Long Covid: Take them seriously

Having their ailments seen as imaginary is an enormous added burden for long-Covid patients. It doesn't have to be.

The discussion about whether the many people affected by Long Covid could probably only imagine their symptoms or whether they could only imagine them for the most part continues even after two years of the pandemic. They are found in general practitioners' practices, in human resources departments and in groups of friends. If one says "Long Covid", two answer: "Yes, but I'm also totally exhausted by the pandemic."

The additional burden caused by this permanent public relativization for those affected is enormous. In addition to the difficult search for medical help, they constantly have to fight for recognition. And the Germany's Department of Health is currently doing little to better clear up the insane misconception of Long Covid as an imaginary disease. Wouldn't look particularly good either: repealing measures in a high incidence phase if at the same time around ten percent of all infected people suffer from various persistent or newly occurring health complaints beyond the third month.

However, that is exactly the situation. In Germany, it is estimated that more than 600,000 people are already affected by Long Covid. The symptoms are very different and also occur after relatively mild acute courses. 

The most serious cases (an estimated one to two percent of all those infected) develop symptoms that correspond to the post-infectious disease ME/CFS, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. Those affected are often no longer able to work, and some are permanently bedridden.

So how does it feel when you fear an infection and at the same time just physically feel that you are the unlucky one who got it - and then constantly have doubts about your own experience rejected? Some despair about this, especially in the diagnosis phase, almost as much as they do about the disease itself. Disregard for doctors is particularly serious. After all, it is their core task to take patients seriously. 

In everyday practice, however, it seems to be more difficult, especially in the case of a new disease for which there are no biomarkers and which, logically, is also psychologically stressful. The step to assuming that it is only imaginary is then a small one.

Education about how the disease develops and how to deal with it is therefore the most important thing in order to prevent stigmatization. To do this, however, one would have to face the scope of the problem and not further suppress it."