Some patients with long COVID may have long-lasting nerve damage that could lead to fatigue, sensory changes, and pain in the hands and feet.
“This is one of the early papers looking into causes of long COVID, which will steadily increase in importance as acute COVID wanes,” Anne Louise Oaklander, MD, the lead study author and a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said“Our findings suggest that some long COVID patients had damage to their peripheral nerve fibers and that damage to the small-fiber type of nerve cell may be prominent,” she said.
They found that 10 patients -- or 59% -- had at least one test that confirmed neuropathy. Two patients had rare neuropathies that affected muscle nerves, and 10 were diagnosed with small-fiber neuropathy, which is a cause of. Common symptoms included fatigue, weakness, changes in their senses, and pain in their hands and feet.
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