A 25-year-old woman who has been suffering from long Covid for three years has revealed the symptoms she can't shift. Lily Seibert, 25, first tested positive for Covid-19 on March 24, 2020. She started suffering with flu-like symptoms and expected they would disappear after a few days.
Her flu-like symptoms went away after three weeks, but shortness of breath, lightheadedness and an increased heart rate for eight months meant she couldn't walk more than 15 minutes without feeling exhausted. Just climbing up the stairs left her feeling like she had done a night shift. She started trying inhalers, antibiotics and breathing exercises for shortness of breath - but they didn't work.
The account executive has revealed now the symptoms she can't get rid of - chronic exhaustion, shortness of breath, chest pain, rapid heart rate and difficulty exercising. Lily has started on a low-dose medication called Naltrexone - usually given to people dealing with overdose or addiction. Lily said: "I am now approaching three years of dealing with chronic exhaustion, shortness of breath, chest pain, rapid heart rate and difficulty exercising.
"While it is easy to feel discouraged, I am also hopeful knowing that studies and research about this condition are ongoing. As more people have unfortunately found themselves dealing with this debilitating condition, more attention has also been given to finding treatment options so I am hoping that will yield positive results."
In 2022, it was reported that more than two million people in the UK are still experiencing long Covid symptoms. Lily said: "At the beginning, it was a loss of identity for me. For so long I had been someone who played sports and worked out, that was how I connected with people in the past and that completely changed."
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
The account executive said that she isolated in her apartment for a month and started to feel more intense Covid symptoms - chest pains, shortness of breath and fatigue - but didn't have much energy to leave the house and move around anyway. She said: "Early on I suffered from chest pain, breathing difficulties and fatigue. Around three to four weeks around the time I figured I should be getting better, those symptoms weren't going away.
"It wasn't necessarily the strong discomfort we would associate with an acute illness but over time the symptoms would go away and then come out - it's been a rollercoaster."
The long Covid symptoms have made a lot of usual activities harder for Lily. Before contracting Covid, Lily described herself as an active person but since Covid, she has been unable to return to full fitness. She said: "It has definitely made a lot of activities harder to, before Covid I did a lot of running and working out, I was an active person in general.
"For the first five to eight months after Covid, I wasn't able to do any of that. I was trying to walk as much as possible but even that consisted of a slow 15-minute walk - it did not resemble what I could do before. It was an overnight shift for me, I was living a normal life and then the next day I had no ability to do what I did before. It has been a slow progression trying to get back to where I was and it has been up and down."
Over the last few years, Lily has had a number of therapies and medications and said while some of them have been helpful in managing symptoms, none of them has succeeded in getting rid of them entirely. She said: "In terms of therapies, that has changed a lot in the course of the last two and a half years. In the initial stages, I was given inhalers, antibiotics and breathing exercises for my shortness of breath. I then did acupuncture eight months after Covid and I did that for around a year. I found it successful and it got me to a level of normality as I noticed some improvements but over time it plateaued.
"I have been to a lot of different doctors, initially it was a primary care provider who gave me medication and from there I saw a cardiologist. In New York there is a post Covid client and I have been seeing a doctor there who has been seeing post Covid patients."
"It has been an ongoing process with seeing doctors, I have tried to scale back over the past year as I feel like I wasn't getting a tonne of benefits, I just don't feel one doctor holds the magic to know what the specific issue is."
After all other treatment options failed, Lily has started on a low-dose medication called Naltrexone - usually given to people dealing with overdose or addiction by reducing their cravings. In 2022, the University of British Colombia launched a study to determine if low-dose naltrexone reduces fatigue and improves covid related symptoms. Overall, the study found that low-dose naltrexone is safe and it may help to reduce pain and inflammation, improving well-being and immune function.
Reflecting on the last three years, Lily said it has been a process of rediscovering herself. She said: "It has been a long process of realising my own self-worth, anyone who has been through something like this, it is hard to communicate what the experience has been like and not getting the same level of understanding from people.
"There is a constant up and down feeling of being hopeful one day and feeling deflated the next day. It is hard to keep a stable mood or mindset as you never know how you could be feeling on any given day."
