You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Case report
‘Long COVID’ syndrome
  1. Priyal Taribagil1,
  2. Dean Creer1 and
  3. Hasan Tahir1,2
  1. 1Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  2. 2Division of Medicine, University College London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Priyal Taribagil; priyal.taribagil1{at}nhs.net

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in a global pandemic and an unprecedented public health crisis. Recent literature suggests the emergence of a novel syndrome known as ‘long COVID’, a term used to describe a diverse set of symptoms that persist after a minimum of 4 weeks from the onset of a diagnosed COVID-19 infection. Common symptoms include persistent breathlessness, fatigue and cough. Other symptoms reported include chest pain, palpitations, neurological and cognitive deficits, rashes, and gastrointestinal dysfunction. We present a complex case of a previously well 28-year-old woman who was diagnosed with COVID-19. After resolution of her acute symptoms, she continued to experience retrosternal discomfort, shortness of breath, poor memory and severe myalgia. Investigations yielded no significant findings. Given no alternative diagnosis, she was diagnosed with ‘long COVID’.

  • COVID-19
  • respiratory medicine

This article is made freely available for use in accordance with BMJ’s website terms and conditions for the duration of the covid-19 pandemic or until otherwise determined by BMJ. You may use, download and print the article for any lawful, non-commercial purpose (including text and data mining) provided that all copyright notices and trade marks are retained.

https://bmj.com/coronavirus/usage

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2020-241485

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors All three authors were involved in the case report. DC and HT provided clinical expertise in the examination and management of the patient. The patient was under their care for the last few months. PT was involved in writing the case report. All three authors contributed to final writing, editing and proof-reading the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.