COVID-19 survivors reflect on long lasting effects after recovering

FILE – This 2020 electron microscope image made available by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases shows a Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2…

FILE – This 2020 electron microscope image made available by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases shows a Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 particle isolated from a patient, in a laboratory in Fort Detrick, Md. Coronaviruses, including the newest one, are named for the spikes that cover their outer surface like a crown, or corona in Latin. Using those club-shaped spikes, the virus latches on to the outer wall of a human cell, invades it and replicates, creating viruses to hijack more cells. (NIAID/NIH via AP)

Posted: Jan 28, 2021 / 05:59 PM CST

Updated: Jan 28, 2021 / 05:59 PM CST

JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) — Some people even months after recovering from COVID-19 are still not feeling quite like themselves. Dr. Paul Byers with the State Department of Health said this is not uncommon.

“That can be varied,” Dr. Byers said. “It can be difficulties with concentration, it can be increased fatigue. In some cases in can be some long term lung problems with shortness of breath.”

This applies to Jana Feldman. She said she thought she was having a heart attack in mid July, took a trip to the hospital but ending up testing positive for COVID-19 and double pneumonia. In December, it came back to haunt her.

“Still continue to this day to have symptoms,” Feldman said. “Shortness of breath heart palpitations, fatigue, headache, GI symptoms.”

Her doctor believes it was a flare up, not a second contraction.

“The inflammatory markers that they used to check were not extremely elevated,” Feldman said.

Also having heart problems is traveling nurse Kristy Quenneville.

She fought it for three weeks in April and took her six weeks to recover.

In addition to the common symptoms, she developed Tachycardia, which has not gone away 10 months later.

“My heart rate goes up to 140 just sitting on the couch watching TV,” Quenneville said. “My resting heart rate is 100. I’ve had to have several heart tests done to check that out and now I’m having to start on a beta blocker pill to lower my heart rate because it’s stayed so high since COVID.”

She said that in addition, she feels a sense of brain fog from time to time.

Both women said that as a result of these complications, their anxiety has gone through the roof.