The mental health of many patients is affected after a long Covid, with the issue having taken on great proportions in the US and around the world.
There are more and more people with symptoms long Covid who experience symptoms of depression and show up to suicidal tendenciessince they feel the coronavirus does not allow them to live their lives as they were before they got stuck.
The issue has grown to USA but also around the world, with one of the typical examples being a couple from Essex, Britain, who had to talk to psychologists to get rid of the suicidal tendencies they felt, due to the symptoms of long Covid.
More specifically, Antony Loveless, from Southend, Essex, told Independent that he and his partner, Claire Hooper, had made a plan to commit suicide after they both appeared long Covid earlier last year.
The couple suffered from various gastrointestinal, neurological and respiratory symptoms – at the height of their illness, they could only get out of bed for a few hours each day due to severe fatigue – but the doctors they consulted did not see anything wrong.
The couple said they wanted to end their lives after they got to the point of losing their jobshe as the nurse of the British health system and he as the chief accident investigator in the port of Gateway.
“I do not want to do this anymore”
“Literally overnight, everything changed”said Antony Loveless. “Our income has disappeared. We were both very active, we took the dog for a walk before going to work. I worked for 10-12 hours every day. All this is over. One night, Claire told me, “I do not want to do this anymore.” I told her I was full too, I could not do it anymore. “I want to die'”. In a way, it took all the weight off our shoulders. We came up with a plan to commit suicide “he explained to the Independent.
Eventually the couple realized that “it would ruin the lives of their children” and decided to continue living. Their condition also improved after they were granted disability benefits as a result of their condition and, although they still suffer from long Covid, their suicidal ideation has since passed.
How many people are affected by long Covid
The long-term symptoms of Covid adversely affect the daily lives of 1.4 million peopleaccording to estimates by the National Statistics Office, with 398,000 reporting that their ability to carry out daily activities has been “severely limited”.
And an informal survey of 185 people last month by Survivor Corps, a US-based support team, found that 46% had experienced long-term Covid-related suicides – up from 18% when the same poll was conducted last year. .
As research into long Covid progresses, Dr. Strein, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter School of Medicine, explained that it was unclear whether the prevalence of depression and suicidal ideation in long-term patients with Covid was “reactive” or the result of a neurological change.
“People may be depressed because they have lost the ability to play football with their children. “They have lost the ability to go to work and do the things that make them who they are.”he said.
“Or was there a genuine neurochemical change in the brain?” Humans have brain fog, which simply means that neurons do not fire as fast as they should. “It can also affect our ability to stabilize our mood and respond appropriately to different stimuli.”
In fact, he noted in Independent that long Covid bears many similarities to chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). The condition increases the risk of suicide among patients by almost 7 times, as research has shown.
