SAN ANTONIO — People battling long COVID have suffered for months and years, often with debilitating symptoms. In this Healthy SA, we learn how experts are finally defining the condition after four years.
This is a big deal for millions. The new definition announced by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, could finally help people get recognition of their condition, improve their diagnosis and give them a path to treatment.
Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, the professor and chair of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at UT Health San Antonio told KENS 5, "It validates what a lot of patients have known it's been going on. It gives a definition for clinicians to start using and putting a name to a syndrome and, you know, a series of diagnoses that they're seeing in their patients."
The Dr. Verduzco-Gutierrez also runs the institution’s long COVID operation.
The definition is a long one! Long COVID is a medical condition that persists for at least three months after infection with COVID. It can affect any organ or system in the body. People with long COVID could have any of more than 200 symptoms. Some of the most common are brain fog, difficulty breathing, blood clots, dizziness, extreme fatigue after exercising, loss of taste or smell, fast heart rate, diarrhea, constipation, diabetes and autoimmune diseases. Those symptoms can appear alone or in multiple combinations.
"It's basically saying that it is an infection associated chronic condition. And it can be something that impacts any organ system. It could have single or multiple symptoms or single or multiple diseases that come from it," said Dr. Verduzco-Gutierrez.
Now that the condition has a definition, it clears the way to better healthcare.
"It's a way for them to bring the definition to their clinicians and say, 'This is something that I think is happening to me,' and hopefully it's a way for insurances and other payers to recognize it as something that needs more treatment, as well as for more research to be done," said Dr. Verduzco-Gutierrez.
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