A Valley teenager is still battling COVID-19 symptoms more than a year after contracting the virus.
Lydia Pastore, a 16-year-old girl at Red Mountain High School, became incredibly ill in February 2020. Over the past year, she has experienced intense fatigue, body aches and a host of other symptoms that go away. from the burning of eyes and trembling face to hand.
“This was the worst illness I had ever suffered in my life,” Lydia said. “Muscle aches and fatigue where I can’t get out have just been constant. Walking to the end of my road would exhaust me to the point of having to recover for two days.
Throughout the year, Lydia was plagued with chronic fatigue, sleeping an average of 15 hours a day. After multiple visits to the doctor, he began a diary as a tremor therapy that became a method of tracking his own symptoms.
“I did a symptom tracker monthly, just because there were so many symptoms to follow up on,” Lydia said. “I wish at the beginning of my infection I had such a resource because all the specialists I had visited were asking me,‘ What has changed? What’s new? What are the symptoms you experience? “And it was always frustrating trying to remember all of that.”
Lydia decided to turn her illnesses into an opportunity to connect with other teens struggling with the long-term effects of COVID-19. She created the website chronicconnections.org, where teens can share their personal journey with COVID-19 and request a symptom-tracking journal that Lydia sends for free to anyone in the United States.
“I hope it’s a place where teens can connect with others who live the same as them. To find comfort in resemblance,” said Lydia, who has already received four letters from teens about their struggles. “I’m so happy already with these four stories I’ve had so far and given these magazines, but I just feel like there are a lot more teenagers.”
What is “Long COVID?”
Lydia said she has seen eight different health professionals find out why she is still experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 months after her illness. His Valley fever tests turned negative. Although she was never tested for COVID-19, her doctors believe Lydia has “long COVID” when a person experiences symptoms of COVID-19 long after she has contracted the virus.
“This postviral syndrome occurs when you have finished the initial infection, but for some unknown reason, we still have some of the symptoms you had before for a time that doesn’t really make sense scientifically,” Dr. Gary Kirkilas, spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
For doctors, Lydia is considered a “long hauler.” Dr. Kirkilas said that once the virus is removed in long carriers, there is a residual effect of COVID-19 that could be caused by the remaining low amounts of the virus that cannot be detected by COVID-19 testing. but they still require a response from the body’s immunity. system. Another reason could be that the initial virus caused internal damage to organs that have not yet healed.
On Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a new initiative to study “long COVID” to “identify the causes and ultimately the means of prevention and treatment of people who have been sick with COVID- 19, but which do not fully recover over a period of a few weeks. “
According to the NIH, symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, “brain fog,” sleep disorders, fevers, gastrointestinal symptoms, anxiety, and depression.
“What separates them is this brain problem, this brain problem from this fog,” said Dr. Frank LoVecchio, an emergency physician at Valleywise Hospital. “In the hospital, we call it encephalitis (or inflammation of the brain). They can’t concentrate either. They tend to be more forgotten.”
In December, the U.S. Congress provided $ 1.15 billion to the NIH to study the long-term effects of COVID-19.