A woman has shared how Long Covid left her bedbound for a year as she became a “shadow of her former self” with extreme pain daily.
Her story comes as a new report from the Office of National Statistics reveals two million people have Long Covid in England and Scotland – with some people’s symptoms lasting over two years.
Kirsty Huxter from Essex suffered so badly from her symptoms that her body would “go into tremors”.
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The 46-year-old went from being a healthy, energetic person who loved to write and volunteered at her local church to barely being able to move.
She would only get out of bed to go to the toilet.
When Kirsty first caught Covid in December 2022, her symptoms were mild – but a nightmare ensued over the following 12 months.
“I was a bit tired and had a headache for a few days and that was all,” she told Need To Know.
“[A month later], I noticed I was still tired, and needed to sit down more than normal, and couldn’t do quite as much in the day as I normally did.”
Two months later, with exhaustion setting in, she rushed to the GP for help – but was reportedly told it simply took some people “quite a while” to get over Covid.
Kirsty said: “But I remained tired.
“I was exhausted after a 15-minute walk and started working mainly from home.
“At this point, fatigue was my main symptom.”
A few months later, Kirsty was staying in bed for most of her days, suffering from heart palpitations, a high heart rate and dizziness when upright.
By August, she was struggling to breathe.
She said: “I couldn’t breathe very well and called the ambulance out on three occasions because I couldn’t breath and I felt like I was being poisoned.,
“They referred me to the Long Covid clinic.
“By now I was totally bed-bound and only able to stand to get to the toilet.
“I ate all my meals in bed.
“My sleep was unrefreshing and I would often be awake for hours during the night.”
“Throughout the course of 2023 I got worse and worse.
“My life completely stopped.
“I couldn’t read, I couldn’t listen to the radio or watch TV as it felt so painful and sent my body into tremors.
“I just had to lie in bed watching the sky out of the window.
“It was painful, isolating and incredibly frightening.
“Doctors had no answers and no treatment.”
The mental and emotional toll was hard – not just on Kirsty but on her husband, David, 46, too.
For a couple of months, she had extreme sensitivity to light and sound, and would have to lie in her bedroom in the dark.
Most days, Kirsty couldn’t manage more than a five-minute conversation.
Her husband took on the household work and worked full-time to support the pair.
She said: “Just when he needed me most for emotional support to deal with what was happening, I couldn’t be there for him.”
In a last-ditch effort to give herself some relief, Kirsty did some research of her own and found two things that assisted with her symptoms.
One was Suzy Bolt’s ‘Rest, Repair, Recover’ programme, which focuses specifically on helping people with Long Covid.
She found out that the virus had damaged her autonomic nervous system, and that she needed to work on toning her vagus nerve, and trying to calm her system so it could spend more time in the parasympathetic state.
The other solution came in the form of Nurosym, a small device created by a neurotechnology company called Parasym.
She first saw the product advertised on Instagram and clicked on it a few times to read more, before taking the plunge.
It sends targeted electrical signals that modulate the nervous system.
Kirsty started using the tech in January this year for 15 minutes a day, three times a day – and experienced almost immediate changes.
Her heart rate slowed down, she was able to get out of bed more and in February 2024, she ate her first meal downstairs in the first time in months – a milestone in her recovery.
She claims it has now alleviated her symptoms to the point where she is able to spend quality time with her family again.
Kirsty said: “The road to recovery from Long Covid is long, and requires patience and acceptance, but stimulating my vagus nerve has provided the impetus for my body healing itself, slowly but surely.
“The Nurosym has been a vital component of the real beginning of my recovery journey.”
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