Long Covid kids left in crippling long-term pain as chronic condition ‘strikes down 74,000 Brit youngsters’

Co-founder Frances Simpson – a lecturer whose two children have been ill since March – reached out to parents on social media to poll their kids’ symptoms.

Almost 90 per cent of the 162 parents who replied said their children were still sick three months or more after they first fell ill.

Half were primary school pupils aged between 6-11, and 40 per cent were in secondary school.

Gracie Hayes, 10, is one of them and has been poorly since last summer with dizzy spells, exhaustion, rashes and a racing heartbeat.

Initially, she had none of the typical symptoms of Covid-19 like a cough or a temperature.

Instead she was struck with distorted taste and smell which made all foods stink of rotting flesh – a condition known as ‘cacosmia’.

Previously fit and healthy, Gracie used to think nothing of joining mum Claire for 5km park runs near their home in Newbiggin, Northumberland.

But during the two months she spent bed-bound with Long Covid she could barely manage the short walk to the bathroom.

Claire, 47, explained: “We went on a family trip to Blackpool last summer and a couple of days later Gracie was eating chicken when she started complaining that it was rotten.

“We all tried it and it was fine, but Gracie couldn’t finish her meal. She pushed it away.

“After that, she said everything I put in front of her smelt of rotting meat. 

“It got to the point where I couldn’t even cook meat in the house because Gracie would run upstairs, physically retching.”

Then other worrying symptoms started to emerge.

Claire revealed: "“Gracie was constantly exhausted and sleeping for sixteen hours at a time. 

“She was so weak, I had to borrow a wheelchair from the Red Cross to get her to hospital appointments.

“She was eating so little that her weight plummeted and we were warned that if we couldn’t get any food in her she would have to be tube fed."

Gracie was eventually diagnosed with Long Covid by a paediatric team at Wansbeck General Hospital in October.

Nichola Careless’ 12-year-old son, Mani, has been using a wheelchair for months while daughter Eleni, 13, has been suffering with brain fog, dizziness and headaches.

Mani was struck down with debilitating joint pain after recovering from a hacking, dry cough that lasted two weeks.

The previously sporty teenager – who played football and rugby for local teams – could not take more than a few steps without being overwhelmed with exhaustion. 

His pain grew so severe he was hospitalised for three nights, but Nichola, 44, said: “We were told he was exaggerating his symptoms, that it was probably related to anxiety and he was making it all up.

“He was in agony, essentially paralysed from the neck down, yet I was treated like some neurotic mother. 

“I remember Mani looking at me, distraught, and saying ‘they don’t believe us, mum’.

“It was only when I began doing some online research and found the Long Covid Kids support group that I realised there were other parents going through the same experience."

The cause of Long Covid is unclear, but scientists have found some sufferers have antibodies that attack their own body.

Experts now want a vaccines programme for kids and new measures in schools when pupils return to class.