Struggling to fall asleep, only to wake up in the middle of the night from a strange nightmare? Rising exhausted in the morning? These are all signs that you may suffer from COVID-related insomnia — colloquially known as COVIDsomnia or coronasomnia.
Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning can lead to severe long-term cognitive, physical, and behavioral symptoms, such as problems with memory, difficulty concentrating, balance issues, and mental health problems. Symptoms can continue even when the source of the gas is removed. Patients affected by CO poisoning can experience symptoms for months or even years after exposure.
Most patients with COVID-19 recover within a few days or weeks after a brief acute infection. However, about 10% experience long-term symptoms such as brain fog, fatigue, headaches, shortness of breath, and even psychological issues like depression and anxiety. Experiencing these persistent symptoms is known as long COVID, long-haul COVID or post-acute sequelae of SARS-Cov-2 infection (PASC).
At the moment, treatment options for long COVID patients are limited. Many patients cope with their symptoms using existing medications or treatments targeting specific symptoms like headaches or sleep problems, but these efforts are just stopgaps. They don’t actually resolve the underlying cause of symptoms associated with long COVID. Researchers know there is a growing need to identify new and effective treatments for these patients.
After a concussion or other type of traumatic brain injury (TBI), some patients experience persistent symptoms for months, or even years. This condition is known as post-concussion syndrome (PCS), and it can affect patients of any age.
“Post-traumatic brain injury syndrome” refers to long-term repercussions from concussions and other head injuries. Someone using this term could be referring to one of three conditions:
Loss of taste and smell featured heavily in the news during the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the first signs of infection. But this is not the only condition that may lead to loss of smell. You could also experience this symptom after a traumatic brain injury (TBI), whether it was a mild TBI (concussion) or a severe head injury.
Headaches. Dizziness. Brain fog. Constant fatigue. Feeling overwhelmed or like your emotions can’t stabilize. These and so many other symptoms can remain for months, or even years, after a concussion. If you feel like your recovery is excruciatingly slow, you’re not alone. Up to 30% of people who suffer a concussion experience persistent symptoms for months or years later.
After suffering a mild traumatic brain injury, you might expect to feel off for a few days before being able to function at your normal level again. However, a rapid return to normal is not the case for everybody. If symptoms like headache, dizziness, neck pain, fatigue, trouble concentrating, insomnia, or mood changes linger for weeks or months after your concussion, you may be suffering from post-concussion syndrome (PCS).
Many hospitals offer robust medical treatment to help patients survive traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). It’s common for those same hospitals, or affiliated care providers, to offer rehabilitation to patients after the danger of death has passed. These rehabilitation services often focus on activities of daily living (walking, dressing yourself, eating, etc.). It’s less common to find appropriate rehabilitative medical care for long-lasting symptoms following TBI.
Long COVID symptoms such as fatigue, muscle weakness, joint pain, poor endurance, and respiratory problems can have a significant impact on your daily routine. Some long COVID patients’ symptoms are so severe that they need a reduced work schedule or are no longer working due to their illness. Persistent symptoms can follow both mild COVID and cases that required treatment in the ICU.
Neural fatigue can develop after any type of brain injury, including mild traumatic brain injury (concussion), severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), hypoxia, viral infection, stroke, or transient ischemic attack. It might surface immediately or after some time and can last for months or even years. It can also develop in patients with neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and dementia.
As you read this text, your brain is processing the incoming visual information and sending directions to your eyes so they maintain focus on what you want to read. But if you have post-traumatic vision syndrome (PTVS) and your eyes do not work together efficiently, you may have a hard time keeping track of what you’re reading and develop a headache from your efforts. You may have also noticed that everyday activities that should be automatic — like reaching for an object, driving, or going shopping — require more effort.
COVID-19 can affect the autonomic and central nervous systems. It can affect organ systems directly through infection or indirectly via dysfunction in the nervous system. That means a host of crazy-sounding symptoms — such as blood pressure changes, memory and attention issues, and gastrointestinal upset — are possible during and after COVID. But many of the lingering, post-COVID symptoms are related to nervous system dysfunction.
When most people think of COVID-19 symptoms, they often recall the most common acute symptoms: brain fog, sore throat, congestion, headaches, and the like. What many don’t know is that long COVID can affect your vision for months after contracting the illness.
Many people are surprised to learn that concussions can have long-term effects if left untreated. Chronic concussion syndrome is a less common term for persistent post-concussion symptoms (also known as post-concussion syndrome, or PCS). If you suffer from headaches, brain fog, vision issues, fatigue, short-term memory problems, irritability, feelings of overwhelm, or other persistent symptoms after a head injury, you might have chronic concussion syndrome.
Long COVID is real. Data shared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from the Household Pulse Survey (July/August 2022) show that more than 40% of adults in the United States have had COVID-19, and nearly one in three of them (approximately 30%) experience symptoms for more than three months after their original acute infection. Not all patients with long COVID are severely affected, but the report estimates that two to four million Americans are currently unable to work because of persistent COVID symptoms.
Memory and attention problems are common in long COVID patients: A recent study showed that 70% of COVID long haulers experience memory and concentration difficulties for months after their initial disease. If you’re one of them, you might struggle to focus on work, forget where you left your keys, struggle to remember an acquaintance’s name, or space out unintentionally during a conversation.
COVID-19 can cause cognitive symptoms in some patients, such as short-term memory loss, difficulties concentrating, problems recalling words, and brain fog (a condition known as long COVID). While most initial studies focused on patients hospitalized with severe COVID symptoms, it became apparent that most long COVID patients developed their condition after only a mild case of COVID.
Headache pain is the most common symptom after a traumatic brain injury, with up to 90% of patients experiencing this symptom for at least a few days after suffering a concussion. These headaches can also develop after other causes of head trauma, such as bacterial and viral brain infections, carbon monoxide poisoning, “chemo” brain, transient ischemic attack, and COVID-19.
