2023-11-29 18:48:31
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Long Covid: hope for all patients thanks to new research
Long covid, which affects 10 to 30% of people infected with the virus, is a phenomenon that is still largely unknown. A recent Franco-Portuguese study provides the first possible explanations for these persistent symptoms. With the hope of improving the diagnosis or even developing a treatment.
Since then, his life has turned upside down. What she told on Tuesday evening at the Valois campus in a conference dedicated to long Covid. Intense fatigue, hyperventilation, tachycardia, loss of memory and language… Difficult to live with. Especially when climbing stairs requires an immeasurable effort, while the thirty-year-old continued running races and marathons. When Angoumoisine stops work for the first time, at the end of May 2021, she is skeletal: “II had lost 12 kilos…”
I can’t mourn the loss of my previous life.
Months without response
Perrine Almeida went through months of wandering. Firstly medical. His attending physician told him that “it’s in the head”. Also social and professional: “I was told that I was somatizing. I didn’t understand why it lasted for me and not for others. » She lost friends, and also her job. “I have to separate from my patients because I can no longer be a nurse. However, it’s been my job for 16 years and that’s all I know how to do. »
When she talks regarding her life before, tears come: “I can’t mourn it. Now I’m happy when I can walk 10 minutes…” Angoumoisine is following an intense program to hope to regain her past life. Fortunately, she is supported by those close to her. Also by a doctor who follows her at the Limoges University Hospital: “When I met this doctor, he said, ‘I believe you.’ I burst into tears because finally, I had found someone who understood what I had. »
The time of science and that of the patient
Marine Grosset is the first to observe this medical vacuum. The infectious disease doctor at Girac hospital is following the evolution of long Covid in Charente. She deplores the lack of knowledge in the department. “As research and monitoring are attached to the university centers of the region, namely Limoges, Poitiers and Bordeaux, we are lacking in Charente. » But she is aware that “the time of science is not that of the patient. They want answers that only research can provide, and that takes time.”.
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But science is moving forward and allows us to identify a typical profile: an active woman, 45 years old, without comorbidity. “Even if there are aggravating risk factors like tobacco or diabetes. » Research allows us to put forward hypotheses. Long Covid most often appears three months following acute Covid. Above all, it would mainly come from the first variants of the epidemic, the most virulent. “It appears that post-infectious syndrome (POS) is linked to severe acute Covid or not. The more acute the Covid, the greater the risks of long Covid. » Even if the number of patients is, for the moment, insufficient, the scientific hypothesis would indicate that SPIs are less and less numerous as the variants evolve.
This SPI causes numerous disorders: chronic fatigue, neurological symptoms (brain fog, sensory disorder, neurovegetative manifestation), sleep, cardiac and digestive disorders and persistence of loss of smell. Disabling symptoms, without having any guarantee of regaining pre-Covid health, despite rehabilitation.
A need for training
Marine Grosset insists: “Professionals must train. We must stop saying that it is somatization: long Covid is recognized by the WHO. » For her, it is necessary to identify “the right players in the region to help patients. We need to surround these sick people.”
Muriel would like to have this medical entourage. This 47-year-old Angoumoisine contracted Covid in 2020. In the conversation, emotion quickly arises. “I am worn out by all this, I am no longer the same. » Her eyes redden when she mentions “dark thoughts. When you have to stop in the middle of a staircase, it’s very hard”. She has become “a robot mother” Who “isolates himself at the slightest grain of sand to cry”. Difficult to have a future perspective. The mother of three children is undergoing rehabilitation with physiotherapy sessions. But the slightest physical effort puts her in difficulty. “I’m taking dance lessons. But following each session, I’m down for two days. »
Muriel would like “more listening and understanding”. Marine Grosset agrees: “These patients need to talk. » This is demonstrated by the numerous responses from all over France following our call for witnesses. Messages for so much distress and desire for a normal life. The one before.
Marine Grosset is an infectious diseases doctor at the Girac hospital center.
Photo Quentin Petit
Rehabilitation through physical activity
These symptoms of long Covid, Pierrick Herveou knows them well. He is coordinator of the Peps system (physical exercise prescription for health) within the DAC-PTA (Support system for the coordination of the territorial support platform). A barbaric name which has a simple objective: to support patients in the practice of adapted sport. For long Covid, this requires a multidisciplinary approach: physiotherapist, neurologist, doctor, etc. “Holistic care” supports Pierrick Herveou. In Charente, since 2021, 21 patients have been followed, or 4.5% of patients in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Nine came out of the device. “Which does not mean that they are no longer sick”warns Pierrick Herveou, “but simply that the ongoing monitoring allows them to leave the Peps”.
If the device is still unknown, Pierrick Herveou encourages patients to contact his platform. This will make it possible to detect cases and meet expectations: “They ask themselves: ‘Why me?’” A member of the system is responsible for taking stock with patients during an interview which can last more than an hour. A separate moment to not let anything slip and choose the appropriate response. Which often involves physical exercise to “recalibrate the body” : “In a long Covid, the body reacts to the slightest effort because it no longer has any reference points, which creates significant inflammation. » A device like a light for patients often immersed in thick fog.
Information: 06 18 83 32 54 or [email protected].
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