C+D's clinical and custom content editor Naimah Callachand spoke to hospital pharmacist Karen Cook about her experience of long-COVID.

Ms Cook says her “breathing has been markedly affected” after being infected with COVID-19 in March 2020. Following numerous investigations, Ms Cook has been diagnosed with pericarditis and has struggled to return to her position as a hospital pharmacy manager in a private hospital, suffering from brain fog, listlessness and headaches that made her job extremely difficult.

“I was healthy and didn’t have any pre-existing conditions” she says, and she was “concerned as to why my symptoms were going on for so long.” Ms Cook has since been diagnosed with antiphospholipid syndrome, an auto-immune condition that causes an increased risk of blood clots and is now classified as clinically extremely vulnerable to COVID-19.

Following her diagnosis, Ms Cook has been initiated on life-long warfarin therapy and “faces the challenge of getting [her] INR (international normalised ratio) into a therapeutic range”.

Ms Cook has found support from a long-COVID support group on Facebook and emphasises that pharmacists have “a role to play in the long-COVID” health crisis.

She highlights the importance of supporting pharmacy staff who are returning to work after long periods of absence due to long-COVID and how adapting their roles can significantly help to ease their return to work.

You can listen to the podcast below. Alternatively, follow C+D's podcasts by searching “Chemist+Druggist podcast” on your preferred app or on Soundcloud.

Please note, the sound quality of this podcast may be affected as it was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic

C+D will be hosting a webinar at CPC Live! on May 13 at 3pm. Join our expert panel as we discuss 'A Year On: What Do We Know Now About Long-COVID?'