COVID’s long-term legacy leads to months of suffering for some Valley patients

For many residents of Aspen and the roaring fork valley, the annual commemoration of the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of the tunnel came to light thanks to vaccinations and declining numbers of cases.

For others with persistent symptoms of the coronavirus, however, the light is harder to see.

“It feels like I’m having a nightmare,” said Clay Shiflet, an Aspen Middle School teacher and Valley resident who has been suffering from COVID-19 for a year. “It’s literally hard to turn your head to feel like you have something that has become essentially chronic.”

Shiflet and others are known as ‘elongators’, and studies across the country show that more and more people who have the virus are citing symptoms that just won’t go away. The number of long-distance caregivers appears to vary, with a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association and a study by British scientists estimating that 10% of COVID-19 patients belong to the group, although others have suggested that the number is many. whore.

The number of long-distance guards in Pitkin County has been on the high side so far.

According to a Pitkin County Public Health Survey, between 50 and 60% of people who tested positive for COVID-19 between March and August said they had at least one persistent symptom six months later. said Josh Vance, provincial epidemiologist.

Of these cases, between 20% and 25% reported five or more persistent symptoms, between 10% and 15% reported 10 or more, and one person had 33 symptoms related to the virus, he said.

“Some people are extremely affected by the long-term effects,” Vance said. “I would probably say it was unexpected.”

It is not yet clear why Pitkin County numbers are so much higher than other studies, which showed that between 10% and 30% of those who tested positive for the virus reported persistent symptoms.

“We’re trying to understand why this is the case,” Vance said. ‘Is there something we live in (that contributes to the number)? Our share is much higher. ”

To be clear, Pitkin County’s study – which follows patients six months after their positive test – identified only 102 people with the persistent symptoms. This is because the country had a relatively low number of positive cases between March and August, before the winter surge, Vance said.

According to local epidemiological data, Pitkin County has reported 2,115 total positive cases of COVID-19 in the past year. But as the study progressed, Vance said he expects the total number of long-time waiters to increase.

And it is not just people who experience particularly severe cases of COVID-19 who report long-distance symptoms. Researchers in California recently found that one-third of the 1,407 people they looked at who tested positive for the virus persisted 60 days later, despite no initial symptoms of the virus.

“If you look at the seriousness of things, there is not much difference,” Vance said. “The severity of the disease is not a predictor of long-term effects.”

“I go to bed scared”

Shiflet’s case was and is a particularly ominous case.

Prior to acquiring COVID-19 in March 2020, the 46-year-old physical education and wellness educator considered himself an endurance athlete. He sharpened mountains in the winter, was a telemark skier and enjoyed running and mountain biking in the summer.

Initially, the father of twelve twelve-year-old boys had a low degree of fever, dizziness, general fatigue, chest tightness and loss of smell. A month later, fatigue increased and he began to feel a mysterious, throbbing pain in the right quadrant of his body, which he initially thought might be a fracture.

The exact source of the pain was never clear. What was clear, however, was a CT scan that found glass in his lungs, possibly leading to him being out of breath at night a month later, causing nightmares.

“I’m basically going to be scared to death and hope I’m not going to die in my sleep or anything,” Shiflet told The Aspen Times in September. “I mean, the panic that is starting to set in is pretty significant.”

When April faded in May, the headaches, insomnia and fatigue still plagued him. Then came the chest pains and palpitations that made him think he was having a heart attack, which led to a visit to the emergency room in July. Again, doctors could never determine a cause, he said.

“It feels like I’m radiating pain in my arm like … throbbing numbness in your arm,” Shiflet said. “And it’s like a chest ache that feels like an explosive, stabbing pain.”

By September, the symptoms showed no sign of abating.

“Still (I feel) fatigue, headache insomnia,” he told The Times at the time. ‘I now have tinnitus in my ears. My arms are all inflated until … just swollen in my forearms. (I have) breath when I go to exercise (and) breath at night when I sleep. “

Six months later – in early March 2021 on the anniversary of his initial COVID-19 infection – Shiflet resumed picking up Tiehack, who he said felt good until he pushed himself too hard.

‘Last week was a look at life. I do what I used to do, it’s sweet and I feel good, ” he said. “But then the sadness kicks in and it’s like, ‘Whoa, it’s scary and I think I’m not back and I’m not quite there. ”

A year after his initial infection, he said he still feels chest pain, heartache, shortness of breath, insomnia, cramps and fatigue, which sometimes lead to depression.

“Yes, I usually do not feel the same person,” he said earlier this month. ‘So I do not know … it weighs me down mentally, physically. I know with my family, I am definitely not myself. I do not wrestle with my children as I used to. It’s all difficult. ‘

“And they just do not know …”

Kate McMahon, a Glenwood Springs resident, also caught COVID-19 in March. Her symptoms included sore throat, body aches, joint pain, sinus congestion, fever, loss of taste, smell and fatigue. She said she could just get up and go to the bathroom before she had to crawl into bed again.

“I was really sick for about four weeks,” she told The Times in September. “You felt like you were just running a marathon when you got up and did a whole lot of things. It was like a total of six weeks until I was like, ‘OK, I feel like a human again.’ ‘

However, McMahon was a second-year student in chemistry and had to start studying for exams in which he had to submit research to a committee of four people. During that time, she experienced fatigue, shortness of breath, sporadic muscle and joint pain, brain fog, and tightness in her chest. Yet she somehow got through and passed, she said.

“I mean, part of it was like I just wanted to get through it, and that’s why I was muscle through it,” McMahon said. “I mean, I did not feel well. I was tired all the time. ”

Six months after her COVID diagnosis, she said she had good and bad days.

“It’s frustrating because some days I can do a lot and some days I just can do nothing,” McMahon said in September. ‘I’m doing a lot of tests to determine why my shortness of breath and some of my other breathing problems are not getting better. And they just do not know, so we’re trying to figure it out. ‘

Health networks are available for the long term

As more and more people report long-distance symptoms, local health officials respond.

Aspen Valley Hospital and Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs are starting multidisciplinary clinics to help residents in the area, according to Aspen Valley CEO Dave Ressler and Dr. David Brooks, chief medical officer at Valley View.

“We are establishing a network of experts to support patients in our community who are still suffering from COVID symptoms,” Ressler said. “It is very clear that the community will need support.”

Both clinics will require a referral from primary care physicians and include experts in cardiology, pulmonology, neurology, and other disciplines because of the number of different symptoms caused by the virus.

In addition, AVH is starting a support group next month led by a social worker for long-term care workers suffering from depression and anxiety due to the ongoing symptoms, Ressler said.

“It affects people’s lives,” he said.

The significant number of long-distance guards is a strong warning to members of the community who have not yet been affected by COVID-19, Ressler, Vance and Brooks said.

“You just do not know (how it will affect you),” Vance said. “We find no strong predictors that will lead to long-term effects.”

The message to those not yet infected is to continue to protect themselves and their families from the virus by renouncing social, wearing a mask and being vaccinated if the opportunity arises.

“It’s really about protecting the community and protecting the health of the community from these long-term symptoms,” Ressler said. “It’s not like getting a cold or the flu.”