What Happens to Your Brain After COVID-19 ? Dr. Navin Tiwari

 

Studies Lifting the Mask of Neurological Symptoms Of COVID-19.

She was seeing lions and monkeys all over the house.

Being convinced that her husband is an impostor,55-year-old Vignette A was getting more and more perplexed and violent towards other people. She was older than the age at which psychosis usually develops (the 40s-50s).  And she also did not have any psychiatric history.

But what she did have, however, was COVID-19. And she was the first known patient to develop psychosis after contracting the disease.

So, if you are one of those people who is thinking that Corona is limited to your lungs only, then get ready for some facts which will blow your mind. In fact, it is related to your mind. (No pun intended)

Earlier Evidence

Although earlier during the pandemic, while all doctors were struggling to keep their patients breathing, and trying to limit the damage to lungs and other circulatory systems only. Even then, they were noting the serious neurological effects on corona patients.

Some corona patients were found to be experiencing a state of delirium (a state of hallucination). Similarly, a group in Japan published a report, in April, citing a corona patient having swelling and inflammation in brain tissues. While there is another report describing a patient suffering from GBS (Guillain–Barré syndrome), a disease known to cause muscle weakness and eventually paralysis.

These neurological symptoms are seeming to become more and more frightening. The list now contains symptoms like stroke, brain hemorrhage, and memory loss. Although it is not very uncommon for a disease like COVID-19 to have these effects.

But the scale at which the Coronavirus has spread means that hundreds or even thousands of people may already have these symptoms. Thus, facing a lifelong problem as a consequence.

How Many People?

Even though the virus can enter and infect the brain cells, we don’t know for sure whether SARS-CoV-2 does so to a large extent.

The nervous symptoms may be just the result of overstimulation of the immune system.

And this immune response might be the cause of GBS. But that will be important to find out since both cases will have to be treated differently.

The major problem in quantifying the cases is that these studies have been done on Corona patients who were hospitalized, often admitted in ICU. The chances of having these neurological symptoms can be higher in this category of COVID patients.

But there is less to no information about those who have mild illness or no respiratory symptoms.

Conclusion

Many other studies are showing neurological symptoms in COVID-19 cases. But since these studies are the case reports of just a few patients only, nothing can be said with certainty.

But with these new symptoms becoming more and more apparent, we now know for sure that COVID-19 is just not limited to your lungs only.

Dr.  Navin Tiwari

 Neurologist and  Consultant 

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