Surviving long COVID three years into the pandemic

It's Been a Minute

NPR

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🗓️ 21 March 2023

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

It's been three years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. And according to the CDC, out of all the American adults who have had COVID — and that's a lot of us — one in five went on to develop long COVID symptoms. While so many are struggling with this new disease, it can be hard for people to know what to do to take care of themselves. The Long COVID Survival Guide aims to give people struggling with long COVID practical solutions and emotional support to manage their illness.

In this conversation from November 2022, host Brittany Luse talks to Fiona Lowenstein, editor of the guide, and Karla Monterroso, one of the contributors, about the difficulty of getting diagnosed, navigating long COVID and creating long-term collective care.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany Luce.
0:04.4	It's been three years since the COVID-19 pandemic locked us all down.
0:10.7	And in 2023, people are still getting sick from COVID and not just four week or two.
0:16.6	According to the CDC, of the adults who have had COVID and that's a lot of us,
0:21.9	one in five have developed long COVID symptoms and it can really take a toll.
0:27.7	It was this feeling like I had been run over by a train and I couldn't get up from the tracks
0:34.5	and I was screaming at people not to come to the train tracks.
0:39.2	That's Carla Montoroso. She's a contributor to a new book called the Long COVID Survival Guide.
0:44.8	The Long COVID Survival Guide is first and foremost for people dealing with long COVID.
0:50.6	And that's Fiona Lowenstein, the editor of the book. It offers emotional support for folks
0:55.7	going through long COVID but also a lot of really practical advice for managing symptoms and finding
1:01.2	care. I think we also hope that people without long COVID read this book as well to really understand
1:07.5	what it's like to live with this disease and how they can provide help.
1:12.4	I talked to Fiona and Carla last fall to get some tips from their book on how to care for ourselves
1:19.0	and for one another. Some of the people I love have long COVID and I learned so much about how
1:25.3	to support them from talking to Fiona and Carla about this guide. Here's our chat.
1:32.8	The book really focused on the lived experiences of people who were not medical experts with people
1:40.1	who had done a lot of research and read a lot. Carla, it makes me think specifically about
1:46.3	your onboarding document. Like that, I mean, it's something I had COVID earlier this year
1:55.1	and it would have been great to have an onboarding document at that time just to help me to understand
2:01.2	what was happening with my body. Talk to me about why you wanted to include that in the book.
2:07.6	Yeah. So I went to the hospital three different times over the course of my initial acute COVID
	...

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