Warning over bizarre ‘long Covid’ symptoms
HAIR loss, brittle nails and an inability to concentrate are just some of the many symptoms being experienced by long Covid sufferers across the city, a frontline Birmingham doctor has said.
Dr Ron Daniels, an NHS intensive care doctor and founder of the Sepsis Trust, believes not enough consideration is being given to the long-term impact of the virus on people, both physically and mentally. And he has warned it was not just elderly people and those with pre-existing medical conditions that need to be weary of the long-term effects of Covid, with many young people also presenting with symptoms long after contracting the virus.
“Long Covid is a definite issue,” he said. “Broadly we would divide the symptoms into cognitive and physical. So people describe brain fog, inability to concentrate, inability to remember things, as well as psychological, so panic attacks, nightmares, disturbed sleep, and they can develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
“And then there’s the physical symptoms, and the physical are very varied. “They vary from issues affecting the muscles which will include general fatigue but also quite significant muscle pains, through issues affecting the nerves and also the seemingly more trivial, so things like hair loss, brittle hair, brittle nails and so forth. “These things are very common after sepsis, and they also appear to be common after Covid. You would expect that people who are older who had more underlying disease would have more significant aftereffects, but actually we’re hearing about it more in younger people.
“However that could be skewed by younger people tending to be more prevalent on social media, and it might also be biased by younger people having greater expectations about their recovery.”
One of those still suffering from the effects of long Covid is 60-year-old project manager Kym YpresSmith, from Bearwood, who first contracted the virus back in March. She described her ongoing symptoms as ‘‘overwhelming’’.
“It’s the most overwhelming fatigue I’ve ever had in my life,” she said. “I often can’t think straight – it’s sometimes difficult to put together a sentence. I can’t think of the words for things, and I do quite complicated work, so not being able to think straight has just been horrible.
“As soon as you do a bit too much it knocks you back, and the exhaustion just comes back again and again. You have days when you get out of bed and you just can’t wake up properly, you feel like you’re sleepwalking.
“And I’ve got no underlying conditions. I was perfectly fit and well.
“But the fatigue, the brain fog, it just won’t go. And the trouble is you’ll suddenly have a good day and then you try and do too much, and then you go backwards for two or three days.
“A bad night’s sleep now will knock me back for several days, or I’ll do a few hours at the computer and I need a sleep all of a sudden... it’s astonishing.”