EYECARE: Coronavirus BRIEFING: Crisis Response Tactics Think You Have Long COVID? See Your Primary Care Doc First By Staff Tuesday, September 6, 2022 7:56 AM Many patients dealing with debilitating long COVID symptoms that interfere with their day-to-day lives might be tempted to go straight to a specialist, whether it’s a pulmonologist for breathing difficulties or a physiatrist for muscle fatigue, to see if they have long COVID. But medical experts, including many specialists who treat the most complex long COVID cases, recommend starting in a different place: primary care.“Their primary care physicians are often most knowledgeable about the patients’ complete medical history, and that context is important in the process of diagnosing someone with long COVID,” says Benjamin Abramoff, MD, who leads the long COVID collaborative for the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.Primary care providers have been on the front lines of diagnosing long COVID since the early months of the pandemic, when it became clear that a large number of patients had lingering symptoms many weeks after their original COVID-19 infections cleared up. Head over to WebMD to read the full story.