normal recovery um and you I know, there wasn't a clear moment where it was, oh, this is what it's going to be in the long run, there was always a hope, oh, maybe in a few weeks, a few months, you'll get better because some people do, um, but I never did. and I still deal with those symptoms and many other symptoms to this day miles, yes or no, question, did you get the vaccine?

Yes, I was vaccinated, but I received Co in early 2020, before vaccines were available. like a lot of other people with long covid, although vaccination helps, we're also seeing a lot of other people who have had, you know, all of their boosters are still getting long covid, so a lot of advocates are advising people to, you know, The best way to not have Covid for a long time is not to be self-conscious. Uh, first of all, did you get your vaccine? Trying to wait, sorry. Ain, I did it, yes I did it. He was fully vaccinated and reinforced.

I had three doses of the vaccine when I arrived. I got infected for the first time and despite that, I ended up with long miles of Co. I don't know if you were

looking

at the package Clayton just made, but the list of symptoms in that case is amazing. They gave you many different diagnoses before they finally gave up and said you were in a long relationship. Honestly, I didn't get that many diagnoses. I got a lot of um, they told me I wasn't sick, um, yes. I don't have anything wrong with me and maybe it was anxiety, um, and this is very common for people with long Co, especially women, people of color and other marginalized people, what do you mean by anxiety?

Describe that, um, there's kind of a belief that you know Many people with long Co are hypochondriacs, but study after study shows that we have serious biological abnormalities and I think there's kind of a belief that it's so uncomfortable that we let this virus , you know, infect people. um that has these long term, possibly lifelong impacts as many have said on this show so far and it's easier to just dismiss it as if it doesn't exist and call the people who have it, um, you. Be anxious so Ain was like that for you um anxiety uh and how many different diagnoses you got and how hard it is for you to describe how you feel to your friends so I didn't have many others.

I mean, it was pretty clear to me from the beginning that this was due to Covid, so I went with it that way and looked for doctors who had experience with it, you know, the formal diagnosis I got was pots. Postural orthostatic tpoc cardia syndrome, so those are the only diagnoses I've had related to covid, but you know, in terms of the list of symptoms, it's long and exhaustive, I won't go over everything, you know, from dizziness, nausea and vomiting shortness of breath headaches chest pain muscle weakness um temperature dysregulation hair loss vision problems um and you know, the list of numbness and tangles goes on and on um, but all of those things go back to uh a co uh to long covid and um, I think your other question was: I was lucky enough to not encounter providers who just dismissed it as anxiety.

It was pretty clear to me that it wasn't anxiety. I had people say, well, you know, maybe it'll get better in a few weeks. maybe it will go away maybe it will be temporary everything will be okay, which is not crazy to say because I know people for whom that has been the case, but not everyone is not okay Aron Durkin Miles Griffith I want to thank you both Thank you for being with us this night, because we have a lot more to cover on this, we're going to talk about treatments and also possible cures after the break, stay with us and I know you'll want to see too stay with us, welcome.

If you have heard the commercials SC Co Pax loit Pax loit is made by fizer, it is an antiviral medication, but how effective is it? scrips news National correspondent Dan Gman takes a look at a new drug that's been around for two years as a way to treat mild to severe Covid symptoms, but a new study from the National Institutes of Health shows that less than one in Five people who are prescribed it are actually taking it for a multitude of reasons, including its cost. This is really important to me because it is my health on January 3 meline mag got covid it was not her first time nor even the second it was the sixth and due to her rheumatoid arthritis it scared her as much as the previous five times this time however mateline did not. was able to access the loid medication package to help counteract the symptoms due to insurance this was the most severe attack of Co I have had to date I basically lived in the bathroom for the first three days um like strong attacks of nausea vomiting PX lovid es an antiviral therapy that consists of two separate drugs packaged together, the first is cleaner, which inhibits a key enzyme that Co needs to produce more viral particles, and the second is retona, which increases the effectiveness of the drug.

The fizer study of pax lovid shows an 86% reduction in Covid-related hospitalizations in people taking it, but a more recent study from the National Institutes of Health shows that only 15% of people eligible for the drugThey really take it. There are several factors that make doctors hesitate to prescribe this medication. Dr Ja Kumar is the medical director of the Swedish Hospital. Medical Center in Colorado, she says PAX is not only expensive, but would have cost Metaline $1,400 without insurance; must be taken within 5 days after symptoms appear, otherwise it is ineffective; there are also reports of rebound covid infections and a bad mental taste for those who have I took the medicine, it is a quite effective medicine.

