MedPageToday Worse pain and less functional ability with lingering virus symptoms, patients say.
“Long COVID” lays a particularly heavy burden on people with pre-existing arthritis, a Canadian survey study indicated.
Worsened pain and greater functional limitations relative to their status prior to COVID-19 infection were reported by most individuals in Laval, Quebec, who had some type of arthritis and developed post-acute COVID symptoms following initial infection, according to Debbie Ehrmann Feldman, PhD, of the University of Montreal, and Barbara Mazer, PhD, of McGill University, also in Montreal. Just over half of these patients said they had experienced moderately to severely increased susceptibility to fatigue, and 42% complained of markedly more breathlessness when climbing stairs, the pair reported in Arthritis Care & Research. Some 37% indicated they now had moderately or severely increased pain.