CHICAGO – Researchers say a new study has confirmed for the first time that COVID-19 can cause the body to attack. Deep medical imaging reveals that some symptoms of sore and joint pain may be prolonged and require lifelong treatment
Other than losing her sense of smell in June last year, Tajma Hodzick had no signs of a COVID infection.
‘I did not even completely lose my sense of taste. It was mostly just a sense of smell, ”she recalls.
But within a few days of testing positive, the 31-year-old woman had more serious side effects. Blisters appeared on her hands, rashes on her legs and arms, and her joints began to swell.
‘I also had pain in my feet. I did end up in the ER, just because my swelling was very large. I had blisters, “said Hodzick. ‘I could not wash my hands, for I could not rub them together; it hurt so much. ”
A new paper published in the journal Skeletal Radiology confirmed the causes of these types of symptoms and documented them through CT scans, MRIs and ultrasound.
“In some patients, COVID-19 causes an autoimmune reaction, which means that the virus can mislead the body into attacking itself,” said Dr. Swati Deshmukh, a musculoskeletal radiologist and assistant professor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, explains.
She is one of the authors of the study.
“Some of my patients’ recovery and imaging have shown signs of improvement, but for other patients, and especially patients with these autoimmune conditions caused by COVID-19, they will need lifelong treatment,” Deshmukh said.
In some cases, says Dr. Deshmukh, these types of inflammatory reactions can appear in a mysterious way without other common coronavirus symptoms.
“They may not even know they are infected with the virus, and later they will develop problems with muscles, with nerves with joints,” she said.
The imaging, she says, can help explain the origin of the symptoms and guide treatment after COVID-19 from a rheumatologist or dermatologist.
After two hospitalizations and three biopsies, Hodzick was finally diagnosed with COVID-induced psoriatic arthritis. It may be one of the first of its kind.
The chronic condition now requires her to take daily medication.
“We really do not know if it will ever work out of my system, what it will look like,” she said. ‘If I start taking my medication at some point, or if the symptoms come up again. So now, it’s quite a big unknown. ‘
This is another long-distance symptom that, according to experts, proves how much still needs to be learned about the long-term effects of the virus.