Newswise — For most healthy adults, a COVID infection means a few rough weeks of symptoms and then a return to normal life. But in up to 20 - 30% of all COVID cases, a few weeks stretches into months or even years. For these long COVID sufferers, symptoms can be frustratingly complex, varied, and debilitating.
People who were once serious athletes can’t jog around the block, and executives who led companies can’t remember what they were doing 10 minutes ago. University of Utah Health’s Long COVID Clinic aims to find solutions. Since opening its doors three years ago, the clinic has treated 3,150 patients and studied the condition to find better treatments.
Jeanette Brown, MD PhD , who leads the clinic, says much has been learned since the first patients came forward with long COVID symptoms. But, she adds, research continues into what groups are most at risk for long COVID, how to treat it, and the range of symptoms and recovery. What is long COVID and how is it currently treated? Long COVID is commonly marked by a constellation of symptoms experienced days to weeks after the initial infection resolves, including fatigue, brain fog, an inability to exercise, and wild swings in heart rate, Brown says.
Immune overactivation involving hives, swelling, trouble breathing, and diarrhea are other common long COVID symptoms. But Brown says there are more than 50 different symptoms. “So it definitely is not a one-size-fits-all phenomenon for each patient,” she says.
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