The Long COVID Survival Guide How to Take Care of Yourself and What Comes Next - Stories and Advice from Twenty Long-Haulers and Experts

by Lowenstein, Fiona

• ISBN13: 9781615199105
• ISBN10: 1615199101
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2022-11-08
• Publisher: The Experiment

Summary

The first patient-to-patient guide for people living with Long COVID—with expert advice on getting diagnosed, dealing with symptoms, accessing resources and accommodations, and more.

“The Long COVID Survival Guide aims to give people struggling with long COVID practical solutions and emotional support to manage their illness.”—NPR, It’s Been a Minute

For people living with Long COVID, navigating the uncharted territory of this new chronic illness can be challenging. With over two hundred unique symptoms, and with doctors continuing to work toward a cure, people experiencing Long COVID are often left with more questions than answers.
A support group in book form, The Long COVID Survival Guide is here to help. Twenty contributors—from award-winning journalists, neuroscientists, and patient-researchers to corporate strategists, activists, and artists—share their stories and insight on topics including:

• getting diagnosed
• finding a caregiver
• confronting medical racism and gaslighting
• navigating employment issues
• dealing with fatigue and brain fog
• caring for your mental health, and more.

This vital resource provides the answers and reassurance you need, to take care of yourself and prepare for what comes next.

Contributors: Karyn Bishof, JD Davids, Pato Hebert, Heather Hogan, Monique Jackson, Naina Khanna, Lisa McCorkell, Karla Monterroso, Dona Kim Murphey, Padma Priya, David Putrino, Yochai Re’em, Rachel Robles, Alison Sbrana, Chimére L. Smith, Letícia Soares, Morgan Stephens, and Terri L. Wilder

Author Biography

Fiona Lowenstein is an award-winning journalist, producer, speaker, and the founder of Body Politic, a grassroots patient-led health justice organization. Lowenstein was hospitalized for COVID-19 in March 2020 and went on to found the Body Politic COVID-19 Support Group, which offers support and resources to over eleven thousand people living with COVID-19 around the world. They live in Los Angeles.

Akiko Iwasaki received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (Canada) in 1998, and her postdoctoral training from the National Institutes of Health (USA) (1998-2000). She joined Yale University (USA) as a faculty in 2000, and currently is an Investigator of the HHMI and Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Department of Immunobiology, and of Department of Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology. Akiko Iwasaki’s research focuses on the mechanisms of immune defense against viruses at the mucosal surfaces. Her laboratory is interested in how innate recognition of viral infections lead to the generation of adaptive immunity, and how adaptive immunity mediates protection against subsequent viral challenge.

Table of Contents

Foreword: “Why peer-to-peer?” by Fiona Lowenstein 
1.    Post-ICU recovery
2.    Caregiving and relationships 
3.    Managing Dysautonomia 
4.    Financial and employment issues
5.    Finding peer-to-peer support 
6.    Neurological symptoms
7.    Medical racism and chronic illness 
8.    How to get yourself diagnosed properly
9.    Radical rest: ME/CFS symptom management techniques
10.  Mental health & PTSD 
11.  Becoming newly disabled 
Afterword: the long history of patient-to-patient support