New clinics help virus ‘long haul’

NEW YORK (AP) – COVID-19 came early for Catherine Busa, and it never really left.

The 54-year-old New York school secretary had no underlying health issues when she caught the coronavirus in March and has recovered at her home in Queens.

But some symptoms persisted: tiredness that she never felt for years of getting up at 5 am for work; pain, especially in his hands and wrists; impaired taste and smell that made food unattractive; and depression. After eight months of suffering, she went to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center – to a clinic specifically for post-COVID-19 care.

“I felt like I was in some kind of a hole, and I couldn’t look on the bright side,” Busa said. She did not feel helped by visits to other doctors. But it was different at the clinic.

“They validated what I was feeling,” she says. “It has helped me get through whatever I’m struggling with.”

The clinic is one of dozens of such facilities that have sprung up in the United States to address a puzzling aspect of COVID-19 – the effects that can stubbornly plague some people weeks or months after the disease is gone. infection itself.

The programs’ approaches vary, but they share the goal of trying to understand, treat, and give credit to patients who cannot free themselves from the virus that has infected more than 24 million Americans and killed an estimated 400,000.

“We know it’s real,” said Dr Alan Roth, who oversees the Jamaica Hospital clinic. He has struggled with body aches, fatigue and “brain fog” characterized by occasional forgetfulness since his own relatively mild battle with COVID-19 in March.

Like so many others in the pandemic, the scientific picture of the so-called long-haul is still developing. It is not known what the prevalence of long-term COVID problems is or why some patients continue to suffer while others do not.

Current indications are that up to 30% of patients continue to have significant problems that interfere with daily life two to three weeks after a positive test. Perhaps up to 10% are still afflicted three to six months later, according to Dr. Wesley Self, an emergency physician and researcher at Vanderbilt University who co-wrote a July report. from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Doctors have known for months that intensive care patients can face prolonged recoveries. But many long-haul COVID-19 have never been seriously ill.

At the University of Texas Medical Branch’s post-COVID-19 clinic in Clear Lake, patients are between 23 and 90 years old. Half have never been hospitalized, said clinic director Dr Justin Seashore.

“They were told they should feel better, and they didn’t,” he said. Instead, they suffered from fatigue, shortness of breath, anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating, or other issues that they did not previously have.

Some have been told they should be on oxygen for the rest of their lives. A highlight has been helping many of them get by with treatment that can include respiratory therapy, occupational therapy, mental health checkups and more, Seashore said.

Long-term care for COVID-19 has been launched in settings ranging from large research hospitals like Mount Sinai in New York City, 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.

Rather than focusing specifically on patients who still feel sick, St. John’s aims to schedule a physical exam, behavioral health visit, and monthly follow-ups with everyone who tests positive at one of its clinics. , said CEO Jim Mangia. Almost 1,000 patients have come for examinations.

Since Luciana Flores contracted the virus in June, she has suffered from back pain, stomach problems, shortness of breath and worry. The mother of three has lost her laundry job amid the pandemic and she is not feeling well enough to look for work.

St. John’s helped, she says, by diagnosing and treating a bacterial infection in her digestive system.

“I think it’s really important that other patients receive the same care,” Flores, 38, said through a Spanish interpreter. “I don’t feel the same. I don’t think nothing will ever be the same, but there is no other solution: I have to keep moving forward.

There is no proven cure for long-term COVID problems. But the clinics aim to provide relief, including giving patients a place to turn if their regular doctor can’t help them.

“We wanted to create a place where patients could get answers or feel heard,” although there are still unanswered questions, said Dr. Denyse Lutchmansingh, chief medical officer of Yale Medicine’s post-COVID recovery program.

In the Jamaica Hospital program, patients receive mental health assessments, specialist lung attention and physical exams that delve deeper than most into their lifestyle, personal circumstances and their sources of stress. Several hundred people have been treated so far, Roth said.

The idea is to help patients “develop their own healing capacity,” said Dr. Wayne Jonas, former director of the Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. He now works for the Samueli Foundation, a California-based non-profit organization that works with the hospital to marry alternative ideas to conventional medicine.

Long haulers receive exercise and diet programs and group or individual mental health sessions. Recommendations for supplements, breathing exercises, and meditation are also likely. This is in addition to prescriptions, referrals or primary care follow-ups deemed necessary.

“We’re not just saying, ‘It’s all in your head, and we’re going to throw some herbs and spices at you,’” Roth said. With no clear and proven answer for the symptom complex, “we are taking a common sense approach and making the best of what is available to treat these people.”

Busa underwent a test which determined that she has sleep apnea, which causes people to stop breathing while sleeping and often feel tired when they are awake. She receives a device for this and uses wrist splints and has an injection to relieve her pain. Her schedule also includes psychotherapy appointments, supplements, and new daily walking, stationary cycling, and journaling routines about what she needs to be thankful for.

Busa feels like she’s coming, especially when it comes to her mood, and thanks the clinic.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” she said, “and there are people and doctors who can relate to you.