Cleveland Clinic helps long COVID patients reCOVer

MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS , Ohio (WJW) – Many of us have experienced having COVID-19 . Most people see symptoms dissipate after a few weeks, but some are experiencing debilitating symptoms that simply won’t go away.

Since 2021, the Cleveland Clinic’s reCOVer Clinic has helped treat more than 4,000 of those patients, some traveling from out of state for relief.

“I almost felt like I was dying,” Charleston, West Virginia , resident Courtney Wickert said. “It was scary. I kind of got electric shocks all over my body and had extreme fatigue. Not just normal, you know, you’re a mom and you’re a teacher and you’re working and you’re tired fatigue. It was, like, debilitating.”

Wickert said her life was turned upside down after she caught COVID-19 for a third time about one year ago.

“A lot of dizziness, vertigo-type symptoms, to where you just felt out of sorts and also brain fog,” she explained.

Wickert is describing the tell-tale signs of long COVID . More symptoms include a loss of taste or smell, gut issues or a consistently upset stomach.

“We’ve been doing this now for well over three years here,” reCOVer Clinic Medical Director Dr. William Lago said. “And we have people that have literally been sick, really, since the pandemic started.”

Lago said patients like Wickert have been searching for answers since the branch facility opened in 2021.

“It’s still a relatively new disease,” he said. “New diseases don’t come with instruction books. So, we’re still trying to figure out what causes it and how to treat it. There is no magic pill that’s going to fix long COVID.”

On average, the reCOVer Clinic has treated more than 1,000 patients per year since opening — all of them hoping for relief to allow them to return to the life they lived before COVID.

“It was like I was just on the couch for weeks,” Wickert said. “And had a really hard time doing anything, which is hard as a mom and as a wife and as a teacher and everything — to not be able to do all the things you want to do.”

The reCOVer Clinic analyzes the patients’ symptoms and connects patients with specialists to best treat them.

“We have had people that we have been able to make feel better, succeed,” Lago said. “I just saw several this morning who — they’re not perfect — but we’re seeing, you know, I’m getting a chance to see them a couple of months down the road, and they are improving. So, you know, people do get better with this, given time.”

New criteria for long COVID are being established if symptoms persist for longer than 90 days after a positive test. Lago encourages people powering through symptoms to seek medical help if their condition worsens.

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