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By now, we know the symptoms of COVID-19 to watch for:

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In addition to these, the CDC recommends seeking emergency medical care if you experience:

While the aforementioned symptoms seem to be more common, there have also been some outliers.

Throughout the pandemic, weve heard about COVID toes and rashes, pink eye and even people losing their appetite. So why does it seem like every time we turn around, some new symptom is making a special guest appearance?

According to pulmonary and critical care physician Joseph Khabbaza, MD, some of these reactions are quite normal, while others are symptoms that the medical community is still learning about.

Really, nothing is off the table when it comes to COVID. I always get texts from people asking if something theyre experiencing is normal. Well, theres nothing thats truly abnormal when it comes to COVID literally almost anything goes and we dont exactly know why, says Dr. Khabbaza.

Dr. Khabbaza says that two people who might appear to be similar on paper can react in totally different ways to COVID-19. As for uncommon symptoms of the virus, he says the following have popped up frequently.

Dr. Khabbaza reports that hes seen these symptoms quite often. While the medical community is still trying to figure out what causes brain fog, its believed that its likely a result of the bodys immune response to the virus or inflammation throughout the nervous system andblood vessels that lead to the brain. As for hallucinations and delirium, those, too, stem from the body fighting off the virus.

He explains.

Brain fog is kind of a big one. Its a kind of mental cloudiness like youre in a daze. You hear a lot about it with mild outpatients, but we also see it more severely in the ICU. Hallucinations and confusion are commonly experienced duringall sorts ofsevere illnesses. When you have a kind stressor like COVID-19 in the body, youre more likely to be confused, especially if you are elderly. This symptom is very common with older people as the body is trying to fight off an infection. COVID patients in the ICU sometimes experience a really bad delirium, worse than it seems with other patients who are critically ill. This delirium can worsen during a hospital stay when youre not sleeping normally or if youre in pain. Some medications that are used to keep patients comfortable on ventilators can even intensify delirium. With COVID-19, as someone gets worse, the type of brain manifestation that they experience can get worse as well. This can be due to a combination of blood flow and inflammation in the body or potentially alterations in blood flow at the microvascular level that cause these reactions.

Dr. Khabbaza says hes seen patients heart rates shoot up after minimal activity shortly after becoming infected. This along with elevated temperatures are a result of autonomic dysfunction.

Were seeing this more and more. When it occurs, our immune system is attacking autonomic nerves so nerves that regulate things in the body like heart rate and temperature that thermostat can be thrown off. When this occurs, peoples heart rates are not being regulated. Once you lose that balance, you can have a super-high heart rate or elevated temperature for no reason. Weve seen that in a lot of people and it seems to be an immune-mediated response, meaning the antibodies that you make somehow attack these kinds of nerves. Thats most likely playing a role in a lot of the unusual symptoms that were seeing, says Dr. Khabbaza.

Skin is the bodys largest organ, so it has the largest number of blood vessels. Dr. Khabbaza says skin irritations like rashes or discoloration isnt out of the ordinary when viruses or even autoimmune diseases are present.

When you think about it, anywhere where blood flows could be affected. Skin is the bodys largest organ so it has the most blood vessels. Its natural to see manifestations of illness in our skin. A lot of autoimmune diseases, in general, are associated with skin manifestations, especially viruses.

He adds that we can look back at our childhoods for evidence of this. Mainly, the rashes that developed during illness.

The skin is a place where a lot of things end up. If your blood count gets very low, your blood is too thick or you form tiny clots in the vessels, that sometimes can cause changes in your skins appearance.

While skin irritations arent as common, Dr. Khabbaza said theyre still something that the medical community is trying to understand as it battles COVID-19.

Loss of taste or smell have been associated with COVID-19, and while theyre alarming, Dr. Khabbaza says theres no need to panic if you experience these symptoms.

When this occurs, those senses are just not working normally. Nerves can be inflamed or secondarily irritated by our own immune system. But gradually with time, we should gain the ability to use them again.

Vocal cord neuropathy can occur when the nerves of the vocal cords are not working normally. This can often be a result of upper respiratory infections and can cause hoarseness or speaking problems, shortness of breath or swallowing issues. Dr. Khabbaza says this is mainly related to the vagus nerve being irritated and not working normally. This is the nerve that regulates digestion, heart rate, respiratory rate and reflex actions like coughing, sneezing and swallowing. Symptoms of vocal cord neuropathy, especially after a viral infection, often are first confused with post-viral asthma, but the symptoms often dont improve with the use of inhalers.

Dr. Khabbaza says experiencing one of these weird or unusual COVID symptoms isnt automatically a reason to panic, but if it does affect your ability to do daily activities, let your healthcare provider know sooner than later.

Most things are going to run their course and should gradually improve, but it can be a very slow process. If anything occurring is significantly affecting your daily living, your healthcare provider needs to know about it. If your heart rate shoots up to 170 when youre just walking down the hall, thats going to affect your ability to do anything, so thats something that warrants prompt attention. If a symptom is affecting your ability to work or your ability to accomplish your normal day-to-day activities, tell your healthcare provider. There may not always be some intervention that can be done, but COVID changes every day. We learn more every day and there are so many moving parts. If youre having difficulty, you always want to make sure your healthcare provider is aware of everything.

Continue reading here:
10 Unusual Symptoms of COVID-19 - Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic

This entry was posted on February 6, 2021 at 6:48 am and is filed under Neuropathy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |