There is a serious degree of deconditioning that comes with long Covid,” Sanders says. For some patients, “Covid comes in, whacks you, and you’re left with ME/CFS,” a debilitating variation of chronic fatigue syndrome. Other patients are left with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition in which your heart rate accelerates when you stand, often leading to a loss of consciousness. Others develop orthostatic hypotension, in which your resting blood pressure falls frighteningly low. Some, like me, are left with a mix of all of the above.
“So a lot of times, the patients I see are reasonably deconditioned because they have learned that when they exert themselves, they feel bad,” Sanders says.
Unfortunately, being less active further increases a person’s limitations, which can in turn exacerbate symptoms, trapping them in a cycle of physical decline.
So what do long Covid patients do?
“My advice to them is to partner with your body and figure out how you can integrate some level of activity into your daily life so that your heart and your lungs do not deteriorate,” Sanders says. She emphasizes that some level is often a very low level, otherwise patients risk pushing into post-exertional malaise, an extreme exacerbation of fatigue symptoms that can last for up to a week.
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