After recovering from COVID-19, Priya Mathew thought she was out of trouble. Then she suffered the long COVID.
She told CBS News that she identified 23 symptoms and the most alarming for her were shortness of breath, laboured breathing, and irregular heartbeats. What had really troubled her was insomnia, according to her experience shared with the news outlet.
She noted her experience that she could not sleep all night. “It felt like electric shocks going through my body from my head down to my toes”, she explained.
Mathew said it began to impact her work and daily life as she began to feel drained even after a little task. She believed that her COVID was a mild one initially when she contracted it.
She also noted that she realised that the key to amelioration is to change life completely. She believes to have been experiencing improvement in her symptoms by 60-70%.
Mathew is not alone in facing insomnia
Long COVID as this, impacted the sleep of many people.
Dr Emmanuel During, a psychiatrist and neurologist, said that Mathew was not alone, saying he has been seeing this in sleep patients at Mount Sinai Hospital.
For those who have been suffering from long COVID, he believes that insomnia is related to pain and resistance to treatment.
Dr During said that this pain may occur at night with autonomic imbalance and impairment. It is the ability of our body, he went on, to control our heartbeat and blood pressure which can cause irregularity in heartbeats and night sweating.
A survey carried out last year by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine notes that a third of US citizens have come across disturbances in sleep — termed COVID-somnia.
Health experts have maintained that one needs to pursue enough sleeping habits, and in case of any trouble, they suggest consulting a sleep specialist as insomnia may reverberate on other parts of the body causing other diseases to prevail.
