COVID has been around for a few years now and we are getting to know how it works and what it does. One of the problematic consequences of being sick with COVID is the aftereffects known now as long COVID syndrome. Long covid or post covid are symptoms that last longer than a few weeks after the initial infection. While there are a myriad of symptoms including chronic fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath and coughing, headaches, we would like to focus on just 2 of these being loss of smell or abnormal smell and taste. The loss of smell can develop even in asymptomatic infections and doesn’t correlate to whether the infection lead to hospitalization or not.
Because the COVID virus and Long COVID is still relatively new, we are not completely clear yet on how or why the COVID virus causes the loss of smell. Unlike similar colds, this change or loss of smell doesn’t occur because of nasal congestion or stuffy nose. Recent findings suggest that this occurs because of a dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This COVID virus can also lead to nerve damage to the nasal receptors of the olfactory bulb near the brain. Impaired cerebral blood flow is another reason from dysautonomia or this dysregulation. Most of the time, these symptoms are self-limited to several weeks or several months. Occasionally, these symptoms can continue to persist for a year or longer. This is where a Stellate Ganglion Block can help.
The stellate ganglion is a collection or cluster of nerves, known as the stellate ganglion, that lives on the front of our spines in our neck. It is responsible for some of the automatic or autonomic responses that your body does such as the fight or flight response, dilating your pupils, increasing your heart rate, and so on. They relay the signal from your spinal cord to your brain and from your brain to your spinal cord.
By temporarily blocking these nerves, it can reset and correct the dysregulation that occurs in your ANS, specifically the sympathetic nervous system. Based on the current available evidence and the dramatic and almost instant resolution of these symptoms after an SGB, it appears to be a functional problem rather than a structural damage of the nerves. Because it may be functional, it often only requires one injection per side for lasting relief of the symptoms. We provide this long covid treatment right here in our in office procedure suite. Stop being a long covid suffer and get the long covid recovery you have been seeking.
It’s been over a year since the world has been under the grip of the deadly COVID-19 virus. The fight against this pandemic is slowly easing with the development and availability of vaccines. However, some people continue to suffer long-term effects of the virus that
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