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UPDATE: Here’s one way #COVID medicine has changed since the spring: We now know how #coronavirus can invade and destroy muscle. This has relevance for patients who have profound fatigue, difficulty walking, or weakness that just won’t go away. 1/
The new insights may also help us unravel Long COVID, to understand why some people have such a hard time recovering. It all began several months ago, when a link was established between the virus and muscle injury: 2/
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0445_article
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0445_article
We now know that in a subset of people, #coronavirus can manipulate a signaling molecule, interferon, to trick the human body into making proteins that are toxic to muscle tissue. 3/ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2031085
This has become a familiar theme: coronavirus hijacks the human immune system to wreak havoc. Under a microscope, this muscle-destroying syndrome resembles another condition: dermatomyositis.
We're now on the lookout for virus-related muscle problems. 4/
We're now on the lookout for virus-related muscle problems. 4/
When I examine a COVID patient, I now ask more detailed questions about weaknesses and fatigue than I did in the spring. I’m also more likely to order a lab test for a muscle enzyme called creatinine kinase. 5/
Takeaway: Patients with lingering symptoms may get diagnosed with “Long COVID” when, in fact, they have something more nuanced: coronavirus-induced type I interferonopathy. The next step is to figure out how to quickly diagnose and treat it.
