Dallas’ Parkland Hospital has dedicated a clinic to patients suffering from long COVID. Long COVID is a condition suffered by COVID-19 survivors and leaves COVID-19 patients with virus symptoms twelve weeks or more after they were first infected with the virus.
Government health officials have allocated a billion dollars to study causes and treatments for long COVID, but the number of survivors suffering from the condition continues to grow. The disease has left millions of people who survived COVID-19 with aches, pains, fatigue, heart problems, and nerve damage.
The rising number has prompted Parkland Hospital to dedicate a Dallas clinic to treat sufferers of long COVID.
Dr. Surendra Barshikar, who oversees Parkland Hospital’s COVID-19 Recovery Clinic, said many of the long COVID patients were on either life-support ventilators or experienced a prolonged ICU stay when infected with the virus.
“They are seeing a lot of nerve injuries. They’re seeing foot drops, wrist drops,” Dr. Barshikar said.
Dr. Barshikar added that vaccinated people are less likely to get long COVID, unlike the unvaccinated. “I would say vaccinate. Go for that vaccination that will help you prevent severe COVID,” she said.
Dr. Barshikar also said that it’s still unclear why one person gets long COVID and the other does not. Currently, fifty long COVID patients are being treated at Parkland Hospital’s COVID-19 Recovery Clinic.