Fatigue, headache, body aches and sleep disorders are the most common symptoms of prolonged Covid
Paul Morales He contracted Covid-19 in February 2021. This disease left the 52-year-old man from Piñas (El Oro) with sequelae such as a accelerated heart rate, physical exhaustion and hair loss. However, just three months ago he was discharged from his heart condition and almost a year after the infection he has not been able to fully recover.
Although he doesn’t get as tired walking anymore, he still has small empty spaces on your scalp. According to consulted experts, these are some of the symptom that persist in patients who develop prolonged Covid.
A study published at the end of October 2021 in the scientific journal The Lancet Regional Health-Americas revealed that of 1,366 positive patients for Covid-19 between the ages of 12 and 85 in Ecuador, the 64.3% maintained symptoms between 4 and 6 weeks after infection; 21.1%, between 6 and 12 weeks later; and 14.6% for more than 12 weeks.
In addition, the symptoms that were repeated among the patients were analyzed. In this sense, the most common was fatigue, in 67.3% of the participants, followed by headaches (45.2%), body pain (42.3%) and sleep disorders, such as insomnia (36.5%).
for the epidemiologist Andrea Gomez, prolonged Covid can be understood as the manifestation of symptoms that persist during and after the disease or that can appear over time.
A very common example, points out the specialist, is the loss of smell and taste that some people kept, especially with the previous variants. “Several of the people who lost these senses maintained this loss for a long time. Most of them usually recover them a month, but in other cases it is more time”, he points out.
He adds that other symptoms of prolonged Covid are the physical exhaustion, hair loss, muscle weakness and back pain.
The infectologist agrees Carol Cedillo, who states that it can be called prolonged Covid when “several weeks later, patients continue to have symptoms such as fatigue or tiredness, despite having overcome the initial symptomatology”.
For the internist and intensivist doctor of the Interhospital hospital complex in Guayaquil, Jerome Cassanello, in people who develop prolonged Covid “symptomatology persists that did not have prior to infection and that, despite having been treated, it has not been possible to detect any other cause responsible for it.”
He specifies that “there are also patients who have been left with sequelae such as injured lungs or pulmonary fibrosis, which has left them with reduced lung capacity.”
In addition, he points out that “some may have cardiac manifestations that can leave sequelae. The most common has been arrhythmia”.
Time to File Covid Extended
The World Health Organization does not clearly define the period of time from which it is possible to speak of prolonged Covid, but it can be taken as reference from week 12.
Based on the clinical guide for patient care with “persistent Covid”, published on May 1, 2021 by the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG) and Long Covid Acts (alliance of 6 groups), the symptoms of this type of Covid persist beyond 4 weeks of contagion, they affect all ages, even at the pediatric level, they occur in both sexes and fluctuate with other underlying diseases.
For Gomez, if the symptoms exceed 12 weeks “it is already more worrying and it would attract more attention from doctors, because that means that the body has not yet had the ability to recover.”
Who can have prolonged Covid?
According to Gómez, although prolonged Covid is more likely to occur in older adults or people with chronic diseases, it is possible that someone with good immune system have had a severe case of Covid-19 and subsequently prolonged Covid.
What the specialist advises, rather than worrying about this long-term affectation, is prevent contagion, It ensures that this disease is not as specific as others and often presents unusual symptoms.
Given this, adds Cassanello, work is being done on the fly, because “we cannot yet talk about the effect that Covid will have after a few years, because the disease has a relatively short time”. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
