Nagpur: The city is now seeing numerous ‘post-Covid’ or ‘long Covid’ patients, who land up at hospitals with various symptoms, the cause of which remains undiagnosed, within 1.5 months of recovering from corona.
Consultant physician Dr Nitin Wadaskar said ‘long Covid’ is post-recovery health issues of corona patients, which comes with multiple symptoms but investigations don’t reveal much about presence of any trigger.
So, diagnosis and treatment become the most challenging part.
“Strangely, there is breathlessness but oxygen saturation is normal.
It seems to be affecting Covid recovered patients who are co-morbid, and also occurs among those whose immunity is substantially affected,” said Wadaskar, adding the period between four to 12 weeks after recovery are the most vulnerable.
Wadaskar also said life-style modifications, like exercising, are important to keep organs healthy and immunity stronger.
Infectious disease specialist Nitin Shinde, attached to Alexis Multispecialty Hospital, attributed the long Covid symptoms to the body’s immune response to delayed inflammation, which may come in multiple phases like bi or tri-phasic.
“The patients of long Covid suffer from repeated fevers.
They are also generally detected with lung and urine infections,” said Shinde.
“These patients present with complex symptoms having persistent inflammation, but nothing comes out in tests.
The common symptoms in them include body aches, lethargy and sleeplessness along with anxiety,” said Shinde, adding even long Covid is taking a toll and has serious consequences, including heart attacks, paralysis and death too.
Another infectious disease specialist Dr Ashwini Choudhary (Tayade) said there are a variety of presentations of long Covid, which may come with a plethora of infections, inflammatory syndromes, fungal diseases, different types of viral reactivations and viral related rashes among variety of other complications and symptoms.
“Covid is a multi-organ disease and it’s after effects are still being seen in studies and research.
The reactivation and inflammation in post-Covid complications is still being analyzed,” she said.
“Sometimes, Covid recovered patients turn up with fever.
Even after conducting various examinations, we fail to find reason behind the fever and classify it as a post-Covid phenomenon.
Such fever is really mysterious,” said Dr Tayade, adding that she either tries to find through investigations whether the symptoms fit into any category of infection or inflammation, or treat them as per symptoms.
“We have also seen patients developing neurosis and hallucinations,” she said.
Dr BK Murali of Hope Hospital said Covid-recovered patients repeatedly get hospitalized, sometimes even for prolonged period.
“Even as the second wave is gradually waning, we still have patients who returned with multiple symptoms after recovering.
There are no formal guidelines to diagnose or treat these symptoms, which manifest with wide range of presentations.
We have also observed that in long Covid there are gastro-intestinal issues, skin and hair problems too along with kidney failures and diabetes,” said Dr Murali.
Dr Mohan Nerkar, a director of Seven Star Hospital, explained long Covid is nothing but extended complications of Covid.
“The prolonged effect of Covid aggravates the immune system that triggers multiple symptoms, which can continue up to two to three months.
We are mostly seeing these complications in elderly patients,” said Dr Nerkar.