elizabeth semper He passed COVID-19 in February 2020. He caught the virus at work, even before confinement. Since then, his life has changed from head to toe. A month after the contagion, he was still not feeling well: “It wasn’t supposed to be COVID, but it didn’t look like any other illness I had previously suffered from either.”
Respiratory dysfunction led to a wide range of digestive, dermatological and vascular symptoms, among others. Sometimes she would lose the mobility of one foot or go deaf in one ear. She suffered from acute gastroenteritis for long periods of time and the rashes that broke out on her skin were reminiscent of hand, foot and mouth disease.
14 hours – The persistent covid: up to 200 symptoms that do not disappear – Listen now
The harshest symptoms, however, were those of a neurocognitive. “In a video call, I was trying to communicate something very simple and they did not understand me. From laughter, she passed to concern, ”she says. He stopped feeling sleepy, hungry or thirsty and he forgot such everyday things as what a cup of coffee is for: “He just served it to me, but I didn’t see any point in it.”
“I needed help for practically everything “
It was not until a year and a half after having passed the COVID-19 when he went to a specialist: “He had to get worse to the point of needing help for practically everything”. To the neurologist, he did not square her story with how he saw her physically: “He saw that there were no injuries, but that something had to be happening for that to happen in my life.”
Associationism versus misunderstanding
After the diagnosis, everything made sense. A few months ago, she promoted the ACOVID Persistent association Spain, of which she is president. Its objective is to find answers and advance treatments that improve their quality of life, but also to help and accompany patients in the same situation. “We were the ones who had to go almost door to door, doctor by doctor, explaining what was happening”.
beatrice He is 39 years old and was infected in December 2020: “In less than ten months, I have suffered four falls on the street without being aware of them until I found myself on the ground. To this day, I am unable to lead a normal life. I keep an agenda so I don’t forget things and my social life has become non-existent”. She has had to adapt her house to maintain her autonomy as much as possible, although she confesses that sometimes she needs help with tasks as simple as cleaning or putting on a washing machine. “My life passes between home, doctors and rehabilitation. And with an incredible terror of re-infecting myself”.
Naomi He was infected in January 2021 and, after a year of sick leave, he was discharged forcibly. She is 40 years old and is a veterinarian. According to the court, her symptoms were not incompatible with her job title. Nevertheless, the company ended up firing her for unexpected ineptitude. Now, she is unemployed and “with a hopeless future ahead.” In addition to fatigue and problems standing, there are cognitive sequelae such as difficulty concentrating or communicating correctly, memory failures or hypersensitivity to sound.
A silent and unknown disease
For Elizabeth Semper, cases like Noemí’s are due to lack of knowledge of the disease. “Since there is no study to support these hypotheses, which are simply collected empirically, they understand that they have no reason to postpone the discharge.” In December 2021, the Ministry of Health and the Carlos III Institute began the CIBERPOSTCOVID studywith the aim of obtaining the scientific keys to deal with persistent COVID.
The first phase, which ended in July, agreed on a first definition of the syndrome and put the most frequent symptoms on the table. However, Semper insists on the need to continue advancing. “We need many more studies to understand what the mechanism is and try to stop it,” he claims.