The body's disease-fighting B and T cells trigger an immune response-and subsequent inflammation-in a process called autoimmunity.After a person has COVID-19, a persistent virus or remnants of it cause chronic inflammation and ongoing symptoms.She also lists four hypotheses on her laboratory website that could explain long COVID's initiation and progression: Iwasaki says research has shown that long COVID is not a single disease. What are researchers learning about long COVID?Īkiko Iwasaki, Ph.D., a Yale School of Medicine immunobiologist, leads multiple studies investigating the pathobiology of long COVID. "We usually call those patients 'presumed COVID,'" says Yale Medicine pulmonologist Denyse Lutchmansingh, MBBS, associate director of the Winchester Center for Lung Disease.Ģ. Some acquired the condition after a mild case, and others may have developed symptoms but never tested positive for COVID-19. Not everyone with long COVID has had a severe case of COVID-19. The condition can affect any part of the body, and serious cases may affect multiple body systems, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, skin, and brain.Įach patient is different. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adds that long COVID includes a wide range of ongoing health problems that can last weeks, months, or years. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines long COVID as "the continuation or development of new symptoms 3 months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 2 months with no other explanation." Specialists in long COVID answered questions about what we now know about the condition and what we can do about it. The program also offers on-site physical therapy and social work services-the latter because long COVID can affect relationships, finances, job security, and quality of life. Although Yale Medicine has been caring for long COVID patients since the pandemic began, the new centralized program adds a multidisciplinary approach: Patients are evaluated and, if necessary, referred to cardiologists, neurologists, pulmonologists, rheumatologists, and other specialists who have experience treating the condition. Personalized care is the focus of the Yale New Haven Long COVID Multidisciplinary Care Center, which launched in spring 2023 and is directed by internist Lisa Sanders, MD. But there is a growing understanding that people experience the condition in different ways, leading to an individualized approach to treating their symptoms. "There is no one pill or strategy that helps everybody," says neurologist Lindsay McAlpine, MD, director of the Yale NeuroCovid Clinic and one of many Yale Medicine specialists who care for long COVID patients. ![]() That knowledge will be essential to developing treatments. Research has offered some insights but not enough to provide a solid understanding of how long COVID progresses in the body. And we still don't know why only some people develop the condition or why others can get it after a mild COVID-19 infection. But imaging tests don't always show the origins of those symptoms. Severe cases of long COVID can even affect the body's organs. The symptoms, such as chronic pain, brain fog, shortness of breath, chest pain, and intense fatigue, can be debilitating.
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