{"id":4964,"date":"2023-08-29T16:26:33","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T16:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=4964"},"modified":"2023-08-29T16:26:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T16:26:33","slug":"researchers-fear-people-of-color-may-be-disproportionately-affected-by-long-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=4964","title":{"rendered":"Researchers fear people of color may be disproportionately affected by long Covid<\/a>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Blitshteyn worries about the low rate of full recovery she observed in a March 2021 case series<\/a> of 20 patients with new-onset postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (a condition affecting blood flow that leads to dizziness, rapid heart rate, and fainting) and other autonomic disorders after Covid. While 60% of patients improved, only 15% returned to working full-time after eight months of follow-up. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a pandemic of long Covid,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a lot of people who are quite disabled and a lot of people with chronic illness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others are more sanguine, if still cautious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would almost say the vast majority of people with long Covid will get better over time, given time, given support, and given symptomatic relief and common-sense approaches to reactivating themselves,\u201d Kathleen Bell, department chair of physical medicine and rehabilitation at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said on the Infectious Diseases Society of America call with reporters. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think at this point again that anyone can say how long this long Covid lasts because there are a variety of factors \u2014 the presence of type 2 diabetes, for instance, the presence of preexisting pulmonary disease \u2014 many things that will affect the length of recovery from long Covid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That path to recovery does vary, UNC\u2019s Baratta agreed. Some who get hit hard by the initial illness or by the initial long Covid bout have a slow, gradual recovery. For others, symptoms fluctuate, so they might have a few good weeks followed by a few not-so-good weeks. Some feel like they\u2019re getting worse, although he said that\u2019s not as common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople do get better. They haven\u2019t gotten to 100%, like they feel completely normal, but most of the time they do feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BENJAMIN ABRAMOFF, DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA POST-COVID ASSESSMENT AND RECOVERY CLINIC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penn\u2019s Abramoff sees a similar pattern of incremental progress. \u201cPeople do get better,\u201d he said. \u201cThey haven\u2019t gotten to 100%, like they feel completely normal, but most of the time they do feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when does that happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brode of the University of Texas has been encouraged to hear that when people are no longer drained from any small activity \u2014 classified as post-exertional malaise \u2014 all their symptoms start to get better. That improvement suggests a reprieve from an overactive immune response, he said, especially in women in their 30s and 40s. Women tend to outnumber men at long Covid clinics, supporting theories about gender differences in immunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome people\u2019s immune systems go haywire after Covid. We\u2019re trying to look at the similarities between chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and long Covid,\u201d he said, echoing Blitshteyn, Bhadelia, and others in the field. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen post-viral illnesses cause chronic fatigue, small fiber neuropathy, autonomic dysfunction. I think there\u2019s something probably specific to Covid, but we\u2019ve never seen a virus on this scale in the modern era.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where does that leave patients now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re getting more confident that even just some of the basic health strategies of self-care, rest, physical therapy, and some symptomatic medication are really effective,\u201d Brode said. \u201cSymptomatic treatment is good, not great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joni White tells a different story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey saved my life as far as I\u2019m concerned. At least they saved my brain,\u201d she said about her therapists at UNC. \u201cThey gave me the tools I needed that I didn\u2019t know were out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blitshteyn worries about the low rate of full recovery she observed in a March 2021 case series of 20 patients with new-onset postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (a condition affecting blood flow that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,169,175,836,289,862,452,566],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diabees","category-fatigure","category-fibromyalgia","category-immune-system","category-long-haul-disease","category-malaise-fatigue","category-postural-orthostatic-tachycardia-pots","category-tachycardia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}