Brain fog among lingering effects of COVID-19

"Brain fog", shortness of breath, headaches, muscle pain, heart disease, chest pain, strokes and hallucinations.

Those are a few of the aftereffects that patients who contract coronavirus and later recover can experience, according to doctors and public health officials.

Others have experienced problems with their heart muscle, damage to their lungs, kidneys and liver. Some had a loss of smell and taste.

Jennifer English, 46, from Oregon City, Oregon, caught the virus in April and said it changed her daily life. The mother of three was very active before she fell ill. She would run marathons, but now gets short of breath quickly.

Despite recovering, she also experiences nausea, vomiting, blurry vision, brain fog and fatigue.

"It dominates my life. Every minute of my life is dominated by it," she told The New York Times.

Most patients with COVID-19 do recover with no complications. But the length of time they stay ill varies.

A report by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in July said 35 percent of adults in the US have not returned to their usual state of health two to three weeks after testing positive for COVID-19, with one in five of the respondents being 18-to 34-year-olds with no chronic medical conditions.

Even if 93 percent of the respondents were not admitted to a hospital, 43 percent were still suffering from a cough, 35 percent from fatigue and 29 percent from shortness of breath.

William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, said: "Some people, even with very serious disease, seem to recover completely. Other people with mild infections or perhaps even no symptoms seem to develop problems that can extend for quite a few weeks. And we don't know for how long yet."

Memory loss

When John Bonfiglio, 64, from Waltham, Massachusetts, had symptoms of coronavirus, he went to the emergency unit at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Massachusetts.

Seventeen days later, he woke up with no memory of how he got there. He once told a nurse that he thought he was in Las Vegas. He also suffered dizziness, muscle weakness and tremors in his hands.

Bonfiglio was later discharged to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he spent 51 days. He no longer suffers from any of the initial aftereffects he felt, STAT News reported.

Worldwide, doctors and researchers are seeking to learn more about health issues caused by COVID-19.

A study by the University of Frankfurt in Germany found that 75 percent of people who had COVID-19 had abnormal heart findings.

Inflammation in the heart muscle, known as myocarditis, was also identified. It can lead to cardiac disease and heart failure. Other patients had inflammation on the covering of the heart known as pericarditis.

Schaffner explained: "What has bothered a lot of people … is that young people who are otherwise very strong, having minor or no symptoms after they're infected, might develop at least a transient inflammation of the heart muscle－myocarditis. There is a concern that if young people become very vigorous again… they may develop abnormalities of the rhythms of (the) heart."

COVID-19 has also been linked to brain damage－often described as "brain fog"－according to research released in July by University College London.

A study conducted in April and May with 43 participants found that 10 had temporary brain dysfunction and delirium, 12 had brain inflammation, eight had strokes, and eight nerve damage.

Ian Frayling, a formerly physically fit 61-year-old from Wales, said he is still suffering from fever, muscle pain and a persistent cough seven months after he got coronavirus and was discharged from hospital.

"A few weeks ago I went shopping and started to shake uncontrollably," he told Wales Online. "I felt completely drained of any energy and was profoundly out of breath. It took all my energy just to get back to my car only half a mile away."