A ‘bloodwashing’ operation that is both experimental and untested has cost some patients with devastating long-term COVID symptoms tens of thousands of euros in travel expenses across Europe. Apheresis, sometimes known as “bloodwashing,” is a procedure in which a patient’s blood is drawn, filtered to remove lipids as well as inflammatory proteins, and then reinfused into the patient. Apheresis is considered a last resort by the German Society of Nephrology for patients with untreatable lipid problems. People with long-term COVID haven’t been studied in clinical trials, and experts think the scientific reason for the therapy is iffy. Apheresis has the potential to cause bleeding, clotting, infection, and allergic responses to the chemicals employed in the process.
Travelling for bloodwashing treatments
It was discovered that a Dutch woman spent virtually all of her life savings on a “bloodwashing” operation in Cyprus that did not help her symptoms, as reported by Madlen Davies of the British Medical Journal in 2013. It took the Dutch lady two hours to go to the kitchen after contracting SARS-CoV-2 in November 2020. Her symptoms were dizziness, confusion, and shortness of breath and discomfort in her chest. No abnormalities were found in a battery of medical examinations, which is typical for lengthy COVID. After two unsuccessful attempts to return to work, the Dutch lady resigned from her position in November 2021. On Facebook, she observed a lot of discussion about a facility in Germany that was providing apheresis for COVID patients.
She came to Cyprus in March 2022 to have the surgery after deciding to give it a go. She stayed in a beachfront condominium for two months and paid €1,685 for each of the six apheresis treatments. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment, in which a patient breaths oxygen at a high pressure in a chamber, was performed nine times while she was there. She also attempted a vitamin D injection and an intravenous vitamin drip. Nothing worked. The so-called therapies drained her bank account dry and left her with nothing.
Apheresis for long-term COVID is available in Germany, Switzerland, and Turkey. More than a thousand patients have been treated by the Lipid Center North Rhine in Germany. People with long COVID may benefit from apheresis, which removes microclots from the blood to help improve circulation in the tiniest blood vessels.
Clinical studies may take years to finish, and some patients are unable to wait that long because of their crippling ailments, according to those who are promoting this therapy method. Apheresis, on the other hand, has not been shown to be effective in the treatment of long-term COVID.
What is long COVID?
It is characterized by the WHO as symptoms that persist for longer than three months following COVID-19 and can not be understood by any other medical condition.
Long COVID is still a mystery. Long COVID may be caused by blood clots in the lungs & blood arteries that clog the system and limit blood flow as well as oxygen transport throughout the body, according to a prominent theory in the field.
Other ideas suggest that long-term COVID is induced by an immune system that is out of control or by a virus that has been left in the body for too long. Three theories have been floated by certain academics.
