Anyone have the following experiences with long covid?

<p>*my eyes feels like something is weighing them down<br />*weight gain far surpasses food intake; about 20 lbs gained<br />*extremely difficulty waking up in morning<br />*increased fatigue</p>

The sleepiness and fatigue especially.
I have to adhere to a strong structure because I lose track of how I always cooked for instance, or connected the dots to accomplish household tasks. My brain gets foggy when I am required to really concentrate for a long time. Mayo Clinic specialists directed me to be active for an hour at most & then on purpose take a brain rest.....be blank for a minimum of 5 minutes, and occasionally 20min, throughout the day. I am particularly careful about driving for errands and am exhausted when I get back home.
My digestive system is sensitive to this stress and I take an anti diarrhea a half hour before going out to a social event with my husband. All of this is in addition to a whole list of long Covid typical symptoms,including no taste/smell since my infection February 2020.
BUT, here I still am by golly!,

Yes, especially when driving and stopped at a traffic light I felt like I needed toothpicks to keep my heavy eyelids open. It was scary. I called it daytime sleepiness. I’f nod off anytime I sat down, even sitting straight up. When I told the nurse practitioner at my local Post Covid 19 Recovery Clinic, she asked if I’d ever had a sleep study, to which I responded, “No.”. I’d been told by my family that I snored quietly. So, I did an overnight sleep study. At 2:00 AM I awoke to use the bathroom. When I came back to the bed the sleep tech casually told me she was going to start me on OXYGEN. I asked her what my O2 had dropped to. She said 85%. I was diagnosed with Severe Sleep Apnea, and prescribed a Nasal Pillow CPAP machine in July. It is now my new best friend. No more heavy eyelids-daytime sleepiness, napping in the daytime.

Forgot to mention I gained 60 pounds in 6 months post covid with no dietary changes. My Long Covid nurse practitioner has encouraged me not to worry about the weight gain right now. I’ve chosen to stay away from the scale as not to become depressed. I eat a healthy diet. I’d tried weight watchers which had always helped me lose in the past, with no change in weight. I started a gluten free diet a year ago to avoid anti inflammatory foods. I had hoped it would also bring weight loss but it hadn’t. I continue to eat gluten free because it has eliminated the bloating I was having post covid since July 2022. I’ve been gluten free for about a year now.

Is the weight fluid retention? Are you carrying it i your belly or all over?

Pat, I feel your pain. Not only have I never been the same since having a moderate case of COVID, but before that, the vaccines put me in bed for over 3 weeks. I was having the worst headaches of my life which were unrelenting. There were accompanying symptoms as well like nausea, dizziness, tinnitus, debilitating fatigue and depression. My physician told me I needed an MRI of my brain to rule out a tumor. With great relief, my MRI was normal. Then he surmised I was having an inflammatory response to the vax and prescribed a taper pack of steroids which helped briefly. Basically I just had to ride it out because nothing addressed the pain, and I refused narcotics and opioids.
As fate would have it, I contracted the virus anyway, and the symptoms returned, leaving me a completely different person physically.
I'm just tired. I have spurts of energy few and far between. This is deemed "Long Covid", for which there is no protocol, no treatment.
I took the vax in good faith, mostly to protect my elderly parents whom I see often. So now my quality of life is forever changed, and there's not a darn thing I can do about it.
I push myself to walk atleast 3 miles a day and I'm completely wiped out afterwards and have to basically go to bed. Any new illness is much worse than it should be and recovery is eternally slow.
My resulting physical condition has caused financial issues, falling behind on monthly expenses and even defaulting on a credit card. It's embarrassing and depressing.
In short, these vaccines and the virus have changed my life forever and even affected my friendships.
Additionally, I now experience symptoms of IBS for which I don't even want to be evaluated, and even if I went, I have no medical insurance. It sucks, but this is my reality.
My heart goes out to all.

Praying for you. How old are you? I didn’t mention I developed overactive bladder during active covid in June 2022. I’d be walking to the bathroom not feeling any urgency. It would be like somebody turned the faucet on, and it wasn’t me. As soon as I wasn’t contagious I saw a female urologist who ran tests and diagnosed me with overactive bladder. I take medication daily which has helped. But, I do know where the bathrooms are in local stores. I also had 6 fully formed bowel movements a day, despite the weight gain😳Everytime I sat on the toilet to pee, I’d also poop. That continued for a year until I started on prednisone. I woke up every morning with extreme body aches and had been taking 1,000 MG Ibuprofen to function. When I was referred to a local rheumatologist, he sent me for extensive blood work. Based on those results he diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthitis. I started on 10 mg prednisone which brought my bowels back to normal, as well as alleviating the body aches without Motrin.

Forgot to mention I’m 72. I was 70 when I had covid in June 2022.

Upper body mostly, from belly up. I can still wear the same leggings, elastic waist skirts, jeggings. However, my bra size increased at 71, and my shirt size increased 3 sizes so it doesn’t cling. I never gained weight in that area before in my life. Being treated with prednisone now. It’s helping with the rheumatoid arthritis and bronchial asthma diagnosis that cause shortness of breath walking across a parking lot to a store.

Absolutely weight gain and fatigue (mental and physical). On weight gain don't punish yourself over it, it is to be expected. For most of us weight control is about exercise, activity, and calories. For me and for most it's activity that dictates our weight. Those of us who have jobs 'on our feet' compared to those who 'sit in a chair' have a much easier time of losing weight. While marketers would like us to believe it's all about exercise (and don't get me wrong exercise is important too), weight control/gain/loss is much more correlated to activity level. With Long COVID our activity drops and the weight goes in the wrong direction.