A new embarrassing symptom due to Covid – lematin.ch

Among the symptoms due to Covid, doctors have already spotted a few rare cases of restless legs syndrome, a common neurological and sensorimotor disorder, but very underdiagnosed in connection with the coronavirus. For the first time, a more embarrassing variant has been detected: restless anal syndrome.

It was a 77-year-old Japanese who was the unfortunate victim. His case was reported in the journal “BMC Infectious Diseases”. 21 days after being admitted to Tokyo University Hospital due to Covid, he had regained normal respiratory function, but insomnia and anxiety persisted.

Several weeks after being released from the hospital, he began to experience anal pain. With very particular characteristics: a strong desire to move, because the pains worsened when this man was resting but diminished when he was in motion. His condition also worsened in the evening. These are exactly the four essential characteristics of restless leg syndrome, which prompted the doctor to say that it is a variant.

The man then underwent a colonoscopy which revealed internal hemorrhoids but no other lesions. Nothing else was detected. The administration of an anxiolytic made it possible to constantly alleviate these pains, but they still remain 10 months after the start of treatment, As the man had never experienced such disorders before being infected with Covid, doctors attributed this to an effect of the coronavirus. In addition to respiratory symptoms, Covid also causes cerebrovascular disease, impaired consciousness and damage to skeletal muscles. “Surprisingly, although the mechanism of neuropsychic symptoms linked to Covid-19 is not fully understood, emerging evidence has indicated the neuronal spread of the new coronavirus,” the researchers note.

Among these neuropsychic symptoms, were identified: delirium, confusional state, dysfunction of taste and smell, acute psychosis, encephalitis, cerebrovascular event, Guillain-Barré syndrome. Restless legs syndrome is also a neurological disorder resulting from a dysfunction of the central nervous system and which has been observed in two women following Covid. But the doctors who wrote the report say, however, that the causal relationship between Covid and restless anal syndrome remains unclear, since there is only one known case. Perhaps because this kind of disorder has been underdiagnosed when it comes to coronavirus patients. They therefore advise paying attention to the appearance of similar cases to clarify the relationship between Covid and such a syndrome.