Covid Long-Haulers Baffle Doctors With Symptoms Going On and On

The scope of the mysterious lingering symptoms triggered by Covid-19 is emerging more clearly.

Tasha Clark tested positive for Covid-19 on April 8, 2020. The Connecticut woman, now 41, was relieved that her symptoms at the time -- diarrhea, sore throat and body aches -- didn't seem particularly severe. She never got a fever and wasn't hospitalized. So she figured that if the virus didn't kill her, within weeks she'd go back to her job and caring for her two children. She significantly miscalculated. More than a year later, she's a textbook example of a Covid long-hauler. Clark suffers from an array of disabling symptoms including blowtorch-like nerve pain and loss of sensation in her arms and legs, spine inflammation that makes it difficult to sit up straight, brain fog, dizziness and a soaring heart rate when she stands. She takes steroids and nine other prescription medicines, including twice-monthly infusions of immune therapy at a Yale University clinic to treat the neurological complications. When her front-desk job at a physical rehabilitation center couldn't accommodate her disability, Clark had to take a lower-paying medical billing position. Her life outside of work is a never-ending odyssey of medical appointments, scans and lab tests. "I never in a million years thought that a year later my life would be reduced to what it has been," says Clark, who lives with her husband and two school-aged girls in Milford. "Not knowing if I will ever recover is scary."