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Ten Diet Tips to Help Heal Long COVID Heal Long COVID Brain with Physical Activity Melatonin May Help Treat Long COVID Olfactory Training for Smell Loss
What is Metabolic Syndrome How Diet Triggers Metabolic Syndrome How Inflammation Causes Disease How Inflammation Damages Your Brain How High Insulin Levels Lead to Metabolic Disorders Insulin's Role in Skeletal Muscle When Fat Cells Go Bad: Short Version When Fat Cells Go Bad: Long Version The Wonderful Shades of Fat Cells
How to Reduce Inflammation Part 1 How to Reduce Inflammation Part 2 Anti-inflammatory Super Foods Healthy Substitutes for Ultra-Processed Foods Elimination Diets 101 Astaxanthin Protects Brain and Reduces Pain
All About Protein How Much Protein Do You Need? Why You Need Protein Seniors Need More Protein Plant Proteins Protein Foods 101 All About Fat How to Add Fat to Your Diet Saturated Fats and Heart Health Fatty Acid Chart
Why We Feel Pain What Causes Chronic Pain Glial Cells and Pain How Opioids Trigger Chronic Pain Steps to Treat Chronic Pain Pain Management How Nature Heals How Music Benefits Your Brain and Body Healing With Art Healing With Laughter
Does Your Brain Need Healing How the Brain Heals Brain Regeneration Starter Kit Neurodiversity and Brain Boosting Train Your Brain Brain Boosters Part 1 Brain Boosters Part 2 Feed Your Brain Glia Cells Protect the Brain
How to Make an Action Plan How to Take Control of Your Life PTSD and cPTSD Is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) a Metabolic Disorder? Fight Depression Being Kind to Yourself is Healthy How to Stop Procrastinating Prevent Suicide How to Heal From Religious Trauma
Exercise Prevents Metabolic Syndrome Exercise Reduces Inflammation and Activates Brown Fat Exercise Prevents Fat Dysfunction What Causes Exercise Intolerance How to Beat Exercise Intolerance How to Motivate Yourself to Exercise
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Long COVID Symptoms

Long COVID can negatively influence almost every part of your body and mind.

See What is Long COVID for different subtypes of Long COVID.

General symptoms (these are most commonly reported problems):

★ Tiredness or deep down fatigue that interferes with daily life and everyday chores.

Around 53-87% of Long COVID patients reported fatigue (Klein et al. 2022, Perlis et al. 2022). People with long COVID had a moderate to severe impairment in doing everyday tasks compared to healthy people their age (Kedor et al.2022). Fatigue may be related to inflammation and/or hypoperfusion, which is reduced blood flow to an area.

★ Symptoms that get worse after physical or mental effort.

This is known as post-exertional malaise or post-exertional symptom exacerbation (PESE). This sounds like something a Victorian maiden would develop after a rousing game of lawn bowling but it is a serious condition.

Symptoms, including extreme exhaustion, typically develop 12-48 hours after the activity and can last for days or weeks. Other symptoms include exercise intolerance, pain, breathlessness, racing heart and sleep disorders.

★ Memory, critical thinking issues and/or confusion were reported in 46-78% of Long COVID patients (Klein et al. 2022, Perlis et al. 2022).

This may be due to inflammation and less blood flow to the brain. COVID-19 can damage the blood vessels in the brain which can start leaking. This damage is similar to that caused by strokes and neuroinflammatory diseases (Lee et al. 2020). In addition, antibodies generated to fight COVID-19 can attack cells that line the brain's blood vessels, leading to inflammation and damage (Lee et al. 2022).

★ Data collected by Cleveland Clinic’s Sleep Disorders Center, found that 40% of Long COVID patients reported moderate to severe sleep issues.

Black people have a higher incident of sleep disturbances.

★ Joint or muscle pain occurred in 18% of Long COVID patients (Durstenfeld et al. 2023).

Moldofsky et al. 2011 discusses this in a study of another post viral infection: post-SARS syndrome.

★ Fever or hot flushes that may alternate with chills or shivering occurred in 5% of people (Durstenfeld et al. 2023).

★ Loss of smell or taste occurred in 21-44% of people with Long COVID (Perlis et al. 2022, Durstenfeld et al. 2023).

A large study compared 1,487,712 women and men with a recorded diagnosis of COVID-19 with matched controls who caught a different repiratory illness over the span of 2 years. They found that risks of cognitive deficit such as brain fog, dementia, psychotic disorders, and epilepsy or seizures remained higher in people who had COVID (Taquet et al. 2022).

★ Overall, people who caught COVID-19 have a 3.8% chance of developing anxiety disorders and mood disorders (Coleman et al. 2022).

Painting: Thomas P. Anshutz - Aunt Hannah c1886.

woman sleeping on chair

Mark U. "I’m 41 and a dad. Can’t work full time anymore and even washing the dishes wears me out now. I used to play golf for 6 hours straight and now I’m lucky to hang out with friends for an hour a once a week before crashing hard. I also had the GI issues, but after 11 months that was resolved.

But 1.5 years on I’m still plagued with bone deep tireness and fatigue, post-exertional malaise, headaches, brain fog, etc. I’m continually hungry and have gained over 25 pounds. I get a dizzy feeling like my blood sugar is low and that signals me to eat to raise blood sugars, but eating doesn’t make me feel better. Eating usually makes me more exhausted."

Respiratory and cardiovascular symptoms in Long COVID

Do you have difficulty breathing, shortness of breath (dyspnea), abnormal breathing and/or feel like your lungs are constricted?

