Could Tiny Blood Clots Cause Long COVID’s Puzzling Symptoms?

Nature ^ | 24 August 2022 | Cassandra Willyard

[nickcarraway]

Scientists debate evidence for a micro-clot hypothesis that has some people pursuing potentially risky treatments.

When Lara Hawthorne, an illustrator in Bristol, UK, began developing strange symptoms after having COVID-19, she hoped that they weren’t due to the virus. Her initial illness had been mild. “I’ve been triple vaccinated. I felt quite protected,” she says. But months later, she was still sick with a variety of often debilitating symptoms: earaches, tinnitus, congestion, headaches, vertigo, heart palpitations, muscle pain and more. On some days, Hawthorne felt so weak that she could not get out of bed. When she finally saw her physician, the diagnosis was what she had been dreading: long COVID.

Unable to find relief, she became increasingly desperate. After reading an opinion piece in The Guardian newspaper about how blood clots might be to blame for long COVID symptoms, Hawthorne contacted a physician in Germany who is treating people with blood thinners and a procedure to filter the blood. She hasn’t heard back yet — rumour has it that people stay on the waiting list for months — but if she has the opportunity to head there for these unproven treatments, she probably will. “I don’t want to wait on my health when I’m feeling so dreadful,” she says.

Researchers are baffled by long COVID: hundreds of studies have tried to unpick its mechanism, without much success. Now some scientists, and an increasing number of people with the condition, have been lining up behind the as-yet-unproven hypothesis that tiny, persistent clots might be constricting blood flow to vital organs, resulting in the bizarre constellation of symptoms that people experience.

[David Chase]

Who is “They”??