Living With Long-Term Consequences of COVID-19

As of the end of September 2020, over 1 million people had died from Covid-19. That figures was probably reached some time ago because of the disparities on diagnosis,  counting and those gaps in reporting deaths. What is also an unpleasant reality is the impact of long Covid or post-Covid.

Even if you survive acute COVID-19, there is still for many a great deal of suffering. We read in the media of many people who had been in intensive care or even had mild symptoms, of the lingering issues that seem to accompany this disease. Our perceptions of the injury caused by infection with the virus seem to be a much harder  to come to terms with.  

Long Covid Symptoms

If you have Covid-19, its likely that you might have mild symptoms – a cold or flu. In some cases you may be asymptomatic and not have any. There is a substantial fraction of the population however where they have been fighting for their lives. The only remedy is to be admitted to an intensive treatment unit and literally try and ride out the infection. For some death is the only outcome.

Covid-19 appears to produce persistent and debilitating symptoms after having survived infection if you are unlucky. The main ones are tiredness and fatigue, a change in mood, irreparable damage it would seem to our tastebuds, nausea,  loss of breath after conducting tasks that were never a previous issue and in the more extreme cases brain damage or loss of knowledge and short-term memory. Some others describe their mind as stumbling through ‘brain-fog’. The debate, and it is a debate ongoing at this moment in time is whether the long-term symptoms will just disappear or whether they return to haunt the previously infected individual. The extent is different for everyone but the concern and worry is virtually the same.

The persistence level is inconsistent. Many people report their symptoms recur after two weeks and very often every few weeks. This is punctuated by bouts where the health is relatively back to normal. Doctors have described this as akin to post-viral fatigue.

Reading the papers, social media and listening to anecdotes flags up a variety of conditions which do not appear to have recourse to treatment save for management. One local resident in the Forest of Dean complained that having had COVID relatively mildly, her food now tasted like vomit. That sounded extreme but its probably not unusual when the virus knocks out our tastebuds. After all, loss of taste and smell is one of the characteristic symptoms of the disease. Our tastebuds are sensitive to all sorts of drugs and I assumed that medication she had received had not compromised her sense of taste and smell. For anything to taste of vomit implies the tastebuds had become sensitised to butyrate esters. Propyl butyrate has a  cheesy, vomit like taste at very low concentrations.

We also read in the papers of people suffering with ‘non-stop pain’ alongside other severe health issues following an extreme fever from the disease. Where they were once fitness instructors and exercise professionals, or marathon runners with all the energy at their disposal, are now wheelchair bound and struggling for breath. There is some speculation that for some they are intolerant of histamine which is a chemical released by mast cells during periods of high infection. The other condition of interest is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome which I admit I did not know of but is very much a real condition following bouts of extreme infection.

Another issue is stroke. You might recover from the illness but there are reports of people with blood clots on and in the lungs. The number of clots varies. The symptoms of such a condition are chest pains, heart attacks, increased heart rate, a pain in the teeth. If it’s not treated, stroke and haemorrhage can occur with dire consequences.

Vitamin D And Long Covid

When it comes to medication, once of the most interesting features is the role that vitamin D supplementation might play in managing symptoms. If people have sufficient levels of vitamin D, the outcomes following hospitalization with COVID-19 are not as severe as they might be. There is certainly a lower risk of death. If the levels are insufficient in this vitamin (really a hormone) then the situation is more dire. The risk of death is higher. The Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts recently put out a press statement stating there was “direct evidence that vitamin D sufficiency can reduce the complications including the cytokine storm and ultimately death from COVID-19 according to its senior author Michael F. Holick, MD, PhD.

The research from Boston and published in PLOS ONE showed that with enough vitamin D in the body, there was a significant decrease in the level of inflammatory markers. Alongside this there were higher levels in the blood of particular immune cells called lymphocytes. These are important in reducing something called cytokine storms. Such a storm occurs when too many proteins are released into the blood. One of the consequences is the extreme sanction of death.

In the study, 235 patients in sample had blood taken for analysis of vitamin D levels. The clinical outcomes of these patients were followed for the severity of their infection. Symptoms like breathing difficulties, whether they became short of oxygen (hypoxic), did they lose consciousness etc. were all examined.

In patients older than 40, those with sufficient levels of vitamin D were more than 51 per cent less likely to die than those patients who were deficient in this vitamin.  

A large body of doctors is urging people to also take vitamin D as a supplement to reduce the risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 – not just ameliorate any symptoms. There is another study by Dr Holick that if we have enough vitamin D, we can reduce the risk of catching the virus by 54%. It also appears to reduce the risk of infection by other viruses too, especially ones affecting the upper respiratory tract.

Clearly vitamin D has plenty to recommend it. We have discussed the benefits of supplementation with vitamin D elsewhere and we regularly update the page to reflect the changing views on how this vitamin works. We suspect its story in relation to viruses is going to become a lot greater in the next few years.

A number of clinics are now looking at the post-viral symptoms.  Many people are sharing their symptoms through Facebook under a variety of hashtags. There is currently a Long Covid Support Group in the UK with 5,400 members.

If you are interested in vitamin D supplementation, we have our affiliate marketing shop which has a list of vitamin D supplements that we recommend. Given the situation, internet purchase is probably one of the best retail activities at the moment. Please read our affiliate disclosure.

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