Stillwater doctor struggles with COVID-19 recovery
COVID-19 infected Dr. Woody Jenkins in December as he was helping out at his hospital amid the worsening surge, striking him down with fever, joint pain, inability to concentrate and sleepiness.
The mid-50s internal medicine physician in Stillwater still doesn’t feel normal four months later, experiencing “good days and bad days” as he says his recovery is measured in weeks, not days.
“I have to be very careful to make sure I get my rest,” Jenkins said, noting he still gets short of breath when he walks. “I did get evaluated for heart problems last week ... and (I) still show (inflammation) in parts of my lungs that they were able to see.”
Jenkins conveyed his COVID experience during last week’s Healthier Oklahoma Coalition news conference. Jenkins’ perspective and insight offered a human element preceding discussion of a recently published study that found one-third — 34% — of people who survived a COVID-19 infection were diagnosed with a neurological or psychological condition within six months of a COVID infection.
Dr. Stan Schwartz, CEO at WellOK, the Northeastern Oklahoma Business Coalition on Health, said that for many people in the study who developed a neurological or psychological problem it was a recurrence of a prior similar issue. But for 13%, he said, the problem was new.
“It is best not to get COVID,” Schwartz said. “It’s not a matter of you get well or you get dead, you can have long-term complications.”
The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre and published April 6 in The Lancet Psychiatry.
University of Oxford researchers reviewed electronic health records of more than 236,000 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and compared them to people who had influenza or other common respiratory infections.
Nearly half — 46% — who were hospitalized in intensive care units developed psychological or neurological issues. For about a quarter — 26% — it was their first such diagnosis. The researchers noted that risks were greatest in but not limited to patients who had severe COVID-19.
Schwartz referenced the journal that published the study, Lancet Psychiatry, as “very reputable.” He said some conditions recognized in the past as associated with influenza, such as Guillain–Barre Syndrome, so far haven’t been associated with COVID-19.
“The psychological problems commonly were anxiety, mood problems like depression, and some people clearly had what met all the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD,” Schwartz said. “Insomnia and sleep problems were common.”
He also noted the presence of mental illness such as brain fog or cognitive dysfunction, characterized by difficulty concentrating and poor short-term memory.
“This can be very debilitating,” Schwartz said.
Some people developed psychosis, Schwartz said, which is a severe mental illness to the point of losing touch with reality. He said it’s interesting to note that it occurred for the first time in people whose ages averaged over 50 years old.
“Most of these psychosis conditions tend to occur in young adulthood, so they do seem to be quite related to the COVID infection,” Schwartz said.
He noted other neurologic complications of strokes, encephalopathy — which is generalized malfunction of the brain — and dementia.
In limited autopsy studies of people who have died from COVID-19, Schwartz said the brain frequently is involved. Seizures could occur, too, he said.
“So we don’t right now know what happens to people that have these mental health problems over the long term,” Schwartz said. “Will they disappear? Will they gradually fade away? Or will they become chronic?”
Jenkins told reporters that Healthier Oklahoma Coalition first asked him to share his story in early January but that he was “really too sick” to talk.
He said he saw clinic patients but began being pulled in to work hospital shifts every other week at Stillwater Medical Center starting in late October as the state’s worst surge only worsened.
He said he tested positive on a Wednesday in mid-December after a three-day shift in which a non-COVID patient pulled down his mask to talk to him. That patient ended up in a hospital a few days later.
“Over the next two days I really got sick with intermittent fever, achy joint pain,” Jenkins said. “They use the term brain fog but I really think it’s more the inability to concentrate, especially when I was tired.
“I was sleeping a lot, I couldn’t go for (more than a) few hours without taking a nap.”
Jenkins said he tried to do televisits that Monday with patients who needed checking up but by midweek couldn’t work anymore. The following week he returned to clinic work but couldn’t walk far without experiencing shortness of breath.
He said he delayed getting vaccinated to about five weeks after his positive test. He felt better five or six days after his second shot and his shortness of breath seemingly improved almost overnight.
It’s a positive, he said, that many people who have post-COVID symptoms have gotten better after vaccination.
“I continue to have shortness of breath and fatigue, since that time I’ve really not improved a lot since that twoweek mark,” Jenkins said. “I have good days and bad days. Bad days I’ll have headaches and fatigue and I still get short of breath when I walk a lot.”
Jenkins encouraged everyone to get immunized because “you don’t want to get COVID” and that vaccinated immunity is better than natural immunity.
“I know that places like the Mayo Clinic and the University of Pennsylvania are setting up post-COVID clinics and trying to look and study people that have had incomplete recovery. I think that is hopeful and optimistic that we can learn things from post-COVID to apply to other things such as chronic fatigue.”