[seankenny]

I think it would be well worth starting a "Climbers recovering from covid" thread, to cover the immediate states afterwards as well as long dong covid potential. Give that quite a few people have had it and obviously want to get back to climbing effectively soon but sensibly.

 

To kick this off, here's what's happened to me. I covid back in March 2020, ill for a month but fine generally fine afterwards. In Aug/Sept '21 I got some kind of virus that wasn't covid (took a test), got better then got sick again, which could have been covid (didn't bother to test that one). Thought I was getting better, went to the wall for a quick bouldering session, put myself in bed for several days. After a couple of weeks I felt much better and tried an hour's walking, same thing again.

Had an x-ray, which found nothing, doctor has tentatively diagnosed long covid, although I also had a vitamin D deficiency, the pills for that have definitely helped but I'm still fairly unwell. I can do very small fingerboarding sessions but I can't really walk for more than half an hour and if I stack up too much effort in one day I have to take to my bed. However, compared to some people's symptoms mine are pretty mild and I'm reasonably confident I'll make a good recovery, but I have no idea how long that will take.

It would be great to hear others' experiences.

[Fultonius]

I got Covid end of March 2020, mainly confirmed by the presence of "Covid toes" later that spring. No ill effects until Oct 2020, no idea if I got re-exposed or what happened, but I was up and down for 6 weeks. I had a week's holiday where I was fine one day, and then next could barely string a sentence together / bother my arse doing much other than gentle walks.

Then had 2 weeks where I had to lie down in a dark room after about 45 mins of work as I just had overwhelming brain fog and really poor cognitive ability, it was like I was about 40% as intelligent as normal. Pretty scary, but settled after a few more weeks of taking it easy and treating it like a brain injury. Still no idea if it was linked, or some other issue.

Got Covid AGAIN (no idea where from, not been super cautious, but also not been out to pubs/busy places all that much etc. - perhaps the guy behind us coughing on the bus to Edinburgh airport, with no mask on...). Fairly mild second time round, and managed a PB onsight a few days after so can't have been too debilitating. No ill effects this time round, except for a lingering tickly cough.

Oh, and over the last 5 years by heart PR int has gone up from 189ms to 206ms, which nudges it just over into 1st degree heart block, the joys. Again, no idea if linked, or stress, or aging, or just a fact of life. Still, pushed back my booster to 24th of Jan instead of 28th of December to minimise any potential additional heart stress, as it's known to cause myocarditis in some people. (not a Drs rec, just my own judgement).

Easy to throw every ailment into the covid basket, but on the other hand it is a shitty fucking disease. Wishing anyone with longer term issues a speedy recovery, but also urge to take it easy on yourself and not push too hard.

[jwi]

This might be of interest

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/08/for-elite-footballers-the-effects-of-covid-19-linger-for-months

(Months after infection, elite football players play fewer minutes and complete fewer passes than never infected players)

[abarro81]

God, that's depressing...

I'm now 3 weeks out from getting it. Feeling ok for short strength sessions but can't do big sessions or endurance sessions yet. Recovery is terrible between sessions, which may partly be due to disrupted sleep which seems ongoing... That said, I set a campus PB the other day, felt like how Rustam (allegedly) must feel - strong but also like I might pass out after every effort 

Predictably, it seems like the less full-body the better, so things like pickups on two fingers (where you're not picking up much weight or stressing big muscles) are a better bet than hangs, which are a better bet than bouldering, which is a better bet than getting pumped... Taking a nap immediately after any exercise (even just lying down in bed for 20 min but not sleeping) seems to help things.

More unpredictably, both me and my wife felt like we recovered fine about a week after getting it and then dropped on a cliff and had some kind of relapse in the next 5-10 days, so others getting it might want to watch out for that even if you feel like you're recovering well. Mine was after climbing (I assume I did too much), but hers was after a rest day so less obvious what caused it.

[Ged]

Feel free to totally ignore this of course, a d sorry for being a random person on the Internet telling you what to do, but...

It really sounds like you should back off a bit. I know a couple of people who have/had long covid, and they all attribute it to doing too much too soon. If you're still feeling the effects, which it sounds like you are, maybe just do nothing for a bit longer. Doing anything that is leaving you feeling that wasted sounds like a really high risk of making it drag on for much, much longer than it needs to.

