'Long Covid deprives me of all my energy"

Kirsty Huxter, 46, from Essex, has been left periodically bedbound after battling the symptoms of long Covid for almost two years

- AMY JONES

Kirsty Huxter was healthy and energetic, worked part-time as the manager of a youth charity, wrote books, volunteered at church and ran a busy household before Covid changed her life.

Kirsty tested positive for the virus in December 2022. Like millions of people, Kirsty initially experienced mild symptoms, primarily a headache and tiredness. “There were barely any symptoms – it was only because my husband, David, had a headache that I took a test,” she says. “Otherwise, I would have just thought I was a bit tired.”

Four days after testing positive, the aspiring author returned to work since she “felt fine”. This was when Kirsty began to notice she was feeling lethargic. “I walked to work for a couple of days in the week and I was out of breath, I was getting tired by late afternoon so I just tried to rest more,” she says.

Many people have noted tiredness as a common side-effect of Covid, but Kirsty knew that something wasn’t right when she didn’t recover after a few weeks. Her fatigue got worse and it began to drastically affect her daily life.

“I started to do click and collect instead of going to the supermarket because I didn’t think I could walk around for 45 minutes and I worked from home a few days a week. At this point, I was getting tired but otherwise felt fine,” Kirsty says. A month later, in February 2023, she was forced to stay in bed for a couple of days after feeling “really bad”.

“That was my first indicator that this would not just disappear,” she says. “I continued for a few months pacing myself, barely leaving the house, just working from home, but still doing housework. I noticed that after putting the bins out one night I felt absolutely exhausted – my muscles were burning.”