‘It’s been a roller coaster’: 25-year-old’s long-term Covid symptoms persist for 3 years
Studies estimate that 65 million people worldwide suffer from the debilitating symptoms of long-term Covid. Lily Seibert, 25, from Brooklyn, New York, is one of them. A 25-year-old man has not been able to get rid of five symptoms with any medication or treatment for three years.
Lily tested positive for the coronavirus for the first time at the start of the pandemic on March 24, 2020.
The woman developed flu-like symptoms, which she expected to disappear within a few days.
Only three weeks later, these initial symptoms disappeared, but symptoms such as shortness of breath and dizziness, unfortunately, remained.
Lily couldn’t walk for more than 15 minutes, and tasks like climbing stairs felt like night shift work.
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The New Yorker said: “I am now approaching three years of battling chronic exhaustion, shortness of breath, chest pain, heart palpitations and difficulty exercising.
“While it’s easy to get discouraged, I also hope research and research on this condition continues.”
Before Covid hit her, Lily was an active person who enjoyed playing sports and exercising.
She said: “For the first five to eight months after Covid, there was nothing I could do.
“In the beginning, it was a loss of identity for me.”
The account manager said Lily had isolated in her apartment for a month and began to feel more severe Covid symptoms such as chest pains, shortness of breath and fatigue.
Lily said: “After about three or four weeks, I decided that I should get better. [but] these symptoms did not disappear.
“It wasn’t necessarily the intense discomfort that we might associate with an acute illness, but over time the symptoms would go away and then come back – it was a roller coaster.”
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Over the past few years, Lily has gone through a number of therapies and medications, including inhalers, antibiotics, and breathing exercises, but none of them have helped.
However, the 25-year-old woman found that acupuncture brought her back “to the level of normality” as she noticed some improvement in her symptoms. “But it stalled over time,” she added.
After all other treatment options failed, Lily began taking low doses of a drug called naltrexone, which is commonly prescribed for people who are overdosing or addicted.
In 2022, the University of British Columbia found that low doses of this medication are safe and can help reduce pain and inflammation while improving well-being and immune function.
Reflecting on the past three years, Lily said it was a process of rediscovering herself.
She said: “It was a long process of realizing my self-worth.
“There is a constant feeling of hope one day and a feeling of disappointment the next.
“It’s hard to keep a stable mood or mindset because you never know how you’re going to feel on any given day.”
The National Health Service recommends that you see your GP if you continue to have Covid symptoms or think you may have long-term Covid.
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