“I developed muscle weakness, confusion, tremors, anxiety, depression, forgetfulness on a grand scale, lightheadedness, vertigo,” she said. “I couldn’t even walk up my stairs in my house for seven months. I had to crawl up them.”

After eight months of “pestering” her physician, Pedersen found out about the long COVID clinic at the University of Utah.

Speaking at a press conference Thursday morning, Pedersen said she hopes her story will encourage others to find the help she has received.

Pedersen said while she isn’t 100% better, she has found different ways of coping with her symptoms and credits her family and the team at the long COVID clinic. She paces herself, picking up her groceries instead of going inside and shopping herself. She said the clinic has helped her with memory and fatigue issues among other things. She’s hoping one day in the future she’ll be able to walk at least a half-mile on a flat surface. She also said she hopes to get back to reading without having the words “swim around the page,” since her house is full to capacity with books.

Jeanette Brown, medical director for the long COVID clinic and an intensive care physician, said since the clinic opened its doors in July 2021, over 3,000 patients have been treated for long COVID. Most of those patients, or 67% have been female and 32% have been male. From those numbers, 49% are from rural and underserved areas with low health equity and the majority of patients have been between the ages of 26 to 62 with the average patient being around the age of 46.

Many of the patients have had to either cut back or quit working all together because of the impact of long COVID.

Brown said three years later, patients are still walking through the doors of the clinic with long COVID symptoms.

“You didn’t know how long we would need, but here we are three years later and we’re still having patients rolling in,” Brown said. “Long COVID can have an impact for a long time and patients can also have a relapse of their symptoms if they get sick again.”

Brown said it was important for clinic health workers to tailor treatments to patients individually, since no two cases have been alike. Funding from the state has helped the clinic to use more resources such as telehealth visits, especially for patients who don’t have insurance.

Brown said some of the most common symptoms people are dealing with include chronic fatigue, muscle pain, exercise intolerance, difficulty concentrating, ringing in the ears, blurry vision, anxiety, depression, headache, cough and shortness of breath. Some of the treatments have included physical, speech and occupational therapists.

“You wouldn’t think someone would need a speech therapist, but they are there to help patients cope with word finding and memory issues,” Brown said.

When patients are accepted into the clinic, they receive an initial hour-long visit to go over their symptoms and then receive a treatment plan designed individually for their problems.

Brown said the clinic will remain open as long as there are patients needing help with long COVID. In addition, research continues to move forward, looking for new ways to understand and treat the ongoing problem.