Long Covid in Ebersberg: “As if someone had pulled the plug on me” – Ebersberg

There is bitterness in Magdalena Hauser’s voice as she begins to describe her ordeal: illness in November 2020, a mild course. Three to four weeks later it started with exhaustion, joint pain and lack of condition. “It was as if someone had pulled the plug on me,” says the 58-year-old, who works in a logistics company. The symptoms have meanwhile gotten a little better, but even today, almost two years later, the disease can flare up on some days in such a way that she is practically unable to move.

Hauser, who actually has a different name and does not want to appear in the newspaper with her real name, is one of many for whom the pandemic is anything but over. She suffers from Long Covid, is a member of a self-help group for those affected in Erding and is far from alone with her suffering in the region.

There are many different symptoms

Late effects of an illness with the corona virus are “very present”, says Marc Block, chairman of the Ebersberg district medical association. In his own general practice, he has many patients who come to him weeks after an infection with suddenly recurring symptoms.

These are varied and read like the worst of a package leaflet: exhaustion and fatigue, cardiac arrhythmia, loss of the sense of smell, shortness of breath, lack of concentration and brain fog – the list could go on and on. According to Block, most of his patients are okay after four to six weeks. “But a few suffer from it for a really long time.”

Long Covid is a collective term for all long-term consequences of a corona disease

The duration and the point in time at which the symptoms appear are the central criteria used to distinguish between a long-Covid illness and the post-Covid syndrome or condition. Noisy Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the British National Institute for Health and Care Excellence have proposed the most common classification: All symptoms that occur four weeks after infection are considered acute. If the symptoms persist, the symptoms are said to be ongoing for up to twelve weeks after the onset of the disease. All symptoms of illness that appear or persist after twelve weeks are referred to as post-Covid syndrome.

Long Covid, in turn, is a collective term that summarizes all long-term consequences of a corona infection, i.e. both persistent symptoms and the post-Covid syndrome. However, the terms and categories are constantly being adjusted to reflect the latest medical knowledge.

Ignorance about the disease is great

Most things about this disease are still unknown. That starts with the numbers. one essay According to the Association of Scientific Medical Societies, 13.3 percent of patients suffer from symptoms longer than 28 days after infection. 2.3 percent are attributed to the post-Covid syndrome, i.e. show symptoms for more than twelve weeks.

Other Long-term and meta studies In turn, report 20 percent of those affected after four weeks, some even assume that 80 percent of those infected would have long-term consequences. However, all these studies are based on different concepts and methodologies. Because of this warns the RKIthat “the incidence of Long Covid cannot yet be reliably estimated”.

Anyone can get Long Covid

But even low estimates in the single-digit percentage range still mean thousands – and more and more people – are affected. Nadja Prell and Gerhard Moser see that too. The yoga therapist and alternative practitioner for psychotherapy launched the self-help group for long-term Covid damage in Erding last year, in which Magdalena Hauser also found herself.

Open detailed view

“New people keep coming to us,” says Prell. Depending on the period of time, there are between five and twenty members in the group, from all the surrounding districts, including Ebersberg. Gerhard Prell had Long Covid himself in 2020, suffered from memory loss and hair loss. Now he and Moser are helping others who are also suffering.

The group they look after is very heterogeneous. “We’ve all got it all over the place,” says Moser. People with severe courses find their way to them as well as those who hardly had any symptoms; Men are represented as well as women; and very young people are as common with them as older sufferers. “Our youngest, a student, was hit the hardest,” reports Nadja Prell. She is so chronically exhausted that going to school is difficult if not impossible.

The general practitioner Marc Block tells a similar story, although he too cannot identify a typical patient: “I’ve been treating three young men in their mid-thirties for two years. One of them used to run a marathon.” Youth and sportiness therefore do not guarantee protection against Long Covid, unfortunately neither does complete vaccination protection.

It may be an autoimmune reaction in the body

However, the members of the self-help group and Block’s patients do not represent a representative sample, which they themselves refer to. Epidemiological studies go according to RKI assume that women are at higher risk than men, that teenagers are more at risk than children and that a high viral load during the initial infection increases the risk, as do certain pre-existing conditions such as diabetes mellitus. There is also Hints that the virus variant also has an influence on the probability of contracting Long Covid.

However, it is unclear why some people get Long Covid and others do not, and the mechanism behind the disease can only be speculated at this time. A much-discussed explanation is that Long Covid is an autoimmune reaction. For example, neurologists found specific autoantibodies in the spinal cord of post-Covid patients, which they associated with the typical symptoms of exhaustion. However, even small blood clots are considered a possible cause examined, as well as organ damage or corona viruses remaining in the body. Perhaps some or all of these elements are the cause, or it turns out that different long-Covid symptoms require different explanations.

Therapies can still only alleviate the symptoms of the disease

Since the cause of Long Covid is not known, the treating physicians have no choice but to conduct exclusion diagnostics, as Marc Block explains. “We only diagnose this when there is no other medical condition that could explain the symptoms.” Accordingly, treatment is currently limited to relieving symptoms. For example, the Isar-Amper-Klinikum in Haar has one Day clinic for post-Covid diseases furnished. Due to the variety of possible symptoms, there are many therapeutic approaches, ranging from Nordic walking to occupational therapy and cognitive training.

But not everyone can benefit from these offers. Magdalena Hauser has tried a lot, “grabbing at every straw”, as she says, both in terms of classic and alternative healing methods – nothing helped in the long run. If an affected person suffers from “post-exertional malaise”, i.e. rapid exhaustion after exertion, rehabilitation with a lot of exercise can even be harmful, like this WHO warns.

Above all, those affected want their suffering to be recognized

Nevertheless, Prell, Moser and Hauser are happy that there are now diagnoses and treatments for Long Covid at all. It wasn’t always the way they reported it. When Magdalena Hauser looked to several doctors for an explanation for her problems – which were still incomprehensible at the time – at the beginning of 2021, “no one took her seriously”. Prell and Moser also report mixed reactions from those around the sick. Friends, family and employers did not always show understanding, not least because those affected are symptom-free some days and not others. For many, it was also a “difficult way” to receive the Long Covid diagnosis.

A lot has happened in the meantime. Nevertheless, all three and also doctor Marc Block wish above all that Long Covid is taken seriously as an illness, privately as well as in work and politics. Gerhard Moser reports that many members of the self-help group would like more protection, but find themselves in the contradictory situation of being attacked for it: “It used to be frowned upon not to wear a mask, today it’s the other way around.”

According to Magdalena Hauser, acknowledging the suffering is the least you can offer those affected. Since her illness, she has clearly lost her zest for life, she no longer plans ahead because she never knows when the next flare-up will come, and she has had to reduce her work. She expects politicians to deal better – or at all – with the pandemic, especially with a view to the coming winter. For her own future, she has only one wish: “I just hope that I can get better again.”