Finally Some Doctors Acknowledge Long Covid-19 Symptoms

I was elated when I read in the New York Times this Sunday, that research is being done into why some people who had Covid for a short time, or long time develop long term symptoms that can last many months.

There was a team of researchers who followed over 200 patients between the ages of 18-89. Researchers followed them between 2-4 months following their Covid diagnosis to identify biological markers that will predict who will develop long Covid. The team ultimately came up with four factors that can contribute to long Covid. This is the first real attempt to identify factors that could determine who might get long-term symptoms. 

As Jim Heath said as a principal investigator, "We did this analysis because we know patients will go to physicians and they'll say that they are tired all of the time or whatever, and the physician just tells them to get more sleep. That's not very helpful." Mr. Heath is so right. I had a client during the first wave of Covid 19 who had long term symptoms. He went to Scripps and doctors were saying he was crazy. He wasn't crazy, he was experiencing real neurological and biological symptoms.

Here are the four factors researchers found that could lead to long Covid symptoms.

1. One marker is the level of virus load a person has. The higher the load, the more RNA in the blood early in the infection.

2. The presence of autoantibodies. These mistakenly attack tissues in the body, like rheumatoid arthritis.

3. The reactivation of Epstein-Barr disease which infects most people at young ages and becomes dormant.

4. The last marker is Type 2 Diabetes, which not everyone has and they still get long Covid.

Researchers acknowledge that more study is needed, but they also indicate that treatment is possible. If doctors see, RNA in the blood early, they can give you an antiviral medication that might mitigate the viral load. The goal would be to intervene so that long Covid doesn't come to pass. That is the take-home message. Intervention is possible.

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