COVID-19 can result in long-term consequences, even among the vaccinated
It’s estimated between 10% to 30% of patients can suffer with long COVID after recovering from COVID-19, according to the American Medical Association.
Now new research shows even people who are vaccinated that have mild infections can experience lingering symptoms that affect the heart, brain, lungs and other parts of the body, CBS News reports.
Sam Nordel was vaccinated and boosted when she got COVID-19 in January. Now the previously healthy 47-year-old working mom suffers from long COVID.
“Severe migraine headaches that were so debilitating. I have such sensitivity to sound that I have to wear noise canceling headphones. I have the fast heart rate,” she said.
COVID-19 and headachesCOVID-19 is a respiratory infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. More than 450 million confirmed cases have been reported worldwide, including more than 79 million cases in the United States.
Most people who develop COVID-19 experience mild symptoms that can be treated at home. Headaches and fevers are two of the most reported symptoms. Some people develop both, but many people develop one of these symptoms without the other.
Headaches are also one of the most reported long-haul COVID-19 symptoms. Although less common, some people also develop long-haul fevers.
Read on to learn more about the connection between headaches and fevers in people with COVID-19.
People vaccinated for COVID-19 who have mild infections can still experience lingering, crippling symptoms, according to new research in Nature Medicine. The study of more than 13 million veterans found vaccination reduced the risk of long COVID by 15%, compared with unvaccinated patients infected with the virus.
Study author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly is a Clinical Epidemiologist with Washington University School of Medicine. “That’s really a very small, modest reduction. Now that we know that COVID-19 can result in long-term consequences, even among the vaccinated, it’s upon us to develop additional tools, additional therapeutics.”
The study found vaccination reduced risk of death by 34% and that vaccines were most effective at preventing long COVID lung and blood clotting disorders. Nordel said, “I’m being treated, I would say symptom by symptom to try to find ways to make the pain or the symptoms manageable.“
Nordel just applied for full disability, according to CBS News.
How common are headaches and fevers?
The reported prevalence of headaches and fevers vary between studies, and it’s possible that some COVID-19 variants cause some symptoms more often than others.
Studies have found that anywhere between 10 to 70 percentTrusted Source of people with COVID-19 develop headaches. About 25 percent of people experience migraine episodes, while 75 percentTrusted Source experience tension headaches.
In an April 2021 review of studiesTrusted Source, researchers found that among 17,515 people with COVID-19, 79.43 percent of people developed fevers.
Early dataTrusted Source shows that headaches are one of the five most reported symptoms of the Omicron variant.
“I’ve been coming to terms with the idea that I will never be the same. But my hope for the future is that when I come out on the other side of this, that I will be able to help other people,” she said.
The study also found immunocompromised patients who were vaccinated and got COVID-19 had higher risks for long COVID.
What is the connection between COVID-19 and headache?
This virus behaves differently than a lot of other viruses. And one of the first symptoms that people have, before they develop cough, is they will get anosmia, which is lack of sense of smell. They can get really bad headache at that time. Sometimes cough doesn’t come until another couple of days later. There is a theory that this anosmia is actually due to the virus crossing over and invading the cribriform plate (near the nasal cavity) into their brain, causing a viral meningitis like picture.
The data used for this study did not include information about whether patients had received booster doses.