Early research helps to quantify the experiences of coronavirus with longer transporters
There are a growing number of people around the world who have survived Covid-19, only to find persistent symptoms that last for weeks or months, and even new effects such as hair loss that do not appear until weeks after they Covid-declared free.
They are called long traders. Their experiences are poorly understood by the medical community and often rejected by doctors as psychological problems, writes epidemiologist and Covid survivor Margot Gage Witvliet, PhD, in an article on The conversation. But the pain, ache and discomfort are real, according to Witvliet, who had Covid-19 four months ago and now suffers from tinnitus, chest pain, and heartbeat.
A new survey with 1,567 long-term studies now shows just how widespread these symptoms are in the long term, ranging from sadness and blurred vision to diarrhea and joint pain. Here are the top 10 complaints and the percentage of people who report each (many long-haulers report different effects):
100% fatigue
66.8% Muscle as body
65.1% Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
59.0% Possible concentration as focus
58.5% Inability to exercise while active
57.6% headache
49.9% Difficulty sleeping
47.6% anxiety
45.6% Memory problems
41.9% Dizziness
The survey, which includes self-reported post-Covid symptoms, grew out of a Facebook page called Survivor Corps, a grassroots group dedicated to training Covid-19 langoustines and connecting them with the medical and research communities.
The findings were analyzed and presented by Natalie Lambert, PhD, an associate professor of medicine at Indiana University, and Wendy Chung, MD, a neurodevelopmental specialist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Their paper has not been formally peer-reviewed and has not been published in a journal, but the findings echo other research and the growing number of documented as anecdotal cases.
In all, respondents to the survey rated 98 different effects, far more than the 11 common symptoms listed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as possible signs that a person has the disease.
Several of the diseases are far from benign: tinnitus; cramps; flashes like floaters in vision; night sweats, pain in hand and feet. A quarter of the effects involved pain.
“The results of this survey suggest that the symptoms of brain, whole body, eye and skin are also common health problems for people recovering from Covid-19,” the researchers state.
Studies have shown that Covid-19 is much more infectious than the respiratory system. By late spring, we knew that the disease affected the body from head to toe, the brain swelled and compromised many of the body’s organs, and that it could be a disease of blood fats. A new study suggests that Covid-19 can infect the thyroid gland, causing excessive release of hormones.
And as time goes on, studies have begun to look at possible long-term effects.
Heart images taken 10 weeks after people commissioning Covid-19 found 78 out of 100 had some kind of inflammation or other abnormalities, even if the people had little or no pre-existing cardiovascular problems, researchers reported July 27 in the journal JAMA Cardiology.
“We expected to see a lot of long-term damage from Covid-19: scarring, reduced lung function, reduced exercise capacity,” says Ali Gholamrezanezhad, a radiologist at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. Science Magazine.
“It will take months to a year or more to determine if there are long-term, harmful consequences of the infection.”
There are also persistent odd effects, too. Beyond enduring pain, hundreds of Covid-19 survivors experience hair loss. “We see patients who had Covid-19 two to three months ago and are now experiencing hair loss,” says Shilpi Khetarpal, MD, a dermatologist at the Cleveland Clinic. The demoralizing effect was recently brought to life in a Twitter video posted by celebrity Alyssa Milano, who is recovering – in one way or another – from the disease. However, Khetarpal says the effects should be temporary.
Covid-19 would not be the only virus that causes chronic symptoms. Polio usually causes mild to cold or flu-like symptoms. But in about 1% of cases, it damages the neurological system and can cause a person to become partially paralyzed. Epstein-Barr virus and the herpes virus are both suspected of causing chronic fatigue syndrome, but scientists are unsure.
Given that the current pandemic is only months old, no one can say for sure if any of the post-Covid complications will become lifelong problems. “It will take months to a year or more to determine if there are any long-term, devastating consequences of the infection,” said Drs. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said in a Facebook interview last month. ‘We just do not know now. We did not have enough time. ”
That leaves sufferers like Witvliet, the epidemiologist, in limbo, usually just resting while wondering when their headaches, concussions, and extreme fatigue might arise.
“It’s too early to say we’re off,” she writes. “It’s too early to know how long the damage will last.”
