Karla’s Korner

By: Karla Jarvis , MSN, FNP-C

Long haulers are patients that had COVID-19 and are experience symptoms after they are negative for the disease. It’s not just our hospitalized patients we have to focus on. There are a lot of patients out there who can still continue to have these persisting and really life-altering symptoms.

The most common long hauler symptoms include:

● Coughing. ● Ongoing, sometimes debilitating, fatigue. ● Body aches. ● Joint pain. ● Shortness of breath. ● Loss of taste and smell — even if this didn’t occur during the height of illness. ● Difficulty sleeping. ● Headaches. ● Unsteady on your feet.

At this point we can’t determine the average age or predict who may have long-term symptoms. As with many other COVID-19 issues, it’s hard just knowing how long some of the symptoms might last when the disease was identified barely 10 months ago.

We have to discover what we can about the disease and how to treat it, and that takes time and experience. Then we all have to share the information with other health care providers and the public. We don’t have that system of sharing in place yet for long-haulers. We do know at this time something

Karla Jarvis, MSN, FNP-C Jarvis Family Medical Services www.jarvisfamilymedicalservices.com