Sorry for the preach, and obviously this is just anecdotal stuff, but if you were my mate/family member, I'd be really begging you to stop for a bit.

[seankenny]

That totally chimes with everything else I’ve read and heard about long covid. Lots and lots of rest seems to be the way forward. I’m currently sat on the sofa recuperating after lapping the park twice rather than once… currently feeling okay-ish and I’m pleased to be reading the Gogarth picture book as a few weeks ago I even that would have been a bit much.

[Wellsy]

I found a twitter thread which covers a lot of the potential long term consequences of covid;

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478611650760437765.html

Some of this seems somewhat alarmist and also its not clear whether these clear up entirely after say 6/12/18 months due to the newness of the virus, plus we don't necessarily know how much the level of initial illness impacts, fitness of the ill person etc. Nonetheless it is interesting to see how it can impact beyond the initial sickness. Basically it appears to have whole body impacts including organs and blood vessels etc.

[Falling Down]

I’m not climbing at the moment but have been wrestling with symptoms after having covid twice (March and Dec ‘20) and a recent bout of flu in November ‘21.

Tinnitus - pretty bad. Comes and goes and doesn’t keep me awake or anything but it’s there, all the time and I have a few episodes each week when it’s like a scene in a film when a bomb has gone off and all I can hear is ringing for around a minute. Had an MRI and the Doc diagnosed post-viral tinnitus with CV19 as the cause.

Fatigue - it feels like the last eighteen months I’ve had my battery replaced with one that’s lower powered. Prior to covid I was running and cycling though not to any level. Just regular 5-10k runs.  It’s been very hard since to gather the motivation to pull on my trainers and go for a trot around the park. In fact I can’t remember the last time I did.

I repaired my pushbikes a couple of weeks ago, went for a gentle ride and was knackered afterwards. But will keep at it, gently building up.

Just started doing some light weights and will be doing some short, very easy runs and will see what happens. 

Good luck everyone!

[abarro81]

I found a twitter thread which covers a lot of the potential long term consequences of covid;

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478611650760437765.html

God, even more depressing.

Ged - you're probably right, much to my annoyance.. often easy to see what you should really do but hard to actually do it when it involves resting!

[webbo]

I’m not climbing at the moment but have been wrestling with symptoms after having covid twice (March and Dec ‘20) and a recent bout of flu in November ‘21.

Tinnitus - pretty bad. Comes and goes and doesn’t keep me awake or anything but it’s there, all the time and I have a few episodes each week when it’s like a scene in a film when a bomb has gone off and all I can hear is ringing for around a minute. Had an MRI and the Doc diagnosed post-viral tinnitus with CV19 as the cause.

Fatigue - it feels like the last eighteen months I’ve had my battery replaced with one that’s lower powered. Prior to covid I was running and cycling though not to any level. Just regular 5-10k runs.  It’s been very hard since to gather the motivation to pull on my trainers and go for a trot around the park. In fact I can’t remember the last time I did.

I repaired my pushbikes a couple of weeks ago, went for a gentle ride and was knackered afterwards. But will keep at it, gently building up.

Just started doing some light weights and will be doing some short, very easy runs and will see what happens. 

Good luck everyone!

I have no idea whether you have long covid but it also seems that you have become very unfit due not doing much for 12 months.

[Falling Down]

That’s true of course webbo, hence trying to build up slowly. That said, if I hadn’t got covid twice, then the flu and felt totally knackered I suspect I would have been able to stay fitter over the last eighteen months. Working from home has been shit for moving around too… it’s a double whammy.

Also, I didn’t say I had long covid, I don’t.

[webbo]

No I know you didn’t say you had it. But you were describing your situation after several posts by people who were wondering why they were taking so long to get back to normal and speculating whether they might have it.

[Falling Down]

Cool, understood. No worries.

