Functional stigma is a huge problem for the long Covid community.
What are functional symptoms?
They can be described as “medically unexplained symptoms” where no organic cause has been identified.
Medically unexplained symptoms NHS >
Within the medical fraternity, functional symptoms are often managed by not reinforcing the issues. This is achieved by not giving them attention, reflecting the expectation that they will eventually self resolve and disappear. Patients are expected to learn how to get beyond their issue(s) through cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and counselling.
The challenge for the medical community is how to differentiate long Covid from actual functional diseases. This will be a massive issue to overcome.
Every long Covid patient should have a cytokine panel which can be used to highlight ongoing immunology abnormalities.
The "Functional Stigma" associated with long Covid