Recognizing the Signs of Long COVID-19

Since COVID-19 first made its unwelcome appearance in late 2019 and early 2020, it quickly established itself as something far different from the average flu. Early and more powerful strains of the respiratory virus claimed millions of lives and left millions of others to deal with long-term symptoms.

Called long COVID, this issue is far from over as COVID-19 continues to strike each year, and between 5% and 10% of those who are infected develop long COVID.

To help you identify whether your COVID-19 illness has turned the corner into long COVID, Dr. Paul Gill and our team here at Gill Neuroscience want to highlight a few of the many possible symptoms of long COVID, which include neurological issues. Let’s take a look.

Defining long COVID

When defining what constitutes long COVID, we take the cue from chronic diseases — symptoms that last for three months or more. The World Health Organization reports that the percentage of people who have at least one COVID symptom after three months ranges between 10% and 20%. 

Other meta analyses have found that up to 45% of people who had COVID still have one lingering symptom after three months, placing them into the growing group of COVID long-haulers.

Wherever that final number falls, suffice it to say that long COVID isn’t uncommon and it affects millions of people around the globe.

Long COVID — a wide range of possible symptoms

The problem with diagnosing long COVID is that there’s an incredibly long list of reported symptoms. One study found that more than 200 symptoms have been identified that affect multiple organ systems.

While we won’t get into all of the possible symptoms, we want to highlight some of the more common, which we break out into the following categories. 

The general symptoms include:

• Fatigue
• Post-exertional malaise (fatigue after exercising)
• Ongoing low-grade fever
• Joint and musculoskeletal pain

Among the respiratory and cardiovascular symptoms are:

• Chronic cough
• Shortness of breath
• Heart palpitations
• Chest pain

The gastrointestinal symptoms include:

• Diarrhea
• Upset stomach
• Stomach pain
• Constipation

The neurological and mental health symptoms can be particularly troublesome. They include:

• Headaches
• Brain fog — difficulty with focus and thinking
• Sleep issues
• Loss or change in your sense of taste and/or smell
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Dizziness, especially when you stand up
• Pins and needles

As you can see, the potential neurological symptoms are numerous.

Managing long COVID

There’s good news and bad when it comes to managing long COVID, and we’ll start with the bad: There’s no one cure for your symptoms. We have to manage them on a symptom-by-symptom basis.

Now for some good news. First, long COVID doesn’t mean that it’s a lifelong issue. Many people do recover, just more slowly than most — perhaps in a year or two.

Second, we do have options for helping you get through this period. For example, if you’ve lost your sense of smell or taste, we can often remedy these issues with stellate ganglion blocks (an injection that targets nerves in your neck) or olfactory retraining.

We can also address mental health issues with medications and therapy to help reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.

And as specialists in headaches, we can certainly find ways to reduce your head pain.

Our point here is that we work with you to manage your long COVID symptoms so they don’t interfere with your ability to function normally.

For expert help with your long COVID, please call our office in Houston, Texas, at 832-912-7777, or use our online request form to schedule an appointment.