[webbo]

Just to put a more positive side on recovery. I was out on my bike on 30/12/21 and a guy pulled out from  a side road and I went past him. He sat on my wheel for bit the rode a long side and started chatting. At this point I was giving it a bit of stick and talking wasn’t that easy, he mentioned in his telling me of his life story, that he had, had covid 3 weeks ago and he was doing 100K to get his 5,000k in for the year.
He mentioned he had stop for a pasty as was feeling a bit below par.
The gentleman in question was about 60 and riding a fat tyre hybrid whilst I was on a road bike. As much as I enjoyed his company I was glad when he turned off.

[J_duds]

Covid sucks!

Based on personal experiences, I've had CV19 twice and recovered back to normal exercise (climbing, cycling etc.) in about 5 weeks after the first symptoms. I was back doing exercise with less load and less duration in about week 3 onwards, with many more rest days in between than I'd normally do.

Both CV19 illnesses I tried to do some exercise in week 2 and felt terrible straight after. The first time I had CV19 I went for a run after 10 days of being ill, thinking I'd just clean the lungs out...  I had to come home early after about 2km and lay on the sofa in a sweaty feverish horrid mess for hours afterwards. This set me back for a few days. This was back in April 2020, when I (we?) didn't know much about this virus.

The second time I had CV19 was in Nov-21, identical symptoms to my first time, and after the 10 day isolation I did a 1hr ish walk (moderate pace, overtaking most walkers, but not fast walk) and came back home and collapsed omto the same sofa for a full afternoon. 

My girlfriend has also had CV19, she took 4 weeks off exercise, and it took her about another 4 weeks to get her cycling fitness back, she did this very slowly and slept alot!

I know several people who have had long Covid, they took 6 months to fully recovery.

Since first having Covid it's made me more aware of every cold virus. I've had 2 really bad colds in the last 8 months, which feel terrible! Is this related to CV19 or has CV19 made me more aware?

[seankenny]

I’m not climbing at the moment but have been wrestling with symptoms after having covid twice (March and Dec ‘20) and a recent bout of flu in November ‘21.

Fatigue - it feels like the last eighteen months I’ve had my battery replaced with one that’s lower powered.

I have no idea whether you have long covid but it also seems that you have become very unfit due not doing much for 12 months.

If you've not had covid whilst unvaccinated it might be hard to appreciate how brutal it can be. I once caught a mystery virus in rural Afghanistan which sent me to hospital, I couldn't bear light, couldn't eat and lost a stone in a week - and covid was much worse. I was sick for a month and although I didn't get long covid that time around, on my first few runs afterwards it felt like my lungs were on fire.

Long covid feels quite different, Ben's description of being "low powered" is spot on. You just can't get going. Keeping fit when you've that kind of thing stacked against you is really hard and it's depressing - you can feel you're going backwards - which makes the whole thing much harder to bear. Getting unfit is part of the problem. And sure, you can meet (vaccinated) older guys for whom covid has been barely a bump in the road, I know several like this and that is just great. Most people - 70% to 90% it seems - recover perfectly well and thank goodness they do. Long covid isn't even so much of a thing for the over 60s, the age group typically affected is 30 - 50. But if my own experience is anything to go by, I can assure you that long covid sufferers are perfectly aware that most people get better quickly and it isn't particularly relevant.

I do notice you have form in making... unhelpful remarks on this subject.

[webbo]

So I’m not allowed to offer my thoughts if they are not in line with what you believe.

[seankenny]

So I’m not allowed to offer my thoughts if they are not in line with what you believe.

You offered your thoughts, I offered some in return - based on lived experience of an illness that was diagnosed by my doctor. I started this thread to discuss long covid and how we might get better from it, basically as support for people in a shit situation. You are free to have your beliefs and of course free to post them here if you really want, but I'm not sure what this would prove and perhaps it would be better to start your own thread in which to discuss them?

[webbo]

What I was offering was mainly in response after abarro stated how depressing it all sounded.
So trying suggest things might not be quite that bleak, doesn’t have a place on your thread.

[Fultonius]

What I was offering was mainly in response after abarro stated how depressing it all sounded.
So trying suggest things might not be quite that bleak, doesn’t have a place on your thread.

I guess some people like the positivity of thinking it will get better, but for rothers (me included) when I'm feeling low and bleak about things, someone saying "it's not all that bad, look" just makes me even more angry and depressed.

