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Interconnected Long COVID Symptoms Create an Opportunity

How Long COVID and CFS Symptoms Can Be Interconnected

Chronic pain can create or worsen other symptoms such as brain fog, fatigue, memory loss, stress, depression, anger and more.  My healthcare providers initially focused on post-COVID chronic migraine relief because pain is a well understood problem with a wide range of treatment options, as opposed to my mystifying mix of other symptoms.  The hope is that by tackling an easier problem first, it would have a ripple effect that would lessen the other symptoms. While my experience started with migraine pain, this same principle could apply to any collection of interconnected symptoms.

Anyone who has ever taken an injured animal to a vet or small child to the emergency room has seen how pain can turn a sweet creature into a berserker.  Pain triggers adrenaline, fight or flight response, and stress.  If I asked you to read a story while I hit you with a hammer, you would find it challenging to focus and remember what you read.  When someone experiences too much pain or stress for a prolonged time, other things happen such as immune system activation, inflammation, increased blood pressure and the release of cortisol, a stress hormone that can trigger nausea.  If you are hurting or overstressed in some other way, it is difficult to sleep, and without sleep you cannot flush your brain of biological waste products, effectively move short term information into long term memory, and recharge your energy levels.

How Migraines Cause Brain Fog and Memory Issues

Migraines have a component called “cortical depression”, a disruptive process impacting blood flow and electrical signaling that starts at the back of your brain (where vision is controlled) and slowly spreads to the front (where thinking is done).  This is why classic migraines often begin with a visual hallucination before the headache, and then accumulates other symptoms as the process spreads throughout the brain.  Thinking, memory and even speech/language can be impaired. The process can start a couple of days before the full-blown migraine and last a day or so after the pain fades. Interestingly, some people can have all of the above migraine symptoms but without the pain.

Now consider all of the above in the context of someone who has a chronic migraine that lasts indefinitely.  The actual migraine process can directly cause brain fog, memory and cognition problems.  The intense long-term pain can sap energy reserves and concentration.  One symptom triggers another until it forms a vicious worsening cycle.

Interconnected Symptoms Create More Opportunities for Relief

The good news is that because it is all interconnected, successfully reducing any one symptom can potentially help ALL of them improve.  This creates more opportunities to improve becase each symptom is a potential vulnerability for the overall complex.  So, lessening pain can make it easier to sleep.  Taking a work break or nap can restore energy which can help with brain fog and fatigue.  Therapy to deal with stress and the reality of living with a chronic condition can make your nervous system less sensitive to that condition, which can then improve symptoms.  Reducing the number of decisions you make in a day reduces your cognitive load which can reduce fatigue, brain fog and nausea and even pain. 

While my medical team may have started with reducing pain, if you happen to have different interconnected long COVID symptoms, chances are good that if you beat back one of them, the others might become more manageable. I keep mentioning migraines because they are such a huge symptom for my specific case, but my online research suggests that this holds true for anxiety, depression, fatigue, brain fog, memory and cognitive issues, myalgia, pins and needles, and more.  Finding the weakest links in the symptom change and breaking them seems to help people.

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© 2023 All rights reserved. This blog reflects the personal experience and opinions of a long COVID and CFS survivor and is not qualified medical advice. Consult a doctor for your situation.
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I invite on-topic, helpful comments from readers with free Google accounts. I am especially interested in comments that share useful tips for fighting long-COVID, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Pain and Migraines. Off-topic comments, comments that name other sites or products without including much relevant textual explanation, and comments disparaging any person or group will be deleted. As I am trying to keep this a positive place, I may also delete comments in a despairing tone that focus only on symptom misery rather than helpful ways to combat it. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and helpful tips!

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