Why Some Experts Suggest Getting a PCR Test, Even If You Already Know You Have COVID-19

For Rachel Robles, getting diagnosed with Long COVID was an uphill battle. She caught the virus in March 2020, when nearly nothing was known about its long-term effects and testing was inaccessible for most people. To this day, she is sensitive to looking at screens—doing so can prompt pressure in her head and ringing in her ears—and has to manage COVID-19-related injuries to her liver and brain. But since she never got tested for COVID-19 when she first got sick, Robles had to “fight tooth and nail for every diagnosis I’ve received,” convincing doubtful doctors that she’d caught the virus and developed Long COVID. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] She was eventually diagnosed with Long COVID, but it likely would have been easier if she had had the proof of infection that a test result provides, she says. Robles now recommends that anyone who suspects they have COVID-19 get a laboratory test, just in case they go on to develop Long COVID and need documentation of a previous infection for diagnosis or care. “I never got proof of my initial COVID infection, and I was gaslit so much,” says Robles, who is an administrator at the Long COVID support group Body Politic and a contributor to the Patient-Led Research Collaborative for Long COVID. “So I always tell people, ‘This is something you need to do if you have a COVID infection, just in case.’” David Putrino, a Long COVID researcher at New York&rs...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news