What causes long covid brain fog?
Many people are now familiar with the most common symptoms of COVID-19, such as fever, cough and difficulty breathing. But some survivors of the infection have reported persistent side effects, including what are known as post covid brain symptoms. How can respiratory disease lead to neurological problems like memory loss and concentration problems? This is a question that has plagued the medical community as research continues on the Long effects of COVID-19.
Potential neurologic symptoms of COVID-19
Long covid brain fog can cause headaches, fatigue and dizziness in patients; clinicians across the country have similarly reported that patients who complain of these symptoms are accompanied by memory loss, confusion and difficulty concentrating. About 30% of patients report memory loss as a persistent problem, as does concentration. But it’s not limited to hospitalized patients. These neurological problems have been reported even in people with mild symptoms.
What is COVID brain fog?
Typical symptoms in patients from COVID-19 are fever, cough or shortness of breath, and after recovering some patients experience this persistent mental blurring, mainly memory loss, difficulty finding words, concentration problems and overwhelm with simple tasks. Many of these patients did not have a stroke or brain infection during their COVID infection, did not have seizures or any neurologically significant symptoms, but the patients left with cognitive impairment.
Why do these symptoms occur?
In some patients, COVID may cause brain damage, such as a stroke, and you will continue to have deficits or problems related to the stroke. But some people have brain fog post covid that seems out of proportion to their disease. They had mild disease and recovered, only to continue to have Long cognitive problems. We suspect that this may be due to activation of the immune system. The immune system releases these molecules, which help the immune system to function and fight off infection, but as a side effect, these molecules can affect the nervous system.
Is this an immune system response unique to COVID?
How Long Will Symptoms Of Brain Fog Last After Being Infected With Covid-19? has more detail on Brain Fog, and like any virus or bug that enters the body, the way we get rid of it is for the immune system to take over and fight it. When this happens, the body destroys the virus through inflammation. Just like with a cut on an arm, in order to ensure the cut is clean, inflammation in the body in that area causes swelling and redness. However, sometimes the body overreacts and starts attacking normal healthy cells in an attempt to clear the virus. This can also be seen in many other infectious diseases.
Cognitive problems may result when the patient has a serious medical illness. With diseases like strep pneumonia, where the immune response against the strep bacteria actually attacks the brain, these patients can develop movement disorders and other psychiatric syndromes. The reason we call this molecular mimicry is that the immune system recognizes the viral proteins, but some of the proteins in the brain happen to be very similar to those viral proteins, so the immune system ends up attacking the brain.
How to effectively treat brain fog?
You should see your doctor if symptoms are severe or interfere with your life, if they do not get better after a few weeks, or if they are associated with any other unusual symptoms not experienced by the patient, such as weakness, trouble speaking, blindness, numbness, and tingling. These symptoms, which neurologists call focal symptoms, mean that there is damage to a specific part of the nervous system.
We know that COVID does increase your risk of stroke, so you should see your doctor, have scans, have brain imaging, have blood work, because it’s important to rule out brain damage or things that are completely unrelated to your COVID illness, like thyroid disease.
Is there a cure?
LongCovidCareCenter is treating the disease in a similar way to treating head injuries. We know that getting enough sleep is important, as is avoiding anything potentially dangerous, such as smoking. It is recommended to consult LongCovidCareCenter online to obtain an accurate post covid brain fog treatment plan, and wish a speedy recovery.