Brigitte Post was one of the first to be infected with COVID-19. She was the first to share her story about Long COVID with Altea. And now there is very good news: Since the second vaccination, she is fine again. Read the update at the end of the article where she tells how she's been doing in the past two months.
In one way, Brigitte Post is a very atypical case of Long COVID. She is likely to have been one of the first people in Switzerland to be infected - over a month before the first officially confirmed case. And she began to suffer from symptoms of Long COVID at a time when no one had heard of the phenomenon.
Fungal tongue and rash
Switzerland was about to enter the first lockdown when Brigitte Post was sitting at home and her hair began to fall out. Then the sudden attack on the tongue, which had a fungal coating for days, soon followed by a rash all over the body. And all of this without getting an explanation or classification, and accordingly no perspective.
"My hair fell out in clumps and I thought: 'Will I be bald for the rest of my life?'"
Much of what Brigitte Post experienced is known today from other courses of Long COVID. For example, the ability to concentrate. "I'd print out an invoice, and then I'd print it out again in the afternoon. Or I'd put something to take away and then leave it anyway", she says. Then again: when she was acutely affected, little or nothing was known about all of this.
Brigitte Post with her dog Abha, whom she rescued from Romania with her animal welfare foundation.
Helpful painting therapy
Among other things, painting therapy helped Brigitte Post with emotional processing. She painted a picture of what it was like before the illness. And then one thing about the turning point, the worst time in the hospital. "It was sad to bring it all up again - but very healing."
Put in the psycho corner
Something else that bothered Brigitte Post were the skeptical reactions - because her complaints are not visible from the outside. "I had the worst symptoms, later this insurmountable exhaustion - and then some would tell you that it was the flu or that I should take psychotropic drugs. What do you reply?" she asks rhetorically. Even in one of the specialized consultation hours she experienced that instead of the interdisciplinary care she had hoped for, psychotherapy was suggested to her.
Salvation through diagnosis
The salvation finally came after a year. Because Post fell ill so early, she did not have a positive test; an antibody test months later came back negative. Finally she heard about a study at the University Hospital Bern. Researchers there succeeded in analyzing X-ray images of the lungs with artificial intelligence, and did so in such a way that the method detects a COVID lung with 97% accuracy. Brigitte Post sent in her x-rays from January 25, 2020 - and received the confirmation in black and white one year after her infection: "COVID pneumonia."
"It seems as if the inner struggle has stopped. I am grateful and extremely happy!"
Back to 100% soon?
The relief was enormous, a "dam burst" for Brigitte Post. And she's getting better and better. She works 50%. It is an advantage that, as a self-employed communications consultant, she can organize her working hours freely. And she hopes to be able to return to full work as early as next month. It's still up and down after 14 months. However, she states "I have the feeling that I'm slowly rising. The waves are still there, but not as violently."
UPDATE: Turnaround thanks to vaccination
That was the state of affairs at the end of March 2021. A few weeks later, however, the setback came: "My cognitive problems have increased and the curve is going in the wrong direction," wrote Brigitte Post in mid-April, quite resignedly. She hasn't been able to work as planned yet. But a month later, the long-awaited turning point finally came. "There's good news!" writes Brigitte Post at the end of May. «The vaccination made me feel like a RESET. It got better after the first vaccination a month ago, and after the second vaccination on May 17, my condition improved significantly again." It seems as if the inner struggle has stopped. "It's a different attitude towards life, I can suddenly think again and have energy to live," writes Brigitte Post. "I'm grateful and extremely happy!"
This effect, the "reset", could be due to an immune modulation. You can read more about the question of a therapeutic effect of vaccination in the interview with Professor Jan Fehr.
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