Long-haul flights report symptoms diminish after being shot

Sheri Paulson had trouble getting out of bed for months after her diagnosis of Covid-19.

The 53-year-old North Dakota resident and her family fell ill with the disease after attending a wedding in August. Paulson, an endurance athlete who runs a farm outside of Fargo, would later experience fatigue, brain fog and an elevated heart rate, leading doctors to advise her to stop exercising and attend cardiac rehab.

It wasn’t until about five days after she got her first Pfizer injection in February that she started to feel better.

“Suddenly I stopped taking naps after cardiac rehab,” said Paulson, who also has multiple sclerosis. “And then I started walking my dog. Then I thought, ‘hmm, I think I’m going to run a bit too.'”

Some people who have suffered from persistent and often debilitating symptoms months after their first attack with the virus say they find relief after being vaccinated, puzzling health experts. Survivor Corps, a patient advocacy group for people with the so-called Long Covid, recently surveyed nearly 900 members and found that 41% reported slight relief from full recovery shortly after getting the shots.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 1 in 10 Covid patients will experience persistent ill health 12 weeks after getting the virus. Researchers at the University of Washington published data in February showing that one-third of patients reported persistent symptoms, including fatigue, shortness of breath, and sleep disturbances, which lasted for up to nine months.

Long Covid symptoms, which researchers now call Post-Acute Sequelae or Covid-19 or PASC, can develop long after the initial infection and the severity can range from mild to disabling, according to public health officials and health experts.

One of the largest global studies published in early January showed that many people who suffer from persistent illness after infection are unable to go to work at full strength six months later. The study surveyed more than 3,700 people ages 18 to 80 from 56 countries.

Diana Berrent, who founded Survivor Corps just over a year ago, suffered from Covid for months before most of her symptoms resolved on their own last year. She said some members of the organization were initially reluctant to get vaccinated. The members feared that the reported side effects from the injections would worsen their symptoms, she said.

“We really expected the worst” from the vaccines, she told CNBC. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when I discovered that some people started to get better because it was just as outside of what we expected.”

They are not alone. Facebook and Twitter are full of stories of people who testify to their surprise that their symptoms decreased or even disappeared after getting a Covid vaccine.

The cause of the persistent symptoms is still not well understood by health experts.

Most studies focused on people with a serious or fatal illness, not those who have recovered but still report persistent side effects, so-called long-haul airplanes. The virus is also relatively new – discovered a little over a year ago – so there is no long-term data on it.

The National Institutes of Health launched an initiative in February to study Covid Long and identify its causes and potential treatments. NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said at the time that researchers hope to understand the underlying biological cause of the long-lasting symptoms.

Doctors also don’t know why some patients with Long Covid say they feel better after being immunized. Finding that out, experts say, could yield new insights into what’s behind the persistent symptoms, as well as possible new treatments.

According to Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki, it is theorized that the vaccines help eliminate the so-called “viral reservoir,” where the virus may still be present in the body and cause chronic symptoms. The robust immune response elicited by the vaccines can help clear up leftover virus and eliminate symptoms, she said.

“That’s probably the easiest way,” the vaccines could help people, she said. “If that’s the case, people will be cured of long-lasting Covid, and that’s going to be great news.”

Iwasaki also hypothesized that Covid could cause an autoimmune disease in which immune cells accidentally damage the body. If so, the vaccines could provide “temporary relief” of symptoms and patients may eventually have to return for another dose, she said.

There is no long-term data on how people feel after the vaccine, she said. “But I suspect as the second [hypothesis] if it is true, it will not be a long-lasting relief. “

Darren Brown, a 37-year-old physiotherapist based in the UK, said his symptoms returned a few weeks after he received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Brown suffered from fatigue, restless sleep, and decreased coordination for several months. He said his long Covid symptoms had completely disappeared about three weeks after he got his first injection. But just days before his second dose, he felt his symptoms begin to return.

“I started to notice that I was getting tired again,” he said. “The level I thought I could push myself, the threshold, it felt like it had diminished and I wouldn’t have anything in me after that. Back to work. I just had to go to bed after a day at work.”

He’s been feeling better since his second dose, but is concerned that his symptoms may return.

“I am very careful that this may not last long,” he said. “But I am also really overwhelmed with excitement that it will be discontinued for the time being.”

Paulson, the North Dakota rancher, said she still has some symptoms, but the fatigue and brain fog have gone since she got her second injection on March 18. She added that she is doing well, especially as many others have died from the disease. .

“There are always things that put life into perspective for you and kind of haunt you,” said Paulson, who also works for a Massachusetts-based biotech company.

While the reports of relief from long-lasting Covid symptoms may be good news, they are still only anecdotal, said Dr. Paul Offit, a voting member of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

There is yet to be a formal trial to determine if the vaccines really help, he said.

Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Toronto, said he is skeptical but “open-minded.”

“This is an answerable question and I hope we have decent data to confirm or disprove it,” said Bogoch. “Otherwise it’s just a lot of collective anecdotes”

Iwasaki told CNBC she plans to conduct a study, in collaboration with Survivor Corps, to analyze blood samples from Tall Covid patients before and after vaccination. She said he hopes they can explain the relief some patients experience after vaccination.

The study is still in the planning stages, she said, adding, “We’re working really hard to get that going.”

“I’ve received numerous emails and DMs on Twitter about patient experiences … and I hear every day from people who feel better when they get the vaccine,” she said. “It looks encouraging from where I stand.”

–CNBC’s Noah Higgins-Dunn contributed to this report.