The critical health choices we made for ourselves during the pandemic reminds us it’s important to advocate for our own health, not only as we work our way out of this pandemic and deal with the lingering effects COVID-19 had on our bodies, but especially as we get older and deal with the chronic conditions many of us suffer from in general.
There is little doubt that COVID-19 will leave its mark on our society and there is a group of COVID-19 patients who will feel its effects for possibly years. Doctors are calling this Long-COVID, which is a conflagration of symptoms such as fatigue, difficulty breathing, chest palpitations, and more.
According to reports, up to one-third of COVID-19 patients have developed Long-COVID. Even President Joe Biden’s senior coronavirus adviser, Andy Slavitt, revealed that one of his sons, Zach, who is 19, has serious lingering effects from COVID-19 six months after he first tested positive and doctors haven’t figured out how to treat this yet, according to Bloomberg News.
As a matter a fact, women are more likely to be impacted by Long-COVID. According to this article in Forbes, a study led by the University of Leicester looked into the physical, cognitive, and mental health impacts of COVID-19 after people had been hospitalized. Researchers found that seven in ten patients who were admitted with COVID-19 to the hospital reported being impacted by Long Covid for months afterward and symptoms impacted women between the ages of 40 and 60 the most.
Researchers have pointed to our body’s immune response as a reason as to why Long Covid may be disproportionately affecting women. “Autoimmunity, where the body has an immune response to its own healthy cells and organs, is more common in middle-aged women,” Professor Louise Wain from the University of Leicester told the Financial Times, “This may explain why post-Covid syndrome seems to be more prevalent in this group, but further investigation is needed to fully understand the processes.”
Women also deal with chronic autoimmune conditions more so than men, occurring at a rate of 2 to 1. The exact mechanism of such autoimmune conditions is not well understood. However, the presumed mechanism tends to vary amongst the disorders and many autoimmune disorders tend to affect women during periods of extensive stress, such as pregnancy, or during a great hormonal change. A far greater number of women are affected every year with autoimmune diseases, leading to researchers attempting to identify the underlying factors, which could be responsible for this disparity.
Add to this that as we age, approximately 85 percent of older adults have at least one chronic health condition, and 60 percent have at least two chronic conditions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Using a digital platform is the best way to do that and finding the one that works best is important.
“I often wish I could place a Vulcan mind-meld on patients to instantaneously understand how they are feeling and what they have observed,” said Marta T. Becker, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Journal My Health. “A patient may not think to mention their big toe occasionally turns blue, but that may be an important diagnostic clue, or not. Physicians’ brains are honed to cut through information and recognize meaningful patterns. Journal My Health reduces the time required to gather and analyze comprehensive health information and formulate a personalized treatment plan.”
Patient advocacy and symptom tracking was the focus of a recent Facebook Live event featuring Joyce Griggs, the founder of the United States of Healthcare, which publishes expert tips from insiders working in the healthcare trenches – insurance, providers, office workers, caregivers, etc. and Tracey Welson-Rossman, the founder of Journal My Health, an app that tracks and visually presents clues to diagnosing, managing and treating chronic conditions.
They combined to provide the following tool and expert tips that will make you a better advocate for your own health include:
“It’s important to harness the ‘data of you,’” said Welson-Rossman. “We have tremendous amounts of personal health and wellness data and we need to apply it to the patient uniquely. This is not data about Long-COVID or a chronic fatigue condition, this is data specific to how you and your body are affected by a condition. Leveraging personal information makes for better diagnosis, treatment, and management not of THE condition but of YOUR condition.”
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