Sammie McFarland CEO & Founder LCK talks to Dan Walker and Ruth Liptrot about two families who were facing child protection proceedings because Long Covid is poorly understood and how the charity helped.

#LongCovidKids #LongCovid #Children #ShapingUs #Childhood #longcovidawarenessday #postcovidcondition #postcovidsyndrome #covidlonghaulers

‘Nearly 1/4 of pediatric survivors suffered multisystem long COVID, even at 1 year after infection. Ongoing monitoring, comprehensive prevention and intervention is warranted for pediatric survivors, especially for individuals’

Multiple symptoms and multi-system involvement were reported.

Link in bio to read the paper.

#longcovidkids #longcovid #children #postcovidcondition #postcovidsyndrome #kids #childhealth

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876034123000710

#PostCovidSyndrome #COVIDlonghauler
#chronicillness

This March marks 3yrs living with Post-COVID complications.

While some of the minor symptoms have improved over the last couple years, there are many that refuse to relent (#POTS , severe #chronicfatiguesyndrome , neuropathy, muscle weakness, migraines, tremors, brain fog, tinnitus, etc). It took over 2 and a half years to find a medication that provided any substantial improvement, and even that took finding a provider willing to reach out to the right researchers for options. I will also be heading to Northwestern’s neurology dept. in a few weeks to continue testing, so I’m crossing my fingers for an increased momentum of progress this year. If nothing else, being a data point feels like an important part of the journey.

Unfortunately grief has also become a huge factor in this process. Becoming disabled in my 30’s was not in my life plan (especially just months after completing undergrad and moving across the country). Coupled with the state of *gestures broadly at everything*, it’s hard to really wrap my head around this new normal. Whatever dreams and aspirations I had before are simply no longer realistic, and it’s been a struggle to reimagine personal expectations for the future, alas I’m doing my best to do so.

In my experience, Long-Haul / Post-COVID Syndrome isn’t frequently discussed or acknowledged outside of the medical field (and even then it’s a mixed bag). Not to mention there’s a large percentage of folks who vehemently deny its existence entirely.

I’ve only shared a tiny fraction of this journey publicly (on other platforms) and sometimes I wish I’d had the strength to share more of my experience for the sake of awareness and advocacy, but to be frank, the politicization of the pandemic coupled with my exposure to COVID-denying family, friends, and community members became a detriment to my mental health. Battling the long term affects of a new virus in real time is a psychological hellscape of its own without also being expected to defend the reality you’re living in. Fortunately I’ve had access to mental health resources during this time, and I can’t stress enough how dire my situation would be without that support.

I often wonder if we’ll ever truly comprehend the long-term consequences of this #pandemic.