So as not to turn this thread into a battle of cup half full / half empty, maybe those who have had it bad and recovered can share some experiences on what they did that helped?

For me, with the brain fog, I read up on treating "brain injuries" and acted as if I had one. So when I really started getting a thick soupy brain I just stopped what I was doing (told my work that I was struggling) and chilled out for as long as it took to get a bit of clarity (often 10 mins lying down was good for another 40 mins of work). Apparently the key thing is to not "push through" with coffee / meds and a staunch British stiff upper lip. Be kind to yourself, and try not to worry. It can be a bit disturbing being about 40% as smart as normal, and you do think "is this me for life...?"

First time round in March 2020, similar to J Duds, I started to feel better and went for a 5k run, which felt good. Energetic, breathing ok. The next day was the worst day of any I've had - just flattened and feverish, sweating, shit night sleep etc.  Sleep has been one of the things I've most noticed being disturbed.

[seankenny]

So as not to turn this thread into a battle of cup half full / half empty, maybe those who have had it bad and recovered can share some experiences on what they did that helped?

Yes, spot on.

For me, with the brain fog, I read up on treating "brain injuries" and acted as if I had one. So when I really started getting a thick soupy brain I just stopped what I was doing (told my work that I was struggling) and chilled out for as long as it took to get a bit of clarity (often 10 mins lying down was good for another 40 mins of work). Apparently the key thing is to not "push through" with coffee / meds and a staunch British stiff upper lip. Be kind to yourself, and try not to worry. It can be a bit disturbing being about 40% as smart as normal, and you do think "is this me for life...?"

Thanks that is very useful. I am very grateful that I've not had brain fog but in general I'm as guilty as anyone of trying to push through fatigue and feeling a bit uncomfortanble with having a good rest in the middle of the day.

[abarro81]

Interesting posts. Given where I'm at, I find J_duds post quite heartening in terms of having not returned to normal super fast but got there in a not too depressing timescale! Perfect glass at 50% balance 

[TobyD]

What I was offering was mainly in response after abarro stated how depressing it all sounded.
So trying suggest things might not be quite that bleak, doesn’t have a place on your thread.

I guess some people like the positivity of thinking it will get better, but for rothers (me included) when I'm feeling low and bleak about things, someone saying "it's not all that bad, look" just makes me even more angry and depressed.

So as not to turn this thread into a battle of cup half full / half empty, maybe those who have had it bad and recovered can share some experiences on what they did that helped?

For me, with the brain fog, I read up on treating "brain injuries" and acted as if I had one. So when I really started getting a thick soupy brain I just stopped what I was doing (told my work that I was struggling) and chilled out for as long as it took to get a bit of clarity (often 10 mins lying down was good for another 40 mins of work). Apparently the key thing is to not "push through" with coffee / meds and a staunch British stiff upper lip. Be kind to yourself, and try not to worry. It can be a bit disturbing being about 40% as smart as normal, and you do think "is this me for life...?"

First time round in March 2020, similar to J Duds, I started to feel better and went for a 5k run, which felt good. Energetic, breathing ok. The next day was the worst day of any I've had - just flattened and feverish, sweating, shit night sleep etc.  Sleep has been one of the things I've most noticed being disturbed.

Interesting re your comparison with head injuries.  I've been reading this thread, and although I have not (so far)  caught covid,  I have had a very serious head injury,  and found that my ability to do anything strenuous whatsoever afterwards was severely affected.  This was, at its worst,  bad enough that having a shower and drying off was noticeably tiring,  and a flat 5 mile walk was knackering. The feeling of permanent low power was identical. 

[GazM]

The other day I saw on Daniel Woods' Instagram feed that he had Covid but was feeling OK and training, then in a later post was feeling like crap. Looks like another anecdote of doing too much too soon.

[petejh]

A study has identified four factors that predict an increased risk of developing 'long covid'. Sounds like covid infection might cause reactivation of latent virus's in some people, including Epstein Barr virus. Other people retain circulating fragments of covid virus. For others it's an auto-immune response. No one 'long covid' then unsurprisingly.

news: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/scientists-identify-factors-that-appear-linked-to-long-covid?cmpid=BBD012622_CEU&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=220126&utm_campaign=closeeurope

study: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00072-1