Long Covid 

What is Long Covid? The symptoms....

Long-Covid stands for the long-term Covid complaints that people can have afterwards. That is a very diverse collection of complaints. Various (also younger people) can get a Corona Covid19 infection with no or mild complaints. Only then does the misery arise. They suffer from long-term serious complaints. Usually these people suffer from all of the complaints described below or a large number of very different complaints. There are currently people who have been suffering from this for 6 months and do not yet know how this will continue.

Symptoms of Long Covid

But what is the best way to imagine Long Covid? Most people do not cough for months on end and do not have a constant fever – the well-known corona symptoms. Instead, Long Covid often causes other symptoms, which can be very serious and life-changing for some people. The following signals are most often reported by patients with long-term corona complaints:

1. Extreme fatigue

One of the most common symptoms that people with Long Covid have is extreme, persistent fatigue. More than six out of ten people with Long Covid indicate that they still have this after six months. It is described as fatigue that affects the entire body: from muscle weakness to a feeling of weakness in the body. It resembles CVS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and complaints such as Burn-out.

2. Brain Fog

An analysis of fifty studies examining over 19,000 people with Long Covid shows that one in five people mentions brain fog as one of the symptoms. Six months after the first infection, they notice that this still has an effect on their daily lives; this is independent of how severe the symptoms were during the infection with COVID-19. Resembles the symptoms of Burn-Out.

3. Sleep problems

The above analysis also shows that about 20 percent of people with long-term corona complaints also report sleep problems. In the first six months after they become ill, they have developed problems with their sleep: whether that is insomnia, waking up more often at night or not being able to get up.

4. Long-term loss of sense of smell

Of the people who lose their sense of smell due to the coronavirus, about a third do not notice any improvement in the first two months. Some can't smell even after six months, although that is fortunately an exception.

There are now several tricks that may offer a solution to this problem, although unfortunately they do not work for everyone. For example, eating a burnt orange can do wonders, and a shot of pure ginger can also possibly ensure that you can smell again.

5. Palpitations

Also palpitations and an irregular heartbeat are symptoms that are often mentioned with long covid, says the RIVM. What exactly the reason for this is, experts do not yet know. It strongly resembles a dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system. Long-term corona complaints may be caused by an overreaction of the immune system, in which the heart may also be involved. In any case, these are often vegetative reactions.

6. Extreme hair loss

Hair loss is also one of the symptoms mentioned with Long Covid. It is normal to lose some hair every day, dermatologist Rick Waalboer-Spuij (Erasmus MC) tells RTL Nieuws. However, for people who are seriously ill with the coronavirus, this can suddenly be a lot more serious. Your hair follicles then become unbalanced, causing your body to suddenly lose a lot more hair.

“International studies show that about 25 percent of COVID patients who have been in hospital suffer from hair loss.” Hair loss usually occurs about two months after the infection, because your body needs a long time to process everything. You don't have to have been very ill, because people with milder COVID symptoms can also suffer from hair loss, says Waalboer-Spuij.

7. Persistent muscle pain

In a study conducted among more than three thousand long covid patients, it appears that about nine out of ten of them indicate that they have complaints such as muscle and joint pain in the first month after the infection. After seven months, about half of them still indicate that these complaints have not disappeared.

Also, a large proportion of people with long covid indicate that loss of muscle strength is one of the symptoms they notice; especially because they are often less active (or can be less active) due to extreme fatigue. Physiotherapy is recommended for this.

8. Anxiety and panic disorders and mood swings

Finally, there are also mental symptoms that fit with long covid. A third of corona patients still have demonstrable mental complaints months later that they did not have before the disease. Anxiety and panic disorders are particularly common; 17 percent of all patients examined suffered from these. This was followed by problematic mood swings, which 14 percent suffered from. For approximately 13 percent of patients, this is the first time they were diagnosed with a mental disorder.

How does Long Covid develop?

Although no one knows exactly what causes the persistent complaints, it is now clear that there are a number of underlying mechanisms that play a role to a greater or lesser extent.

● One theory is that the virus overwhelms the immune system, triggering a response that produces symptoms similar to those of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

● Furthermore, there seems to be low-grade inflammatory processes in the brain (so-called neuroinflammation) and the body (systemic inflammation). Viruses cause a reaction of the immune system, which attacks it. This reaction causes energy-consuming stress and inflammation in the body. The consequences of this reaction often cause people to feel less vital, tired and sometimes depressed, or that they cannot get anything done.

● Another important underlying mechanism is that the viral infection creates an energy crisis at the cellular level, because the virus disrupts energy production at the cellular level (in the mitochondria) in various ways for the long term.

● What will also be the case with many people is that the "gas-giving" part of the Autonomic [involuntary] nervous system, the so-called sympathetic part, remains switched on (also called overstimulation of the limbic system), which means that any form of stress (psychological, physical, chemical, overstimulation by light and sound) causes many additional negative reactions. This disruption of the Autonomic nervous system can take many forms. You can see the influences in the pictures below.

Sympathetic activity = accelerating, Parasympathetic activity = putting on the brakes

The treatment with the Class IV - Deep Tissue Laser