Treating Long COVID Fatigue

The COCA Call link worked today! The topic was Evaluating and Supporting Patients Presenting with Fatigue Following COVID-19. It was a very interesting & informative session. It started out with Dr. Maureen Miller from the CDC summarizing what is currently known about "long COVID" & how it is currently being treated.

I never got this screen on Tuesday for the other COCA Call.

Then Drs. Benjamin Abramhoff & Joseph E. Herrera went over diagnosis & treatment options for Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC); aka Long COVID. 

I was pleased to see that about 1/3 of the presentation was about health equity in treatment of long COVID. One of the things that COVID-19 has underscored is the disparity in infection rate as well as outcomes; I think this is because underlying conditions plays a large part in progression of the disease. It is a known fact that many chronic health conditions can be predicted by your zip code. I enjoyed Dr. Monica Verduzco Gutierrez presentation. 

It was interesting how they likened the fatigue caused by COVID-19 to the fatigue indicative of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) which is what I have as related to my fibromyalgia. Many of the signs & stages are what I went through with fibromyalgia. Some of the "treatments" are also what I did but there were a couple things I wish I had known about when I was initially recovering; it would have made it easier to handle. Though, in hindsight, I'm pretty sure Dr. Stanley told me about them but I did not want to believe what he said!

Yesterday I found some beets in the back of the refrigerator; I washed them up for my proothies. This morning I threw a small one in to see how difficult it would be to blend it well enough to be drinkable. It was easier than I expected. For the next week or so I will be doing beet proothies! They make my green proothies a nice reddish blue color, similar to blueberries but with more warmth.

During lunch I watched iZombie, but also discovered that Kai had added The Witcher and The Blacklist to my watch list. Apparently there are currently only 8 episodes of The Witcher, with 8 more coming after December this year. There are 174 episodes of The Blacklist, with another season coming in late October; and there are 71 episodes of iZombie. So if I watch 1 episode of The Witcher a week that will take me close to the start of the next season. I can watch 1 episode of iZombie a day & finish it off before moving on to 1 episode a day of The Blacklist. Of the 3, I think The Witcher is most my type of show, it's kinda like samurai meets Middle Earth; he lives in a world of fantasy beasts & magical powers & fights them with swords. He generally carries only 1 long sword that is not as heavy or cumbersome as a broadsword but neither is it light or agile like a katana; he wields it with one hand. He frequently fights with a short sword in the other hand like a wakizashi. And like good samurai heroes he polishes off a lot of foes single-handedly & is somewhat cryptic. He grunts a lot.

I got an email today from Smart Trees Pacific; they are doing another Citizen Forester Training. They held one in 2019 but I did not hear about it until a month or so after it was finished. There are 3 classes next week; 2 on Zoom & 1 in the field. I am planning on attending these; field work is my way of relaxing!

I also got an email from Marjorie about another MRC volunteer opportunity. I will continue to help with the PHN vaccine outreach & education events as well as the HFD testing event at the stadium in the month of October.

For dinner I had Mozzarella Chicken, turmeric kimchee, beet spirals, & chipotle sauerkraut.

Keala crawled in to the shark bed this afternoon. It was at the end of the couch, kind of at a funny angle, but she wanted to sleep in there, so she did.

Kīlauea has continued to erupt over night.

Another video I watched provided information on past eruptions & the length of the eruption; it looked at information on eruptions since 1900. It says 25% lasted less than 24 hours and 50% lasted less than 1 week. Based on this, they predict this eruption will last a week or less. Probably a good bet since it has now been over 24 hours & it's still going. 

The Aix weather app forecast drizzle in the morning and evening with partly cloudy skies in the middle of the day. For today, that appeared to be accurate! For Kapaʻau. Aix forecast a steady rain through out the day; the local paper forecast frequent showers with a 90% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station had already recorded 0.31 inches by 7:13 a.m. For Marysville, Aix forecast a whole lot of rain during the day, diminishing to less in the evening; the traffic cams showed intense rain!

Kaimukī looking westerly at 7:11 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 7:12 a.m.

Marysville at 7:14 a.m. HST.

Marysville at 7:14 a.m.

There was small surf forecast on all shores. 

Laniakea (N) at 7:18 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 7:16 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 7:19 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 7:21 a.m.

There is a low pressure area about 1800 miles southeast of Hilo. There is a 20% chance of a tropical depression forming in 2 days or a 40% chance in 5 days.

There were 332 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 79,206; while this new case number is higher than yesterday's, the 7-day new case average for the state is 307 which is continuing the downward trend. There were also 12 new deaths reported, increasing the number of fatalities to 782; currently there are 5130 cases considered active. As of yesterday there were 2,007,072 doses of vaccine administered, providing 67.9% of the population with full vaccination and 76.1% with at least 1 dose; 20,913 additional shots were given to those that are immunocompromised. There are 235 patients currently hospitalized with 49 in the ICU and 41 on ventilators.