How likely is it to develop “Long COVID” after a virus infection? – NBC Chicago

After being diagnosed with a coronavirus infection, some people complain of symptoms that last longer than the duration of the virus. This is what is now commonly known as the “long COVID”.

According to Dr. Allison Arwadi of the Chicago Public Health Service, “Long COVID” is more broadly referred to by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “Post-COVID Condition” or PCC.

How likely is it to develop a long COVID after infection?

“The majority of people who have recovered from COVID, thankfully, have no long-term impact,” Arwady said at a live Facebook event this week.

According to health officials, the symptoms must last for at least 4 weeks for them to be considered a “long COVID.” If not, the patient may still be recovering from the virus.

“If someone is diagnosed with COVID and a few weeks later, they are still recovering, we don’t think it’s a long COVID,” Arwady said.

Arwady usually said that the symptoms were similar to those that the patient had at the time of the first COVID infection. The most common symptoms she saw in the weeks following her diagnosis included coughing, shortness of breath, malaise, brain fog, muscle aches, fever, dizziness, rashes, mood changes, and loss of taste and odor. I have.

“If people lose their taste and smell, it may not come back for months,” Arwady said. “But it usually comes back.”

Severe cases of the virus can cause inflammation and stress in the body and lead to hair loss, but I have never seen a patient diagnosed with a new disease such as cancer as a direct result of a COVID infection.

However, Arwady pointed out that people with existing symptoms that affect the immune system, such as diabetes, are more likely to have statistically long-term symptoms after being diagnosed with COVID.

Can these long-term effects be permanent?

“I don’t know. Certainly, there are people who continue to have the effect that seems to have started from the time they first got the COVID,” Arwady said. “But many people have long COVID symptoms that have been fully recovered for months.”

For some patients who have had long-term COVID symptoms, Arwady said vaccination helped alleviate and recover from those illnesses.

According to the CDC, the most commonly reported symptoms of long COVID are:

• Dyspnea or shortness of breath
• Tiredness and fatigue
• Symptoms that worsen after physical or mental activity (also known as post-exercise fatigue)
• Difficulty in thinking and concentration (sometimes called “brain fog”)
• cough
• Chest and stomach pain
• headache
• Fast beating or throbbing heart (also known as heart palpitations)
• Joint and muscle pain
• Numbness
• diarrhea
• Sleep problems
• heat
• Dizziness when standing (lightheadedness)
• rash
• Change your mood
• Changes in smell and taste
• Changes in the menstrual cycle

Arwady said she and her team have not personally treated patients with new major health conditions resulting from coronavirus infections, but some studies are beginning to show more serious consequences. increase.

One of the latest studies on COVID is during at least the first few months after coronavirus infection. Mild cases of COVID-19 Associated with Subtle tissue damage and accelerated loss in the brain area It is associated with a slight loss of the overall volume of the brain, as well as the sensation of smell.

Having a mild COVID is also associated with cognitive deficiencies.

The new research was led by researchers at Oxford University. This is the first study on the possibility of illness and is of particular importance to leading COVID researchers. Effects on the brain It is based on brain scans performed both before and after the participant was infected with the coronavirus.

Gwenael DuoThe excessive loss of brain volume observed by her and her colleagues, associate professor of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences in Oxford and the lead author of the paper, on brain scans of hundreds of British people is usually at least an extra year. Aging mentioned as equivalent.

“It’s a brain injury, but it can be reversible,” she said. “But it was still relatively scary because it was in a mildly infected person.”