So I’ve had covid 3 times now. After the first time, pre-lockdown, I started finding myself getting stuck on words and thoughts and experiencing significant memory issues. That hasn’t gone away in the 5 years and 2 more infections since. I’ve since been written up for forgetting to do things because my memory has gotten so bad. During my writeup meeting, couldn’t even articulate a proper defense for myself. I find myself walking around asking myself “What was I doing?” and saying “I swear to god, I can do this!”
It’s total bullshit and scares the hell out of me that it’s gonna get worse and I won’t be able to do my job anymore…
This is pretty common in the long COVID community unfortunately. Neurological post-COVID can have all sorts of consequences.
Studies have shown people to come out of COVID infections with lower cognitive abilities and even sometimes decreased brain sizes (an effect which doesn’t seem to get better with time).
Maybe im lucky in that regard but my brainfog was mostly gone about a year after my last infection. Still dealing with the physical effects which have gotten worse but alas.
I suppose it’s comforting to know that others are in the same boat. Still scary to think about this being yet another chronic condition I’ll have to learn to live with and work around, that I might not be able to, or even that it may be a progressive or even cumulative issue if I get it again.
If you’d like, I can pm you a discord support group invite (conditional on you being older than 16 and younger than 40 [we are limiting to that age range] and not being a bigot).
Just note that while there are some people in the same situation as you in that group, there are others who have been completely disabled ie. bedridden for years due to COVID. Long COVID is very much a heterogeneous condition.
(This invite is valid for anyone else with Long COVID on lemmy).
Why does it cap at age 40?
There are lots of other support groups out there.
This one keeps people in a similar age range because we have a grief of becoming disabled that looks quite different to someone who has already lived most of their life healthy. Most of us got long COVID in our early 20s/30s and therefore have a lot of similarities of losing the ability to have children, our jobs, not having much savings to help us etc.
I’m over the age unfortunately, but I really appreciate the offer!
Ah sorry about that.
If useful for you bluesky has become quite a nice congregation sort of place for people with long COVID. I can privately send you a starter pack if you’d like.
Also, The Sick Times has been doing some excellent journalism and resource sharing vis à vis long COVID.
I’m just sharing incase useful, I’ve felt so much safer now that I have a community of people with the same disability as me to discuss with :).
r/covidlonghaulers on reddit is alright, but full of people claiming random unproven treatments cured them, sometimes it reads like an essential oils facebook page, (and that’s not even counting r/longcovid, which is owned by a company selling vitamins lol).
I wish more people in situations like yours would make it public, and more media and political attention was given to it. Long Covid is a big problem, it’s still growing, and it’s only going to get worse if we don’t start investing significantly in prevention and support.
What we’re doing now is how societies decline.
I hope things get better for you.
Its amazing how, when I tell people that I’m not worried about fever for a week, but I’m worried about long covid – half the people look at me puzzled and legitimately haven’t heard of long covid before.
I saw a study recently that estimated 200,000 people were getting long covid per week in the US at the end of 2024.
If you get covid 3 times per year, you have a 30% chance of getting long covid.
This, I think, explains why the US is the way it is. Idiocracy just got expedited by covid
What does long COVID face look like? Different than a regular face?
And what are these COVID faced people pishing back against?
They’re probably disgruntled on account of the long face, from the COVID.
