SIU Medicine opens Post-COVID Recovery Clinic
Most people who get infected with COVID-19 get better within weeks of the illness. Yet studies indicate about 1 in 4 experience lingering post-COVID symptoms. For these individuals, post-COVID issues extend a month or longer, and can include a wide range of new, returning or ongoing health problems.
SIU Medicine has created a Post-COVID Recovery Clinic to support these “long haulers.” The patients can receive customized care from multidisciplinary specialists. Clinicians will help identify achievable health goals as a way to optimize patients’ quality of life and function.
COVID-19 can affect individuals differently and cause a range of symptoms. Typically, these include:
- Brain fog, or trouble concentrating, remembering or sleeping
- Blood-clotting disorders
- Anxiety and depression
- Blood sugar issues, including diabetes
- Kidney dysfunction
- Tiredness
- Pneumonia and trouble breathing
- Prolonged loss of taste and smell
These symptoms can cause problems in multiple organs and body systems at once. Even people who had a mild case of the virus can have persistent COVID symptoms that disrupt their daily life.
At SIU Medicine’s Post-COVID Recovery Clinic, care will emphasize shared decision-making between providers and patients, and will be tailored to address a patient’s long-term COVID recovery needs. Medical specialists who are part of the care team may include:
- Cardiology (heart and vascular)
- General Internal Medicine (primary care)
- Infectious Diseases
- Psychiatry
- Pulmonary and Critical Care
- Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine
- Rheumatology (immune disorders)
This care is available to patients at SIU Medicine and Memorial Physician Services. If you are not currently a patient at SIU or MPS and are suffering from long COVID effects, we can coordinate your care to assist you along the road to recovery. Ask your primary care physician for a referral to the SIU Medicine Post-COVID Recovery Clinic, or call SIU Medicine at 217-545-8000.
