{"id":1559,"date":"2023-05-26T21:44:16","date_gmt":"2023-05-27T04:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=1559"},"modified":"2023-05-26T21:44:16","modified_gmt":"2023-05-27T04:44:16","slug":"this-is-not-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2023\/05\/this-is-not-over\/","title":{"rendered":"This is not over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cov\u00adid, I mean. As in the pan\u00addem\u00adic that is still there, that people are try\u00ading to ignore and pre\u00adtend it\u2019s not that bad. Except that for those of us deal\u00ading with long cov\u00adid, or post-cov\u00adid, or cov\u00adid-induced chron\u00adic fatigue, or post-vir\u00adal chron\u00adic fatigue, call it what you will, it\u2019s very much still there. It\u2019s there every morn\u00ading when we wake up and feel halfway back to nor\u00admal, and then try to sit up or stand up or have a shower, and real\u00adise yet again we have to sit down for a few minutes to let the heart rate settle down. And I\u2019m one of the lucky ones that can stand and walk and sit for hours; so many are still bed-rid\u00adden. Some are func\u00adtion\u00ading des\u00adpite all of this (Cath\u00ader\u00adine Hey\u00admans<\/a>, for example), some are not. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing bet\u00adter than I was, the brain fog has lif\u00adted some\u00adwhat, but I\u2019m lim\u00adited in how many hours I can work each day, how much I can do phys\u00adic\u00adally, how much energy I have emo\u00adtion\u00adally. And I\u2019m one of the lucky ones, with a work\u00adplace that\u2019s under\u00adstand\u00ading and a fam\u00adily that\u2019s sup\u00adport\u00adive. Even with that, it\u2019s hard and frustrating.<\/p>\n

There are some 220 post-cov\u00adid symp\u00adtoms, which come in vari\u00adous group\u00adings and nuances. Com\u00admon symp\u00adtoms are brain fog, fatigue that comes seem\u00adingly from nowhere, a heart rate that bounces around, and the feel\u00ading that you can\u00ad\u2019t get enough breath. The BC<\/span> long cov\u00adid clin\u00adic (which requires a refer\u00adral from your fam\u00adily doc\u00adtor, should you be lucky enough to have one) con\u00adcen\u00adtrates on edu\u00adca\u00adtion, which is use\u00adful, but leaves you try\u00ading to fig\u00adure out what your own indi\u00advidu\u00adal type of post-cov\u00adid is. If you\u2019re lucky enough to have a sup\u00adport\u00adive fam\u00adily doc\u00adtor (which I do), they will try to work with you to fig\u00adure this all out. If you\u2019re unlucky enough to have one who does\u00adn\u2019t believe in dys\u00adauto\u00adnomia or pos\u00adtur\u00adal ortho\u00adstat\u00adic tachy\u00adcar\u00addia (POTS<\/span>) as symp\u00adtoms of long cov\u00adid, you go to the long cov\u00adid clin\u00adic and find sup\u00adport\u00adive voices from all the oth\u00aders whose doc\u00adtors don\u2019t believe their symp\u00adtoms are real.<\/p>\n

But they are real. One way to dia\u00adgnose POTS<\/span> at home is the NASA<\/span> lean test. Basic\u00adally, the the\u00adory behind the test is that when you go from lying to stand\u00ading, your blood pres\u00adsure nor\u00admally drops slightly as grav\u00adity acts on the blood, and your heart rate goes up a little to com\u00adpensate. If you\u2019re healthy, everything nor\u00admal\u00adizes rap\u00adidly so you can stand and walk without issues. The NASA<\/span> lean test tests how quickly that hap\u00adpens, and what your body goes through when you change elev\u00ada\u00adtion from lying to stand\u00ading. If you have POTS<\/span>, when you go from lying to stand\u00ading your heart rate goes up a lot, and either your blood pres\u00adsure drops a lot, or your blood pres\u00adsure goes up a lot. Both vari\u00adations are known, both indic\u00adate POTS<\/span>. A word of warn\u00ading if you want to try this test and you sus\u00adpect you may have some blood pres\u00adsure or heart rate issues: Make sure you don\u2019t have any\u00adthing major planned that day. Doing the test gave me a head\u00adache and wiped me out for the rest of the day. And of course, just know\u00ading that you have some POTS-style issue does not mean there\u2019s a treat\u00adment for it, oth\u00ader than the ubi\u00adquit\u00adous advice about pacing. <\/p>\n

Pacing is everything in the world of long cov\u00adid, along with not catch\u00ading cov\u00adid again. More on what that means next time, writ\u00ading this has depleted my energy levels for the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cov\u00adid, I mean. As in the pan\u00addem\u00adic that is still there, that people are try\u00ading to ignore and pre\u00adtend it\u2019s not that bad. Except that for those of us deal\u00ading with long cov\u00adid, or post-cov\u00ad\u00adid, or cov\u00ad\u00adid-induced chron\u00adic fatigue, or post-vir\u00adal chron\u00adic fatigue, call it what you will, it\u2019s very much still there. It\u2019s there \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cThis is not over\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1563,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}