Traces COVID-19 leaves in the body. The two most common ones stay for many months

Scientists are looking more closely at the effects of COVID-19. Nothing unusual. The long covid provides further cause for concern. We are worried about the scale of the problem (up to 100 million people with long covid), the magnitude of symptoms (over 200) and their duration. A recently published study showed two complications that most often appear after undergoing COVID-19. There is “growing evidence that chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms occur after infection,” the researchers say. What specific problems are they talking about?

1. Neurological symptoms were reported by 80 percent. people participating in the study
2. Fatigue and headache were the most common symptoms reported more than four months after contracting COVID-19
3. Muscle aches, cough, changes in sense of smell and taste, fever and chills were less frequent.
4. The reason why fatigue appears to be such a common complication is because of persistently high levels of inflammation
5. More information can be found on the Onet homepage

Chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms after COVID-19. More evidence

Long covid, i.e. long-lasting symptoms of coronavirus infection, are attracting more and more attention of scientists and doctors. For good reason. There are growing concerns that long covid will lead to a wave of chronic diseases, and this will have consequences, inter alia, for health systems. Unfortunately, many questions about the long covid still remain unanswered. For example, it is not known how long complications may persist.

The authors of a work recently published in the medical journal “BMJ” believe that this could take more than a year and could even be “potentially permanent”. It was also recently discovered that long covid really has three faces. One of the most frequently observed types was disturbances in the nervous system.

Scientists from the Medical College of Georgia in the United States decided to take a closer look at the symptoms and their frequency. Their work appeared in the journal ScienceDirect and brought further evidence that “chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms occur after COVID-19 infection”. One of the authors of the study, neurologist Dr. Elizabeth Rutkowski, notes: “There are many symptoms with which we did not know what to do at the beginning of the pandemic, but it is now clear that there is a long covid and that many people are affected.”

Fatigue and headache are the most common symptoms

The paper published in ScienceDirect presents the preliminary results of the first phase of the CONGA study (developed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to study the severity and prognosis of neurological problems). 200 patients who had a positive test for the presence of coronavirus about 125 days (about four months) earlier took part in it.

Neurological symptoms were reported by 80 percent. people participating in the study. The most common symptoms lasting more than four months after the onset of the disease were fatigue (the most common in 68,5%) and headache (66,5%).

Slightly more than half reported changes in smell (54,5%) and taste (54%), and nearly half (47%) experienced mild cognitive impairment, with 30% experiencing mild cognitive impairment. showed a vocabulary impairment, and 32 percent had problems with working memory (it is difficult for them to remember what is currently perceived by the senses), 21% reported confusion.

According to the researchers, none of the participants reported a stroke, and problems with coordination were among the less frequent symptoms.

Long covid. Why does fatigue attack so often?

Scientists point to potentially high levels of inflammation, the body’s natural response to infection. Blood tests taken at the initial consultation and again at the follow-up visit showed that inflammatory markers were high in some people, and this situation continued. According to scientists, this type of persistent inflammation contributes to the appearance of some symptoms, including fatigue.

It’s not just about fatigue on a purely physical level. Dr. Rutkowski suggests that “there is probably some degree of neurological fatigue as well, because patients also have brain fog, they say it hurts to think, that their brain is smudged”. Some studies have even found a reduction in brain volume due to mild to moderate COVID-19 disease.

The symptoms seem particularly persistent, especially in some people. As the neurologist points out, it happens that previously well-functioning people (worked 80 hours a week and exercised daily), after an illness, may only be able to function for about an hour a day, and the rest of the time to lie in bed. Scientists are looking for an answer to the question why this is happening. Dr. Rutkowski admits that he is not yet able to answer all doubts, but he can certainly tell such people that they are not alone.