"Jay Breneman's battle with long COVID: 'Life is just on a major pause right now'"
Breneman doesn't have the energy or stamina to balance himself on a bicycle..standing up can cause the Erie man's heart to race from about 90 beats a minute to 130 or more goerie.com/story/news/cor…
"My symptoms weren't that severe," Breneman said. "I didn't feel sick enough at first to go to the hospital or see the doctor."
Like many long COVID patients, Breneman was healthy before his infection and had mild to moderate initial symptoms.
"Climbing stairs remains a challenge and the man who once performed 20-mile marches in the Army now at times uses a walker or a wheelchair. He steps gingerly as he walks, as if he is nursing a back injury."
"Breneman longs to resume the active lifestyle he led before COVID, but he knows the key is to not exert himself too much."
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"Researchers Hunt Biomarkers – Potential Keys to Long COVID"
Even if the causes of long COVID remain confusing, researchers are zeroing in on biomarkers – compounds that can be detected & measured – that can help them better diagnose & treat the condition webmd.com/covid/news/202…
Michael VanElzakker, PhD, co-founder of the group and a member of the Division of Neurotherapeutics at Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital in Boston, focuses on the possibility of a viral reservoir – a place where the virus can hang out and elude the immune system....
If it is there, his team wants to find it and find out what it is doing, VanElzakker says.
“All successful pathogens evade the immune system in some way,” he says. “They can’t find little niches where they do that very well.”
"Developed by a team of researchers from institutions across the country, led by Justin Reese of Berkeley Lab and Peter Robinson of Jackson Lab, the software analyzes...
entries in electronic health records (EHRs) to find symptoms in common between people who have been diagnosed with long COVID and to define subtypes of the condition"
"The research, which is described in a new paper in eBioMedicine, also identified strong correlations between different long COVID subtypes and pre-existing conditions such as diabetes and hypertension."
“I was experiencing a lot of fatigue. But … everyone kept saying, ‘oh, you know, after a bad viral or any flu you do get that sort of fatigue.’ But I never improved,"
"And then she had a “bad crash.” She was buying vegetables in the market when her heart started racing and she fainted. This would repeat on several occasions, but no doctor could pinpoint exactly what was going on. At one point, they thought it was an adrenal gland tumor."
“[The Bill & Melinda] Gates [Foundation] and other funders should focus on providing grants to study LongCOVID and to support [clinical] trials,” Resia Pretorius, a professor and head of the Department of Physiological Sciences at Stellenbosch University in South Africa...
..exciting to see people diagnosed with such a potentially debilitating condition. Not at all. It is, however, a bit of a silver lining to the POTS community to see the pandemic force a spotlight on this long-ignored condition.
It is frustrating, though, that many of us have been suffering for a very long time and it took a pandemic to hear us. POTS is not rare. It is poorly recognized. I am hopeful to see that changing. It is changing."
"The mysterious condition known as long Covid may be in large part to blame for the labor shortage that has slowed Hawaii’s progress in recovering economically from the pandemic, state lawmakers were told Wednesday.
'Carl Bonham, executive director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, said UHERO will release a report this week that suggests tens of thousands of Hawaii residents may suffer from moderate to severe long Covid. The lingering illness may be causing some to
"Energy can be likened to money in the bank. If you keep spending without topping up, you soon get into debt. In long COVID, using up energy without planning rest can result in a “crash” or relapse. It can then take several days to accumulate enough energy to get going again."
"Many don’t realise that even activities like watching TV and being on social media can drain energy for those with long COVID. Work with your children to consider how much energy different activities require (you might categorise activities into low, medium and high energy) and