I agree that it needs to be used more, but I also feel that there needs to be more studies, since all the studies were done before the newer variants emerged, even without those newer studies. Like Meline, I think the benefits of Pax Loid are worth it for your health right now. I seem totally normal and fine, which is great, but I'm worried because I didn't have access to Pax Loid. What that's going to look like in the next two. three six months 12 months like this is the covid infection that gives me long covid Dan Gman scripts News Denver our next guests are two of the leading experts researching a medical solution for Long Co Dr.

Eric toppo is the director of research of scripts Translational Institute and we must note that they are not affiliated with scripts news and Dr.Akiko iwasaki is a professor of immunobiology. She knew she was going to mess up at Yale. Dr. iwasaki. I'll start with you. Do we know why some people seem to recover and others seem to suffer for months if not years, yes, that is a very good question. We've been trying to answer that question with research. By the way, anyone can get long covid, but there are demographics such as female sex and the 30-50 age group. who tend to be at higher risk of developing long covid, there are also pre-existing conditions that can predispose someone to contracting long covid, but the precise reason why people have long covid is not yet known Dr. toppo um, I was listening to people in our segments had it and there didn't seem to be a common denominator and I know this is frustrating for those of you in the research field.

Is there a standard definition of long covid and why is it so difficult to pin down? Reviewed in that segment, many symptoms have been described, up to a couple hundred, it's really a mosaic of many different subtypes, and the duration of course is important, you know, it lasts longer than 2 to 3 months, but you know that it's pretty clear when you have a person temporarily related to an infection and weeks later they develop these symptoms and they are prolonged and the symptoms usually cluster together, they are common and a clinical diagnosis of prolonged Co can be made.

What we really need, of course, is a biomarker like a blood test that we can confirm and use for monitoring and use in clinical trials and correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Osaki, the bottom line is that sometimes it doesn't always happen immediately after the covid. It goes by and suddenly you wake up one morning, you both nod and it's like it's there, that's right. Some people develop long covid as a lingering effect of having acute covid, while others develop long covid in the first. two or three months of having co, so it varies between people, but it doesn't have to happen immediately after the acute phase of co.

The Dr.

answers

the difficult question because he has heard the rumors that he was not sick. until I got the vaccine and now it's altered my DNA because it's an mRNA vaccine, uh, is that a theory or is there a factual basis for it? Well it's basically misinformation, there are rare, I mean very rare, ultra rare cases where the vaccine is implicated in long Covid syndrome, but for the most part the protection of the vaccines has not been emphasized enough and now everyone studies support a 40% or even more reduction of long Covid, so this idea that it's vaccine induced is really uh. is coming, there is no real data to support that, except in extraordinarily rare cases, Dr.

Wasaki describes what it feels like to be someone, as she heard from one of our guests that we had before and it was in Clayton Sandell's package that she was a fitness enthusiast. she went hiking, she went climbing, she was perfectly healthy, then suddenly she got covid and now she can't function, how can it affect the body that way and what is it about this virus? What does Co look like? be baffling the best of us, yes, it is a real medical mystery, why some people lengthen Co and others don't, and I have heard from many people, like the example you just mentioned, who are very fit and active and at the top of his Um, my career was devastated because I got the long Co and I couldn't go back to work and we're bedridden.

It's really a mystery, how that condition develops from this virus. However, I would like to emphasize that, long Co Co. is not the only disease, just an infectious disease in which long-term consequences are observed, there are many other viruses, bacteria and parasitic infections that lead to similar post-acute uh infection syndromes to long covid, so we are trying to understand the commonalities between these. types of syndromes to best find a treatment Dr. Topppel. 30 seconds left. I'll give you the optimistic question: Are we getting better at figuring out what's going on? Are you optimistic because you heard guests talk about anxiety?

I wonder when tomorrow will be better than yesterday. I'm optimistic, Dell, and the reason is that we recently had a rigorous randomized trial that came out of Hong Kong with a microbiome intervention that led to significant improvement in symptoms and we're getting there. every week we know better the fundamentals of long covid and hopefully conduct multiple clinical trials that will lead us to bring relief to desperately needed people who are suffering from long covid, so in the times to come it may happen soon enough , believe. We will see some treatments that will be effective and we have an example of that so far, we can only hope Dr.

Toppo Dr. E wasaki thank you for being with us.