The Doan Law Firm has been in the same position as other businesses in the United States. Over the course of the past 18 months, we’ve been working to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic to make sure our employees and clients remain safe and healthy during their interactions with our firm.
Understanding that we simply are not “out of the woods” yet in regard to the coronavirus pandemic, we take a moment today to depart from our standard discussions of the latest in legal news to visit a moment about an issue associated with the pandemic that potentially impacts a good many people from coast-to-coast in the United States. Specifically, we visit with you about what so-called long-haulers are reporting as symptoms they’ve suffered, maladies that brought them to their doctors only to find that they had been infected with COVID-19 at some juncture in the past.
These typically are individuals who were infected by the pandemic-causing virus somewhere along the way but exhibited no symptoms or very mild ones that may not have even garnered their attention at the time. In other words, they never thought they had COVID.
There is something to be learned from those individuals classified as suffering from long-haul COVID. The maladies and issues experienced by these people may help others who are suffering similar problems and conditions get relief through appropriate medical intervention. Thus, we share with you today some symptoms COVID-19 long-haulers have endured that you might not yet have heard about
Before diving into a discussion of the less-discussed medical issues experienced by long-haulers, we underscore the more commonplace issues endured by people who contracted COVID but did not show major symptoms at the time of infection. Rather, they developed these issues at a later time:
- Fatigue
- Muscle aches
- Body pains
- Shortness of breath
- Difficulty breathing
Turning to those maladies that are not often initially correlated to COVID but have turned out to be signs of coronavirus long-haul:
- Difficulty concentrating: Research has only just begun on the neurological consequences of COVID-19, including an analysis of people who initially had asymptomatic infections. This early research demonstrates that a considerable percentage of people with initially asymptomatic infections end up with problems concentrating and focusing at a later point in time. This oftentimes is being referred to as “brain fog.”
- Inability to exercise: A significant number of individuals ultimately identified as having been infected with COVID in the past report that they are unable to exercise. Try as they may, even people who previously maintained a consistent fitness regimen are not able to muster and return to their programs. As an important aside, researchers advise in the esteemed medical journal JAMA Cardiology (Journal of the American Medical Association) that people with diagnosed COVID who were symptomatic should wait two weeks before resuming light exercise. This gives their physicians a chance to confirm that no heart or lung damage has occurred that could be dangerous if a fitness regimen is restarted too early.
- Headache: When it comes to the most commonplace symptoms of an active COVID-19 infection, headache is in fifth place behind fever, cough, muscle aches, and difficulty breathing. What has been learned is that there are a significantly growing number of cases in which people have an initially asymptomatic COVID infection only to develop the long-haul condition with headaches being an indicator of the long-term malady.
- Diarrhea: While not pleasant to discuss, diarrhea also appears to be a symptom experienced by a notable number of people who initially had asymptomatic coronavirus infections but later experienced long-haul issues.
- Tachycardia: Tachycardia occurs when a person’s heart beats beyond 100 beats per minute, according to the Mayo Clinic. This condition is noted at higher rates among people who eventually have been identified as being in the COVID-19 long-hauler category.
- Hair loss: According to the highly regarded Cleveland Clinic, hair loss is not necessarily a symptom of COVID-19 and is not typically listed as a disease identifier. Having said that, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic are tracking cases in which people begin to experience hair loss two to three months after asymptomatic as well as symptomatic infections. The reason for this development is not yet definitively identified. However, hair loss is apt to be the result of the overall shock to the system that accompanies the presence of the COVID-19 virus in a person’s body.
As we all continue to maneuver through the challenges presented to us by coronavirus, stay safe and stay healthy.