At first the dry cough did not go away. Gerlinde Hopp was breathless and had pain when exhaling: “I didn’t manage to climb five steps,” she remembers the beginning of the year. In addition, there was a racing heart. During the long-term EKG, the cardiologist found a greatly increased pulse rate. Her hair began to fall out at the end of January. “Luckily heard …
At first the dry cough did not go away. Gerlinde Hopp was breathless and had pain when exhaling: “I didn’t manage to climb five steps,” she remembers the beginning of the year. In addition, there was a racing heart. During the long-term EKG, the cardiologist found a greatly increased pulse rate. Her hair began to fall out at the end of January. “Fortunately, that stopped after two months,” she says. The sense of smell also came back after a few weeks.
However, difficulties concentrating and finding words are still part of her life today. “I can’t think of the names of plants in the garden,” says the 58-year-old. Reading specialist texts has also been a problem for a long time. She didn’t understand what she was deciphering. A low point was reached when she tried to open her email account and no longer knew how to do it. “I had no idea what to click on. You think about how to go on living.”
At that time, she was not yet aware that the Chemnitz woman suffers from Long Covid Syndrome. She is an athletic woman through and through. She doesn’t smoke, has a healthy diet. She has been a trainer for 45 years, giving sports and yoga courses in clubs and a fitness studio. She is involved in many areas on a voluntary basis. “I am absolutely a doer,” she says of herself. Teaching classes like step aerobics for two hours in a row, in which she talked, moved, and made complicated movements at the same time, was normal. “My resting heart rate was always very low, at 50. Suddenly it was 70 or 80. That scared me.”
The virus caught Gerlinde Hopp in a clinic, where she had a skin disease treated at the end of 2020. The closeness when eating was her undoing and around 30 other patients, she says. However, she was not severely affected by the disease. Unbearable headaches for several days, a slight fever, later total loss of smell and limited taste loss still burdened her. She was released shortly before Christmas after quarantine and a negative test.
Less than two weeks later, she went to the doctor about persistent symptoms. The cough in particular was bad. “The whole chest hurt.” Lung x-rays, lung function tests, and blood tests followed. But a pulmonologist found no changes in the lungs. Since the cardiologist could not rule out myocarditis, he advised her not to participate in sports for the time being.
“I could only go for a walk,” says Gerlinde Hopp. She read a lot, tried to get help. Her symptoms did not leave her calm. In February she read Long Covid’s “Free Press” for the first time. A telephone odyssey began. She spoke to her health insurance company, the Independent Patient Advisory Service (UPB) and the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians. From the UPB she received telephone numbers of three Covid ambulances in Saxony. But she didn’t get an appointment.
In another article she read from Jördis Frommhold, who described the symptoms of Long Covid. “I recognized myself there,” says Gerlinde Hopp. Frommhold, a specialist in internal medicine and pulmonologist, is the chief physician at a rehabilitation clinic in Heiligendamm. She has been treating patients with Post and Long Covid Syndrome since April 2020, up to now 2000 people. She reported on her experiences to the health committee in the Bundestag.
In her publicly available statement, she writes that patients with a mild to moderate corona course are affected by Long Covid. After one to four months, symptoms such as tiredness, exhaustion, massive neurological-cognitive deficits, hair loss, muscle and joint pain, rapid heartbeat, sharp rise in blood pressure as well as fears, depression, and helplessness developed. The patients are often between 20 and 50 years old and without previous illnesses. Ten percent of those infected are affected.
Thomas Grünewald, Head of the Infection and Tropical Medicine Clinic at the Center for Internal Medicine II at the Chemnitz Clinic, also considers this number to be realistic. Grünewald is also in charge of the institute’s outpatient department for infection and tropical medicine at the clinic, which has been treating mainly long-covid patients for several months and which is booked out for months. Like Grünewald, Jördis Frommhold warns of the long-term damage of the Long Covid Syndrome for individuals and society as a whole. It is unclear how long the symptoms persist and how many of the patients are permanently unable to work or are unable to work, said Frommhold in her statement. Health economic and economic effects are not foreseeable.
At Gerlinde Hopp, too, it is unclear when she will be able to work again. She is on sick leave. She recently started cycling again for short distances. And she’s been trying the first courses since July. At a low level. Step aerobics is out of the question. She supervises in the first course, because she holds back, especially older people, who she supports with movement rather than doing sports herself. “It’s so nice to be giving courses again,” she says happily.
The advice to start exercising again carefully, to stick with it, not to give up, was given to her by the doctor in the outpatient department at the clinic. There she finally got an appointment for August in May. “In the waiting room there were people my age, but also younger.” The risk that Long Covid will develop into a widespread disease is only possible due to the number of patients. There are around 288,000 confirmed corona cases in Saxony; according to the MDR, the hospital company assumes 28,000 long covid cases. The ambulances in Saxony have long been overrun.
But Gerlinde Hopp is optimistic about the future. The fact that she can do that is thanks to her husband, who has done a lot for her, and to her circle of friends who have supported her over the past few months, she emphasizes. Actually, she says in an interview in the Chemnitz city hall park, she wanted to offer a new health sports course there this summer on the stage of the “park summer”. To do this, she trained as a licensed trainer. She also wants to start all over again professionally. In the fall, she began training as a rehab trainer, which is currently on hold.
She doesn’t quarrel with the clinic where she got sick. She received good treatment there, says Hopp. But people who deny the virus go against the grain. She wanted to raise awareness of the disease, which can catch you when you are young and healthy. “You need staying power,” she advises those who despair of Long Covid. She herself has now actively done something against Corona and picked up the first vaccination after extensive advice at the vaccination center. She took it well, she says. She also wants to strengthen herself mentally and visit a self-help group in Chemnitz that is currently being established. In spring she already took part in meetings of a self-help group in Leipzig via the Internet. She is also a founding member of the Germany-wide self-help group Long Covid, which also meets online. “These groups gave me a lot of help and support,” says Gerlinde Hopp.
The patient’s name was taken from the editorial staff in Gerlinde Hopp changed.