To understand what it's like to have long COVID these days, a good place to start might be an in-depth story at Men's Health that focuses on the frustrating plights of two men. One is 35-year-old Levi Henry, who used to crush CrossFit workouts before contracting COVID in December 2021. He still hasn't recovered. The other is 42-year-old Dr. Matthew Light, a pulmonologist who tested positive in February 2023 and has yet to shake the effects. That has led Light to create an online support group from Colorado's UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies, and the story by Erika Hayasaki describes the sentiment in the group toward Light:
- "There is an understanding among them, a camaraderie. They know Dr. Light is like them. And it is not easy right now to be them. He gets it. Everyone here gets it. What it's like to be doubted by friends and loved ones. To have their symptoms disregarded by strangers or misdiagnosed by doctors. How brain fog can submerge the mind some days, thoughts sloshing around in a murky soup. He endures the fatigue, understands how it comes in spurts and hits like a tsunami in the early afternoon. It is a weighted sled he cannot stop pushing. Like all of them, he desperately wants to feel better."
The story tracks the specific efforts of both men to recover (Henry has tried novel treatments such as hyperbaric chambers, ice baths, various supplements, and red light therapy with no success) and to understand what's going on. But it also provides larger context: They are among an estimated 20 million Americans and 400 million people worldwide with long COVID, which is often misdiagnosed and poorly understood, even by medical professionals. Research is ongoing, but progress is slow. (Read the full story.)
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