Long Covid Patients Report Vibrations, Tremors: 'My Body Is Moving Inside, It's Jolting'
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Long Covid patients—estimated to be 10% to 30% of people who have had Covid-19—experience a range of symptoms including fatigue, cognitive problems, shortness of breath and sensory issues, such as numbness and tingling. Internal vibrations and external tremors are less common and have received less attention. Yet a study this summer from the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, a group of long Covid patients that conduct research, found that roughly 40% of patients reported experiencing tremors and 30% vibrating sensations. Doctors say it is likely a minority of patients who experience vibrations and tremors. Clinics at Northwestern and Mount Sinai say they haven’t seen many patients complaining of such sensations. However, a long Covid clinic at Mayo Clinic asks patients about such symptoms and finds that a significant percentage of patients report them.
“It is something we see quite frequently,” says Greg Vanichkachorn, an occupational and aerospace medicine physician at Mayo, who works with long Covid patients in the first three months after their acute infection. He estimates Mayo sees it in about 40% to 50% of the long Covid patients in the first three months after their acute infection. He says for some patients the symptoms are very debilitating and for others they are more of a nuisance. Doctors don’t know what is causing the mysterious symptoms. Some think it may be the result of autonomic nervous system dysfunction, which is common among many long Covid patients, or damage to the nerves. Others say it could be a problem with processing in the brain.
Ryan Hurt, the head of post-Covid research and clinical practice at Mayo, says a case report he wrote of a patient suffering myriad neurological symptoms including internal vibrations is currently under review for publication. Dr. Hurt says brain scans of some long Covid patients suffering from fatigue show decreased function or activity in the brain. It could be caused by neuroinflammation or blood flow problems, he says. Another factor may be what is called central sensitization syndrome, which occurs when the brain is more reactive, Dr. Hurt says.
“Pain is perceived in the brain,” says Dr. Hurt. “The brain becomes really sensitive to stimuli. So the problem may not be compression of the nerves but it’s the brain where all the information is processed.” In those cases, what feels like neuropathy, which is damage to the nervous system, wouldn’t necessarily originate in the nerves but in the brain.
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Richa Sharma, a vascular neurologist at Yale School of Medicine speculates that there may be some degree of peripheral or central nervous system dysregulation that may be related to the initial infection that is causing the symptoms. Another possible explanation is a post-infectious inflammatory response, she says.
More..
https://www.wsj.com/articles/long-covid-patients-report-vibrations-tremors-my-body-is-moving-inside-its-jolting-11640098486 (subscription)
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