Why I can’t just treat this “like a cold” and why I won’t “get a fucking grip”

A thread 🧵 Exactly 3yrs ago today I caught CV19 for the 1st time.
Initially it was like a bad cold. It did put me in bed for a day or so but within a week I was back up and about again. So far so good. On narrative.

However things didn’t feel right. I hadn’t quite reassembled properly.

Before I got #longcovid 2.5yrs ago, I used to go to Blaze, a HIIT session at the gym involving loud pumping music, low lighting, weights, cardio and punch bags, with big screen metrics for motivation. I LOVED it and would come out ripped, sweaty and happy, 3x a week 1/7 Since I’ve been sick, the kids have turned the right age to go to Blaze. I watch them coming out, red faced, exhausted and talking excitedly about what their young bodies can do. They are realising the potential of the human body, exploring their boundaries, pushing limits. 2/7

Two years ago today that I contracted a mild case of #CV19, before vaccines, before masks, before lockdowns. My life has been turned upside since by #longcovid with waves of frightening, debilitating symptoms, desperation and deterioration in mental and physical health 1/12 From March 9th 2020 my health went downhill - constant crushing chest compression and pain, a constant feeling of suffocation (covid strangle), joint and muscle pain, fever, dizziness, cognitive impairment, ruinous insomnia, terrible gastro-intestinal issues (nausea, reflux) 2/12

700 days post “mild” covid infection: Persistent tinnitus, headache, de-realisation, agonising costochondritis, dysfunctional breathing, joint / muscle pain, insomnia, post exertional malaise, exhaustion, gastro-intestinal issues (colitis, reflux, nausea)… a horror journey. 1/9 What have I learnt? Chronic illness is utterly shit. It is all encompassing, insidious, pervasive. It is scandalously ignored by research, media, funding and political will. It can lose you your friends, your family and your job. It leaves you alone, vulnerable and terrified 2/9

I am in my forties (was) super fit and healthy, barely had time off work over a 25yrs+ career and only on the very rarest of occasions took meds. A “mild” covid infection has left me with horrendous #longcovid for nearly two years and turned who I was, completely upside down 1/5 I’ve had 6mos out of work, can now barely do simple yoga moves without days of consequences and physical repercussions, live in constant pain / malaise and spend a fortune on meds. This is just ONE of the meds draws I’ve got. And note these manage - NOT relieve - symptoms. 2/5

It’s been 600 days since I went down with a mild case of #covid. In this time I have experienced the most terrifying and relentless illness in #longcovid. Thankfully I do feel better these days but in some ways I’m a shadow of the man I used to be. Some highlights from 600 days: 1. Lungs that burnt and felt full of flour making it impossible to get a full breathe or to “feel” a full breathe. For six months. I will NEVER forget that suffocating feeling. Every day and night. It has left me traumatised.