These symptoms occurred in 23-40% of Long COVID sufferers (Perlis et al. 2022, Durstenfeld et al. 2023, Xu et al. 2023) and can be due to lung damage and scarring.

★ Coughing and hacking.

★ Sour throat and/or hoarseness.

★ Chest pain.

Puntmann et al. 2022 reported that 60% of people who recovered from COVID-19 had signs of heart inflammation.

This can cause a fast-beating or pounding heart (also known as heart palpitations) and shortness of breath.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) can adversely affect the involuntary nervous system functions, like heart rate, sweating and blood pressure.

Around 38% of people reported POTS in Klein's et al. 2022.

★ Increased incidence of blood clots along with blood vessel or vascular issues.

★ Pulmonary embolism where a blood clot from the deep veins of the legs travels to the lungs and blocks blood flow to the lungs (Varma et al. 2023).

★ Pulmonary fibrosis; a disease that causes scar tissue (fibrosis) to form in the lungs (Varma et al. 2023).

★ Edema (Varma et al. 2023).

Blue Box of Science: Why COVID-19 causes food to taste funny

Some people have long term loss of taste after COVID-19. Most lose the ability to taste sweet, bitter or umami flavors. Salty and sour tastes remain unchanged.

Scientists analyzed taste receptor buds in the tongue of people with abnormal taste score. They found that their taste buds contained lower levels of a messenger RNA (mRNA) which codes for a protein known as PLCβ2. This protein amplifies and transmits taste signals for sweet, bitter, and umami flavors. Cells that taste sour and salty flavors do not use PLCβ2.

In addition, some people with altered taste had abnormal looking taste buds. They were not regenerating like normal (Morad et al. 2026).

Neurological symptoms in Long COVID

Difficulty thinking, concentrating, planning or making choices. This is sometimes referred to as brain fog and is characterized by a lack of mental clarity and cognitive dysfunction. It can cause confusion and memory issues and occurred in around 40% of Long COVID patients (Perlis et al. 2022).

★ Attention disorders found in 27% of people with Long COVID (Lopez-Leon et al. 2021).

★ Headaches were reported in 22-44% of Long COVID sufferers (discussion Umesh et al. 2022, Durstenfeld et al. 2023).

★ Sleep problems, insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders (when a person internal clock is not in sync with the environment). Sleep problems were reported by 32% of women and 23% of men (Perlis et al. 2022).

★ Dementia (Varma et al. 2023).

★ Dizziness when you stand up (light-headedness). Limbs falling asleep or pins-and-needles feelings.

★ Nerve pain or numbness.

★ Change in smell or taste was noted by 46% of women and 35% of men (Perlis et al. 2022, Trott et al. 2022). This includes either a complete or partial ability to taste and/or smell. It also includes phantosmia, in which the person smells an odor that really isn't there, and parosmia, in which a person smells strange, bad or sometimes unpleasant odors.

★ Depression or anxiety.

★ Post traumatic stress disorder (Lopez-Leon et al. 2021).

★ Hearing loss and/or tinnitus, a constant ringing in the ears.

★ Visual and eye disorders including blurring and digital eye strain (Trott et al. 2022).

Gastrointestinal disorders in Long COVID

★ Diarrhea (Xu et al. 2023).

★ Stomach and abdominal pain (Xu et al. 2023).

★ Vomiting, nausea and/or diarrhea was noted in 7% of people with Long COVID (Durstenfeld et al. 2023, Xu et al. 2023).

★ Constipation and motility disorders (Xu et al. 2023) .

★ Functional intestinal disorders (Xu et al. 2023).

★ Acid related disorders such as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), dyspepsia, and peptic ulcer disease (Xu et al. 2023).

★ Acute pancreatitis (Xu et al. 2023).

★ Liver (hepatic) and biliary disease (Xu et al. 2023).

Menstrual cycle symptoms in Long COVID

★ Changes in menstrual cycles and bleeding (Al-Najjar et al. 2022).

★ This can include irregular periods,unusual clotting of period blood, or worse premenstrual syndrome (PMS) (Sharp et al. 2022).

★ COVID-19 may effect the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian-endometrial axis. This is the system that regulates women's hormone production, egg selection and uterine lining.

★ Changes in this system will influence the menstrual cycle (Sharp et al. 2022). Changes in blood volume or increased length of cycle (Lebar et al. 2022).

★ Aggravated PMS symptoms can also increase the levels of estrogen and progesterone in the body.

Unfortunately, questions about menstruation have been excluded from most large-scale COVID-19 studies (and most research studies in general). This points to the need to gather more information on women's health.

*Names and some minor identifying details in all stories in this website are changed to protect people's privacy.

This information in this website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Other symptoms in Long COVID

★ Inflammation (Varma et al. 2023).

★ Dysautonomia, abnormalities in the autonomic nervous system disrupt heart rate, breathing, and digestive function.

★ Joint or muscle pain.

★ Loss of appetite.

★ Skin problems and rashes.

★ Kidney issues.

★ Sexual dysfunction.

★ Autoimmune disorders.

★ Hair loss is reported in 20% of people post COVID (Nalbandian et al. 2022, Varma et al. 2023).

For a list of 203 symptoms people reported with Long COVID see chart at Davis et al. 2021.

Check out the cool diagram of all the ways Long COVID can screw you over at the RESULTS section of Varma et al. 2023. This large study included follow up data from 560,752 Black, White, Hispanic and Asian people (about 60% women) who had COVID-19.

References:

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