Canadian researchers looking into COVID ‘long-haul’ effects

Is this study still open to participants?

I am a 64 year old woman who has had long Covid since contracting it mid-April 2021, three weeks following my first vaccine, which was on March 19, 2021. I had my second vaccine on June 15, 2021, but I have not seen any improvements in my Covid symptoms as has been anecdotally reported by some people with long-Covid.

I was not hospitalized.

I was previously very healthy and physically fit. I continue to experience a range of symptoms and have had no improvement since first recovering from the acute phase. I also continue to be off of work but am fortunate to have a lot of banked leave.

If there is an opportunity to participate in the research, I am very interested.

I feel I had covid early March then my wife got it we have had symptoms since then they seem to come and go. My main symptoms are chest pain and twitching body and tension. I have had blood test and heart ecg but nothing ever shows. Every week I get little better but going on 11mo this now. Drs dont seem to help have you any suggestions thanks

Covid + dec 29 2020
Still dealing with post Covid
Was at ER 2X but not hospitalized
Would be interested in participating in any studies

I am a 79 year old male and I tested Covid positive on September 28th after having just finished the second (of nine) rounds of chemotherapy for multiple myeloma, which was diagnosed at the end of August. I then spent 16 days in hospital with relatively mild symptoms – mostly chronic diarrhea, weight loss (45 lbs) and severe breathlessness – from where I was released on October 13th. Now I am about to start my fifth round of chemo but, even though I have made good progress on most fronts, my breathlessness remains chronic and it is my oncologist’s opinion that this must be a Covid longhaul problem since it is not one of the side-effects normally associated with my particular chemo treatment (Velcade or bartizomib). I would therefore like to volunteer for Dr. Cheung and Dr. Herridge’s study.

My maternal family in Boston MA went through the virus of 1917-20: none died. In my early teens, (1950’s) I had “Asian” flu. I was a weak often depressed puny kid” and was that for nearly a year after the 1950’s flu.

In Jamaica on holiday:1970’s, I caught Dengue Fever. I was hospitalized in Canada and after recovery had intermittent periods of fatigue etc, for almost a year.

2010: age 68 DVT and pulmonary embolism. Following that I was prescribed blood thinner med. Until recently took 2mg apixaban (Eliquis) twice a day.

I have copd/asthma likely from smoking between the years 1965 and 2000. Not normally bothered by either until late summer. Today my peak flow reading is just over 400.

I am male, 5’10. and weigh, depending on the season, between 156 – 170lbs. I live within the national capital region of Canada. I do not have diabetes.

First week of March 2020: Wowie! worst case of gastric upset in years. I have arthritis which is normally an annoyance, but that week t developed into the Pure Hell Stage.
I lost all sense or smell and taste.
I had an unending severe headache but only on the right half of my head.
Next came the shortness of breath and the the annoying continual dry cough.

By this time the first Coronavirus testing criteria were being posted. I had three or four of the qualifications but I had no fever, in fact just the opposite – on the Fahrenheit scale I was continually between 92 and 94F. And worse was I felt cold…..not skin cold to the touch but as though I was frozen inside.

The morning I woke up with a nosebleed I went off to the local medical clinic. Diagnosis: I was coming down with an upper respiratory infection . e.g., a cold. Couldn’t possible be coronavirus.
But this ‘cold’ never became a cold. It felt more as a remembered onset of a viral infection.

Because I did not have a fever I was not qualified to be tested. Because I still live in my own home. not in a long-term care residence, I couldn’t be tested. And what was the hardest to accept was because I was old and “I wasn’t essential.”

In the weeks that followed some of the ‘flu’ issues stopped, But, not the cough or the fatigue or the 24-hour headache. Because of meds I take I cannot take aspirin or advil-type tablets. Tylenol? No effect.

As I recall it was at the end of the second week of March that went through a week or so of sudden new issues. Often while chatting I would suddenly lose all memory of what I was speaking about, or couldn’t remember why I had left the room and gone into another.

Third week of March: the hospitals here had not yet been shut down to the public. I went for my quarterly appointment. The doctor said I appeared to be symptomatic. I and my spouse went into 14 days voluntary quarantine.

Beginning of April: sometimes lasting only long enough to be noticed; l began to have spasms in my left hand. My fingers, without me willing it to happen, would twist and turn sideways, causing incredible pain. I had no memory at all. My spouse, who up to then had only experienced the issues associated with early onset, started having problems with pulse and blood pressure, when one rose the other fell. BP normally under control between 120 and 140 ranged between 70 to 180+. Pulse would fall into the 46 to 92 range. Adjusting the meds seemed to help.

End of April: we both got tested: negative.
May and June, I, coughing, sleep some days 10 hours, the next day not at all, then the next day fall suddenly into a deep sound sleep just sitting in chair.

By July we were having what we called “Good Days” and ‘Bad days.” By then seeing a doctor anywhere was an impossibility.

In August we began to feel the most of the initial symptoms had passed. But still, we both were tested again: negative. And so the see-saw of Good Days-Bad Days had settled as a routine, except that occasionally my vision would suddenly fog, or perhaps I lost what was doing or saying. It was about this time that I saw first read the the term “long haulers” ,

Back in March, I was having severe joint and hip-groin pains. I was scheduled for a bone scan and a biopsy.

Miid-November. 2020. The tests were scheduled. The biopsy was a problem: to have it I had to stop taking the apixaban/ Eliquis.
The biopsy was to be a Friday; I stopped the apixaban meds Tuesday morning. In the wee hours of Wednesday I woke up with burning terrible chest pain which lasted for hours then suddenly stopped. By Friday morning I was feeling the same as I had the first weeks of March. After such a long wait I did not dare to postpone the biopsy. I had the biopsy in the morning. Friday afternoon – for the first time – I had fever. I had trouble forming words. Next morning I went to the covid clinic for a third test. The doctor on duty examined me, and told me I was in critical condition, did not tell me from what. I entered hospital Tuesday morning and was tested for the 4th time. A few hours later I was told both the last two tests were negative,

For next 48 hours I was in the ICU. I believe I was thoroughly examined. Morning of 3rd day: results of the tests. I had no sign of thrombosis, and instead of one embolism (dating back to 2010) I had two.
From what I recall the doctor proposed that I likely had covid, and agreed that I was likely having long haul after effects.
He proposed that what had stopped me from developing serious covid, was most likely the apixaban. Before I left the hospital my dose was increased from 2mg to 5mg twice a day. Three weeks later the cough, continual since March, stopped. Many of other bothersome things such as the brain fog have also stopped. But two days ago I began to cough every so often…oh-oh is it “here we go again?”

There is my experience. I have still have good days and bad days. They still seem to shift from one stage to the other without warning. But the bad days are getting further and further apart.

The reason I included all the virus info I wrote at the beginning , in my experience there was always a flashback’ or ‘relapse’ period which over time became further apart and eventually simply went away. Is it possible that this is what is happening to “Long Haulers”?

Hope all the above helps