The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

"I want my old life back" - Long Covid support group

2021-08-28T06:08:43.122Z


Reduced lung capacity, insomnia, exhaustion, loss of smell and taste - people who survive Covid-19 do not always get well again. There is a self-help group for them in Erding.


Reduced lung capacity, insomnia, exhaustion, loss of smell and taste - people who survive Covid-19 do not always get well again.

There is a self-help group for them in Erding.

Erding - reduced lung capacity, insomnia, exhaustion, loss of smell and taste - people who survive Covid-19 do not always get well again. Many people suffer from long-term effects. It's called Long Covid. "I had hair loss, memory problems, word-finding disorders and long-lasting muscle pain," reports Nadja Prell from Erding. In March, the yoga teacher and psychological consultant founded a self-help group together with Gerhard Moser, naturopath for psychotherapy. Because there is often no medical help, the symptoms have not been researched enough. Affected people or relatives meet once a week to exchange ideas. After the summer break, it starts again on September 1st.


In the meantime, the consequences of Prell have largely disappeared - by themselves, as she says. But for a long time she was desperate and overwhelmed in everyday life. “I then did a lot of research and heard from self-help groups in other places. Some of the people had the same experience, ”says the 49-year-old. She approached Moser, who already had a self-help group for people with dementia at the BRK. When he was approached by Prell, he immediately thought: "Good thing." The Long Covid self-help group was born.


The meetings started online. In March, the country was finally still in lockdown. Meanwhile, every week there is an alternation between video conference and face-to-face meeting in the BRK House of Encounter Am Rätschenbach. “There are six to eight people every time,” says Moser. “Some every week,” adds Prell. “A few older people who don't like sitting at their laptops so much only come to the meeting place. And some sit in the home office anyway and then only take part in the Zoom meetings. ”It is a relaxed, cozy discussion in which the participants report on their experiences, their fears and worries and exchange information. After all, knowledge about the disease is increasing day by day.


And what do most of them suffer from? "Often from memory loss," says Prell, who also had to go through that. She tried to help herself by taking notes on all kinds of things. “Another victim was practicing poetry,” she says. But the persistent loss of the sense of taste and smell is also widespread. “A patient has been unable to smell or taste anything since October,” says Erdinger. That doesn't sound too bad at first, but as a result a lot of quality of life is lost, explains Moser: “Cooking is difficult, and of course eating too. And that's part of a good life. If you can't enjoy that anymore, something is missing. Or if I ride my bike to the office and then don't know whether I smell of sweat - that can be very unpleasant. "


Also, states of exhaustion are not uncommon and a problem especially for otherwise sporty people. “If I jog with friends and suddenly can't keep up, that's difficult,” says the Fraunberger. The problem with the long-term effects is that no one knows whether they will eventually go away. Prell reports of a woman in her early 20s who has not been able to work since she was infected several months ago - states of exhaustion. Long Covid often also meets people without previous illnesses who have easily survived Covid 19 disease.


“There are now rehab offers. The applications take a long time, but there wasn't a year ago, ”says Prell. The two initiators affirm that the tone of the self-help group is by no means pessimistic. “There is also a lot of laughter,” says Prell. “Again and again someone finds an article or a video on the subject. Then it will be distributed and we will talk about it, ”says the 49-year-old. So the meetings are mostly a spiritual support. Prell: “Often a lot of people don't believe you. When I had the long-term effects, it was a disaster for me, but people always put it into perspective and didn't take it seriously. "


In the self-help group you can be heard and learn to deal with the consequences.

Because mostly these would not just go away again.

"It often gets better," says Prell.

"But nobody has said that he will be back as it used to be." And the sentence kept falling: "I want my old life back."

Mayl's Majurani

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-08-28

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.