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It’ s ENOugh to breathe
Dee Hawes is an occupational therapist living with Long Covid. Here he shares his experience of taking part in the English National Opera’ s Breathe initiative to combat breathlessness.
W hen thinking about possible treatments for Long Covid, opera might not be the first thing to spring to the occupational therapist’ s mind. Whether we are opera fans or not, we might wonder what on earth Verdi, Mozart, Wagner, Gilbert and Sullivan, Britten and Tippet could have to do with treating a serious longterm condition that leaves us fatigued, in pain, unable to concentrate and – oh yes – breathless.
Here, of course, is the answer. Breathlessness is a common primary symptom of Long Covid, with sufferers feeling they struggle to take in enough air.
Even where – as in my own case – breathlessness is not especially prominent in itself, there is an increasing amount of research that suggests that a shortage of oxygen getting to the skeletal muscles and organs is at least part of the problem( Crook et al 2021).
Several mechanisms may be responsible for this. Some suggestions have been: faulty transfer of oxygen to the bloodstream in the lungs; poor circulation of the oxygenated blood; problems with the uptake of this oxygen in the muscles and organs once the blood gets to them; faulty neurological signals regulating muscles and organs.
Whatever the truth may turn out to be, it follows that improving our breathing to increase
28 OTnews June 2022