Grim reality of life with Long Covid

Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle with Denise McNamara

While we are still riding this third most serious wave of Covid-19, attention is slowly turning to those who are still suffering after catching it. With no figures yet collated in Ireland about how prevalent this so-called Long Covid is, the latest data for England based on a randomly sampled survey of households indicates that 21% of 8,200 participants still had symptoms five weeks after infection and almost 10% were reporting symptoms twelve weeks after testing positive.

Given there have been 6,000 confirmed Covid cases in Galway that’s a lot of pain.

One of those is Aoife Moore, 38, from Colmanstown in East Galway. Her initial symptoms began to appear the day schools closed down last March.

“The cough started followed by non-stop chest pain. It’s unmistakable. It feels like your lungs are being grated raw, or like I was breathing in fire. Aches everywhere, awful back pain but I think it was my lungs not my back. No energy, completely fatigued, no restful sleep, I felt like I was more in and out of consciousness at times.”

It took almost a month to get a positive test back. By that stage she was confined to bed all day and in chronic pain. Ten months on and things have improved little.

“Sometimes I have to choose between activities – shower or put on a load of washing – which is slightly more of a priority.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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