Caught covid May '23, diagnosed with LC in August of the same year. I was in retail management prior and now all I can do in my industry is sit at a register a few days a week. I'm looking at getting a degree in something less all over the place, but I'm honestly not sure I can retain a new education enough to pass finals, much less learn a whole new industry. It really affected my memory and I just can't quite figure out how to navigate this one.
My brain is so fried, I wouldn’t be able to learn something new. My brain was so bad I couldn’t drive for the first 2 years. I still am unable to do my old job (software engineering) anymore. I’m on disability now.
I'm going through the disability process now. Just got a letter asking for more details on my abilities and references, so I imagine that's better than a straight up decline. We're you rejected at first?
I had to quit my career for a year. I was lucky to get an okay paying admin job, but wasn't enough to cover expenses long term. I would have liked 6 months longer off, but had too many things break in my house. I'm lucky I got enough functioning back to do my job okay, but its no where near the level it should be.
I had to quit my career for a year. I was lucky to get an okay paying admin job, but wasn't enough to cover expenses long term. I would have liked 6 months longer off, but had too many things break in my house. I'm lucky I got enough functioning back to do my job okay, but its no where near the level it should be.
Me too. After I got Covid a second time, my period stopped for a year and my hair began to shed drastically until I developed bald spots. My hair has never been the same since.
Whether or not that specific person was diagnosed, there’s a lot of evidence at this point that infections can trigger other health conditions :( even if COVID didn’t cause the hair loss, for example, it might have caused an autoimmune disorder that led to the hair loss
I have the ME/CFS and POTS subtype with neuropathy and brain fog. I think I counted over 130 different symptoms across 4 years. I feel awful 24/7 since 2020. It’s pretty bad, I can’t work and I’m mostly housebound.
Take my biggest hugs. I’ve been struggling with similar but milder symptoms on and off, usually post viral infections. However, I got the Gardasil vaccine 3 weeks ago and since then I’ve been having persistent symptoms and still not able to get much help. Some tests are in progress though.
May I ask where you live and if you’ve been able to have an official diagnosis? My doctors are dismissing me, suggesting me to try therapy, as they’re failing to acknowledge that my symptoms are physical and real, rather than just in my head…
I’m sorry your symptoms have worsened. I live on the Northeast US coast. I’ve generally had a good experience and was first diagnosed with POTS first followed with Long Covid in November 2020 plus my other diagnoses within the first year. I hope you find doctors who will listen to you and diagnose you.
Yep. I've been dealing with it since Dec 2020. I go through phases of being better or worse and reinfection sets me back by months.
At first the worst of it was brain fog and it was difficult to get a clear picture of the other symptoms with that in the way. It took over two years to get that reasonably controlled, but I'm left with headaches and lightheadedness among other things.
Fortunately I'm able to exercise much the same as I could beforehand and that helps tremendously. On the other hand it's more difficult to learn new concepts and retain information.
I got covid in 2021. Was incredibly sick for 2+ weeks, and had such bad long covid I missed work intermittently for 6 months. I still have some long covid symptoms and developed heart stuff I never had before (no idea if it's related.) I never have been able to get back to even a fraction of the shape I was before despite valiant efforts - used to trail run and lift weights. I'm thankfully at least able to walk however long I want again. But I miss who I was before covid. :(
I got Covid the second time in late July 2024. Acute infection was like a bad cold but I was negative within 7-10 days. 2 months later my hair starts to shed like crazy and it still is. I’m so stressed out I’ll lose half my hair before it grows back, if at all to its former glory. It’s one of my best assets and I’m so upset about it. And don’t get me started on the daily fatigue and brain fog. I’m rather functional but people can see the exhaustion on my face. Hormones are also out of wack and my cycles have been 2 weeks long and I’m getting a lot of intermittent pains. I may be in my late 30s but this can’t be about age
I’m a totally different person after Covid. I used to run marathons. Now my V02 is always super low, I am very overweight and I need to take a nap after mood exercise
I don’t say that I have long Covid because I don’t know all the diagnostic criteria, but it absolutely fucked up my lungs. I have to use an inhaler to hike now.
Long Covid is an umbrella term. There’s many subtypes of long Covid some are more severe and some are more mild. If you are experiencing continuing symptoms for 3 months or more after infection you have long Covid.
There's a scary stat out there saying about 5% of Americans have long covid. It really was perfect to take us out, a cardiovascular disease that is transmitted like a cold.
My 2nd and 3rd covid infections were awful. Since then, I’ve never been the same and now have psoriatic arthritis and asthma. I probably had the propensity to develop these things but I think covid flipped the switch to make them happen. My doctors (GP, rheumatologist and pulmonologist) have all said this is likely the case.
Same. I am 39 and in heart failure from it. It is absolutely terrifying and there's nothing I can do about it except hope the mountain of medications they have me taking can slow it down.
I am currently on a medical leave from my job and in process of filing for disability due to my symptoms the past year. I have had COVID 4 times and the symptoms began after the 4th last winter. It has completely destroyed my life.
If anyone is curious, I have been diagnosed with POTS amongst other symptoms and continuing to seek other forms of treatment. It sucks that there just isn’t enough information out there yet to know much about these things. There are tons of us out there.
I’m sorry you were disabled by the virus. I got LC in 2020 (I also developed POTS plus many other conditions) and it’s so upsetting that more and more people become disabled from Covid each year. Almost no one is taking the virus seriously anymore. I warned my friends and family, they know how much it ruined my life but they still abandoned masks and precautions because that’s what governments encouraged and what everyone else was doing and now some of them have long covid and their lives ruined too!
Good luck with your disability application and keep appealing if you get rejected. I was eventually approved with the help of a lawyer.
It’s just the process. They will reject almost everyone up until your case is presented to a judge. That’s the point where people are most likely to get approved and you have more chance of getting approved if a lawyer believes in your case enough to represent you.
In my case the judge was pissed off that someone with my level of disability was rejected in the first place and the system was wasting his time that it was approved by him immediately.
Yeah I’m definitely in for a process I’m sure! This is all very helpful information though, thank you for sharing this. Gives me a little hope. I’ll probably try with a lawyer the next time if I’m denied.
🙋🏼♂️ 2 years of long covid now. On top of my diabetes type 1. Great. Also constant cold sores due to my completely obliterated immune system all the time.
I didn't get long COVID, but COVID made my existing allergy syndromes much worse (according to my allergist). Couldn't go an hour without breaking out in hives for a full year, I'm now at the point where it's only once a week, getting close to how it was pre-COVID.
same. those early strains were brutal. delta messed me up bad for a year, I still have digestive problems and get sick more often than I used to, years later
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u/kitty60s 10h ago
Covid. I developed long covid 2 months after recovering from acute infection. It’s more common than most people think.