While scientists are trying to unravel why some COVID-19 patients experience persistent symptoms for months after the disease – a phenomenon also known as post-acute COVID-19 syndrome or ‘long COVID’, another mystery has emerged came: Why is there a long-term carrier? find relief from their long-term symptoms after receiving the COVID vaccine?
Ed Hornick is one of them. Hornick, a senior editor at Yahoo News, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in mid-March 2020 by a doctor in the emergency department at a London hospital. Although he recovered from the primary coronavirus symptoms in late April, Hornick noted on May 1 that “extreme fatigue was still present and that there were strange symptoms – mostly neurological,” he told Yahoo Life. ‘I had’ brain fog ‘- a condition in which someone struggles to remember names, memories and facts. I forgot my friends and family’s names, repeated stories in the same sentence and did not remember, and my short-term memory was gone. ”
He also dealt with the “debilitating” migraine headache – something he had previously managed to control with medication. “After COVID, it was like my medicine was no longer effective,” he says.
But that was not all. Hornick also suffered from bad tinnitus, blurred vision, dizziness, loss of balance and coordination, palpitations and muscle weakness and twitching. “I could not even walk a block without breathing and my heart was racing,” he says.
Jessamyn Smyth, a professor and athlete with an immune disease, was also diagnosed with COVID-19 in March 2020 after coming down with fever and a ‘bizarre, sharp chest pain’, she tells Yahoo Life. ‘I tried hard to keep my job and be there for my students, about whom I was so worried. However, I got sicker and did not get better. ‘
After a “life-threatening attack with COVID” over four months in which she underwent oxygen saturation levels, the worst of her health problems began to disappear. But Smyth notes that her other symptoms do not go away: ‘I still had tachycardia [a rapid heartbeat] and chest pain, ”along with breathing problems, livedo reticularis (a vascular condition characterized by a purple discoloration of the skin) and joint pain.
“There were a lot of people who insisted on calling ‘brain fog’, which for me was extreme aphasia and the ability to concentrate or destroy jobs was destroyed,” says Smyth, “and there were a lot of people who insisted on ‘ fatigue ‘which was actually a pathological exhaustion for 15 hours. She adds: “I have learned that it is common for many people with a long COVID.”
Smyth and Hornick are far from alone. Experts estimate that 10 to 30 percent of COVID-19 patients experience long-term symptoms. A February research letter published in JAMA Network open followed up to more than 170 patients up to nine months after COVID was diagnosed in them, and found that about 30 percent reported persistent symptoms, although many people in the study reported only mild illness. Fatigue was the most common symptom, followed by loss of smell or taste and brain fog.
Dr. Bradley Sanville, who started out after the COVID-19 clinic at UC Davis Health in Sacramento, California, tells Yahoo Life that the “classic post-COVID symptoms I see the most” include brain fog, fatigue, shortness of breath. and chest pain.
However, for some people suffering from long COVID, the vaccine has a surprising side effect: it gets better.
For Smyth, everything changed a few weeks after she received the COVID-19 vaccine in February. “The fatigue and aphasia got noticeably better, and I realized that I had not had liveo reticularis or COVID toes or chest pain since the shot,” she says. “It was beyond an emotional relief or stress-reducing response.” She adds: “I started to feel like myself for the first time in a year.”
After Hornick received his first COVID vaccine in March, he experienced a very large symptom for a few days. But on day five, he notices that he feels surprisingly ‘good’. One of the long-term symptoms he struggled with the most – brain fog – has ‘completely disappeared’, he says. And although he still had headaches, it was not as bad as before. ‘I felt clean-headed and did not have the usual problems with memory, memory and comprehension. So far, so good. ”
Although Hornick is not free of all his lingering post-COVID symptoms – he still experiences chronic fatigue, tinnitus, tremors and spasms – he feels relieved about this sudden change.
“I hope for the first time in a long time that my overall health can improve,” he says. “I hope that the remaining symptoms will disappear over time – or at least become more manageable – so that I can lead a normal, productive life.”
“However, no one is entirely sure why people first become COVID,” says Sanville.
It is also not yet clear why some post-COVID symptoms resolve faster than others. “Fever, chills and symptoms related to taste / smell usually disappear within two to four weeks, while fatigue, shortness of breath [shortness of breath], breast density, cognitive deficits and psychological effects can last for months, ”says dr. M. Rizwan Sohail, a professor of medicine specializing in infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine, to Yahoo Life.
A further contribution to the mystery is how the vaccine can help long-term carriers like Hornick and Smyth. But immunologists and virologists have some theories. “One is that a small amount of virus reservoir remains in the body after initial infection,” explains Sohail. ‘This residual virus or its genetic material causes persistent low-grade inflammation and symptoms associated with long COVID. Another possibility is that immune response by vaccine leads to a ‘hard recovery’ of the immune system. And because immune function – according to this hypothesis – is the cause of long-term symptoms, a recovery leads to the resolution of the symptoms. ‘
Sanville says he has had several patients with long COVID whose symptoms improved after receiving the vaccine. “I had some people who were completely normal again,” he says. Sanville points out that this does not happen with every patient who receives the vaccine. “Why it develops in some people and not in others is not clear,” he says. “Not every patient has the effect.”
Sohail says these ‘unexpected benefits of the vaccine are surprising and exciting.’ At this stage, however, he says: “we do not know and can not accurately predict which patients with a long COVID will benefit from this particular aspect of vaccination. Therefore, we need more information before we can advise patients on this.”
Sanville agrees: “Whether it was the vaccine that did it, or the timing that was right to come back on its own, it’s nice to get, hopefully along the way, information on what exactly the mechanism is and whether it is a provable treatment. “
Should patients recovering from COVID still receive the vaccine? Yes, according to Sanville and Sohail. Although they develop natural antibodies after the disease, “some of the patients with COVID do not develop adequate protective antibodies to prevent reinfection,” says Sohail. “Therefore, we strongly recommend that patients with a COVID history consider receiving the vaccine.”
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