“recrudescence of symptomatology”.

"'Weird as hell’: the Covid-19 patients who have symptoms for months

Researchers keen to work out why some people are suffering from ‘long tail’ form of the virus"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/weird-hell-professor-advent-calendar-covid-19-symptoms-paul-garner


“The symptoms were weird as hell,” he says. They included loss of smell, heaviness, malaise, tight chest and racing heart. 

At one point Garner thought he was about to die. He tried to Google “fulminating myocarditis” but was too unwell to navigate the screen.

Garner refers to himself wryly as a member of the “Boris Johnson herd immunity group”. This is the cluster of patients who contracted Covid-19 in the 12 days before the UK finally locked down.

He assumed his illness would swiftly pass. Instead it went on and on – a rollercoaster of ill health, extreme emotions and utter exhaustion, as he put it in a blog last week for the British Medical Journal.

"There is growing evidence that the virus causes a far greater array of symptoms than was previously understood. And that its effects can be agonisingly prolonged: in Garner’s case for more than seven weeks.

The professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine says his experience of Covid-19 featured a new and disturbing symptom every day, akin to an “advent calendar”.

He had a muggy head, upset stomach, tinnitus, pins and needles, breathlessness, dizziness and arthritis in the hands. 

Each time Garner thought he was getting better the illness roared back. It was a sort of virus snakes and ladders. “It’s deeply frustrating. A lot of people start doubting themselves,” he says. “Their partners wonder if there is something psychologically wrong with them.”

"According to the latest research, about one in 20 Covid patients experience long-term on-off symptoms. It’s unclear whether long-term means two months, or three or longer.

The best parallel is dengue fever, Garner suggests – a “ghastly” viral infection of the lymph nodes which he also contracted. “Dengue comes and goes. It’s like driving around with a handbrake on for six to nine months"

"Prof Tim Spector, of King’s College London, estimates that a small but significant number of people are suffering from the “long tail” form of the virus. Spector is head of the research group at King’s College London which has developed the Covid-19 tracker app.

This allows anyone who suspects they have the disease to input their symptoms daily; some 3 to 4 million people are currently using it, mostly Britons and Americans."


 "Many Covid patients do not develop a fever and cough.

 Instead they get muscle ache, a sore throat and headache. 

The app has tracked 15 different types of symptoms, together with a distinct pattern of “waxing and waning”.

 “I’ve studied 100 diseases. 

Covid is the strangest one I have seen in my medical career,” Spector says."

"Scientific explanations for what is happening are still at an early stage. Lynne Turner-Stokes, professor of rehabilitation medicine at King’s College, says Covid is a “multi-system disease” which can potentially affect any organ.

 It causes microvascular problems and clots.

Lungs, brain, skin, kidneys and the nervous system may be affected. Neurological symptoms can be mild (headache) or severe (confusion, delirium, coma)."

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 “recrudescence of symptomatology”. Or, as she also puts it using more colloquial language, “the whole caboodle comes back”.