New research suggests that the long-term symptoms of the new coronavirus may come in waves that extend for weeks and even months, reports NBC News.
Context
Some patients with COVID-19 reported symptoms of coronavirus weeks, if not months after diagnosis – often referred to as “long-haulers”.
- Some of the long-distance symptoms include exhaustion, shortness of breath, headaches, rapid heartbeat, changes in taste and smell and brain fog, among other symptoms.
What is happening?
Natalie Lambert, associate professor and researcher at Indiana University School of Medicine, recently surveyed thousands of patients with “long COVID” and found that their symptoms appear at regular intervals – about a week or 10 days, reports NBC News.
- She said these are “symptom waves”.
Lambert previously told The New York Times that some symptoms of COVID-19 appear months after the initial infection. Patients may also not even know that these are symptoms of “long COVID”.
- “Another important component is that we know that some of the long-distance symptoms appear long after two months,” Lambert told The New York Times. “So there is a potential for a wide range of long-distance symptoms that they are not going to associate with COVID.”
What is the next?
Lambert told NBC News that more research is needed to confirm the results, which she has not published in a medical journal.
However, Dr. Richard Walker, president of emergency medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center in Memphis, told NBC News that Lambert’s work was “very important”.
- “Whenever we can predict the course of the disease, it gives us the ability to mitigate problems,” said Walker.