There may be another addition to the growing list of possible strange symptoms of the new coronavirus: “COVID language”.
A British researcher who is helping to track COVID-19’s warning signs is reporting more cases of infected people complaining of tongue discoloration, swelling and other mouth problems.
“I see an increasing number of Covid tongues and strange mouth ulcers. If you have a strange symptom or even just a headache and fatigue, stay home! ”Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, tweeted this month.
He believes that more than a third of patients with COVID-19, 35%, have non-classic symptoms of the disease in the first three days, so it is important to call attention to skin rashes, COVID toes and other warning signs that “ go ignored, ” He wrote.
Spector did not respond to a TODAY request for comment, but other researchers have also reported tongue and mouth symptoms related to the new coronavirus.
When doctors studied 666 patients with COVID-19 in Spain, more than a tenth of them – 78 – exhibited “oral cavity findings”, according to a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology.
Of this group, 11% had inflammation of the small bumps on the surface of the tongue; 6% had a swollen and inflamed tongue with indentations on the sides; 6% had mouth ulcers; 4% had “irregular” areas on the tongue; and 4% had edema of the tissue in the mouth.
The oral cavity “deserves a specific examination in appropriate circumstances to avoid the risk of contagion”, wrote the authors.
Language or mouth problems – in addition to a sore throat – do not appear on the list of symptoms COVID-19 compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although the agency recognizes that it is still learning more about the new coronavirus, so the page does not. t include all possible warning signs.
After all, the loss of smell and taste seemed a strange symptom at first, but now it is considered one of the common manifestations and is part of the list.
Other sensations not yet confirmed include “effervescence” or a tingling sensation reported by some patients with COVID-19. Will the “COVID language” be placed in a similar category?
“This is in line with everything about COVID. When she came on the scene, as I like to say figuratively, we opened our medical books to COVID and there were just blank pages, ”Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, said TODAY.
“So, since then, we have been filling in the blank pages quickly and it may well be part of the clinical syndrome that some patients have.”
Schaffner has not seen cases of “COVID language”, but has heard of it. It may not be that the mouth is vulnerable to the new coronavirus, but COVID-19 can set up an immunological circumstance so that other viruses, such as cold sores – the herpes virus above the waist, or the herpes simplex virus type 1, which causes an infection of the lips, mouth or gums – may perhaps activate, said Schaffner.
Researchers have yet to determine whether mouth and tongue problems are in fact related to COVID-19, he added.
“People react differently to different diseases,” said Dr. Waleed Javaid, director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York.
But he would not consider the “COVID language” as a diagnostic tool for the disease at this point just because it appears to occur in a very small proportion of people, he noted.
The American Dental Association and the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery were unable to comment immediately if cases of mouth and tongue problems were reported by patients with COVID-19.
