LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On March 6, 2020, a devastating disease shattered our thought of safety here in Kentucky. In Harrison County, a man was diagnosed with the first case of COVID 19 ever recorded in the commonwealth. From that point, cases rose, hospitalizations became common, and the state, along with the rest of the world shut down as the fight against the virus began.
Four years later, things are very different. Vaccines are widespread, there are antiviral medicines specifically designed to treat COVID 19, and we’re no longer in a pandemic. However, there are people out there who are still fighting complications from the virus. Some have been fighting for a few weeks, others have been fighting for a few years.
Dr. Monalisa Taylor with Norton Healthcare says that about 10% of her patients who have contacted COVID 19 are experiencing what’s called long-haul COVID. These patients are continuing to face symptoms related to their infection weeks, months, if not years after they initially caught COVID 19.
“The COVID 19 virus tends to stay in our tissues and that might be the brain cells, the heart cells, the gut cells, the lung cells, it’s just hanging out,” said Dr. Taylor.
“Some of those patients are still suffering from an ability not to smell, some of them can’t taste, some are dealing with daily headaches and migraines, some are dealing with breathing issues as well as an increased complication risk of diabetes or prediabetes,” she continued.
Those symptoms of long-haul COVID are across the board.
Dr. Taylor says at this point there just hasn’t been enough research to say for certain why this is happening or how to cure long-haul COVID.
“Everyone’s symptoms are so varied and so different and so that makes it difficult to say, ‘Oh you’ve got long-haul COVID smell. You’ve got long haul COVID breathing issues. You’ve got long-haul COVID gut issues. They are so different depending on the person that it makes it very hard to track in that sense as well,” said Dr. Taylor.
“As we’re looking at these long-haul COVID symptoms, that’s what we’re treating them as, symptoms. We don’t know what the cause of this is just yet,” she continued.
Norton Healthcare representatives say that one complication from long-haul COVID is brain fog.
“Patients are reporting difficulty with attention, dual tasking, processing information, maintaining train of thought in a conversation, remembering what I was getting ready to say, also things with memory or executive functions skills which is our ability to plan and organize more higher-level cognitive processes,” said Brittany McAndrew, a Speech Language Pathologist with Norton.
She and her team developed a therapy program to specifically help patients who are dealing with cognitive issues because of their battle with COVID 19.
“We teach patients attention strategies, memory strategies, we then use exercises to help practice using the strategies affectively and then as we progress towards treatment, we talk about how we can implement these strategies and skills into daily functions, that’s at home and at work, and then gradually start to reintegrate into a daily, normal routine again,” said McAndrew.
According to McAndrew, her patients range from those who have caught COVID recently to those who have been dealing with these complications for years. The key is about helping them unlock the skills that are still in their brain.
“All of the skills are still there, we’re just having to rebuild and retrain how they can work efficiently again,” she said.
“Not everybody returns to what they knew as normal, but a lot of patients can regain the skills or the functions to return to a normal life style; possibly doing things differently, but doing things successfully,” said McAndrew.
Both McAndrew and Dr. Taylor agree that at this point the research is ever evolving and what we think we know about long-haul COVID could change in the coming months or years.
They say that the best way to avoid complications from long-haul COVID is to make sure you’re up to date on your vaccines, test on the third day of your symptoms, and if you do have COVID 19 contact your doctor.
Doctors say that getting a prescription for a COVID 19 antiviral now could go a long way to limiting your chance of serious illness or developing long lasting complication.
Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.