Do I Have Long COVID? Here’s How to Tell

July 19, 2022 – New Yorker Lyss Stern got here down with COVID-19 initially of the pandemic, in March 2020. She ran a 103-degree fever for five days straight and was bedridden for a number of weeks. Yet signs comparable to a persistent headache and tinnitus, or ringing in her ears, lingered.

“Four months later, I still couldn’t walk four blocks without becoming winded,” says Stern, 48. Five months after her prognosis, her medical doctors lastly gave a reputation to her situation: lengthy COVID.

Long COVID is thought by many alternative names: long-haul COVID, post-acute COVID-19, and even persistent COVID. It’s a common time period used to explain the vary of ongoing well being issues individuals can have after their an infection.

The most up-to-date information from the CDC has discovered that one in 13 adults within the United States – 7.5% – have signs that final a minimum of 3 months after they first got here down with the virus. Another earlier report discovered that one in 5 COVID-19 survivors between the ages of 18 and 64, and one in 4 survivors aged a minimum of 65, have a well being situation that could be associated to their earlier bout with the virus.

Unfortunately, there’s no simple method to display screen for lengthy COVID.

“There’s no definite laboratory test to give us a diagnosis,” says Daniel Sterman, MD, director of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at NYU Langone Health in New York City. “We’re also still working on a definition, since there’s a whole slew of symptoms associated with the condition.”

It’s a problem that Stern is personally acquainted with after she bounced from physician to physician for a number of months earlier than she discovered her method to the Center for Post-COVID Care at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. “It was a relief to have an official diagnosis, even if it didn’t bring immediate answers,” she says.

What to Look For

Many individuals who turn into contaminated with COVID-19 get signs that linger for two to three weeks after their an infection has cleared, says Brittany Baloun, an authorized nurse practitioner on the Cleveland Clinic. “It’s not unusual to feel some residual shortness of breath or heart palpitations, especially if you are exerting yourself,” she says. “The acute phase of COVID itself can last for up to 14 days. But if it’s been 30 days since you came down with the virus, and your symptoms are still there and not improving, it indicates some level of long COVID.”

More than 200 signs may be linked to lengthy COVID. But maybe the one which stands out probably the most is fixed fatigue that interferes with each day life.

“We often hear that these patients can’t fold the laundry or take a short walk with their dog without feeling exhausted,” Baloun says.

This exhaustion might worsen after sufferers train or do one thing mentally taxing, a situation often called post-exertional malaise.

“It can be crushing fatigue; I may clean my room for an hour and talk to a friend, and the next day feel like I can’t get out of bed,” says Allison Guy, 36, who was recognized with COVID in February 2021. She’s now an extended COVID advocate in Washington, DC.

Other signs may be divided into totally different classes, which embody:

Cardiac/lung signs

• Shortness of breath
• Coughing
• Chest ache
• Heart palpitations

Neurologic signs. One of the commonest ones is mind fog. says Andrew Schamess, MD, a professor of inner medication at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, who runs its Post-COVID Recovery Program. “Patients describe feeling ‘fuzzy’ or ‘spacey,’ and often report that they are forgetful or have memory problems,” he says. Others embody:

• Headache
• Sleep issues. One 2022 research from the Cleveland Clinic discovered that greater than 40% of sufferers with lengthy COVID reported sleep disturbances.
• Dizziness when standing
• Pins-and-needles emotions
• Changes in scent or style
• Depression or anxiousness

You might even have digestive signs comparable to diarrhea or abdomen ache. Other signs embody joint or muscle ache, rashes, or modifications in menstrual cycles.

Risk of Having Other Health Conditions

People who’ve had COVID-19, notably a extreme case, could also be extra prone to getting different well being situations, comparable to:

While it’s laborious to say exactly whether or not these situations have been attributable to COVID, they’re almost definitely linked to it, says Schamess. A March 2022 research revealed in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, for instance, discovered that individuals who had recovered from COVID-19 had a 40% greater danger of being recognized with kind 2 diabetes over the following yr.

“We don’t know for sure that infection with COVID-19 triggered someone’s diabetes – it may have been that they already had risk factors and the virus pushed them over the edge,” he says.

COVID-19 itself can also worsen situations you have already got, comparable to bronchial asthma, sleep apnea, or fibromyalgia. “We see patients with previously mild asthma who come in constantly coughing and wheezing, for example,” says Schamess. “They usually respond well once we start aggressive treatment.” That would possibly embody a steady constructive airway strain, or CPAP, setup to assist deal with sleep apnea, or gabapentin to deal with fibromyalgia signs.

Is It Long COVID or Something Else?

Long COVID could cause an extended checklist of signs, they usually can simply imply different illnesses. That’s one purpose why in case your signs final for greater than a month, it’s necessary to see a health care provider, Baloun says. They can run all kinds of exams to test for different situations, comparable to a thyroid dysfunction or vitamin deficiency, that could possibly be confused for lengthy COVID.

They must also run blood exams comparable to D-dimer. This helps rule out a pulmonary embolism, which is usually a complication of COVID-19 and in addition trigger signs which will mimic lengthy COVID, comparable to breathlessness and anxiousness. They may also run exams to search for irritation, Baloun says.

“These tests can’t provide definitive answers, but they can help provide clues as to what’s causing symptoms and whether they are related to long COVID,” she says.

What’s simply as necessary, says Schamess, is a cautious medical historical past. This may help pinpoint precisely when signs began, after they worsened, and whether or not the rest might have triggered them.

“I saw a patient recently who presented with symptoms of brain fog, memory loss, fatigue, headache, and sleep disturbance 5 months after she had COVID-19,” says Schamess. “After we talked, we realized that her symptoms were due to a fainting spell a couple of months earlier where she whacked her head very hard. She didn’t have long COVID – she had a concussion. But I wouldn’t have picked that up if I had just run a whole battery of tests.”

Stern agrees. “If you have long COVID, you may come across doctors who dismiss your symptoms, especially if your workups don’t show an obvious problem,” she says. “But you know your body. If it still seems like something is wrong, then you need to continue to push until you find answers.”