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Tiny, Menacing Microclots May Explain Long COVID’s Symptoms
By
Claire Sibonney
WebMD Health News
Dec. 7, 2022 – When Hannah Davis saw the first visual confirmation of long COVID in her blood – a firework-like display of fluorescent green dots against a black background – she was overwhelmed with an odd sense of relief. In early November, she became one of the first U.S. long COVID patients to be tested for microscopic blood clots, catching up to South Africa, Germany, the U.K., and other countries that are already experimenting with related treatments.
“It was validating,” says Davis, who excitedly shared the images of her clots on Twitter. “It’s basically the first test specific to long COVID that is promising and scientifically sound and incorporates research from other post-viral illnesses.”
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Big news: I was lucky to get tested for micro blood clots, & I have a lot of them! <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/LongCovid?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#LongCovid</a><br><br>Healthy control blood on the left. Mine on the right. The green is all microclots!<br><br>These clots are likely blocking oxygen from getting around my body & could explain many symptoms. 1/ <a href=”https://t.co/5rtuzN8D8f”>pic.twitter.com/5rtuzN8D8f</a></p>— Hannah Davis (@ahandvanish) <a href=”https://twitter.com/ahandvanish/status/1592626664131145728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 15, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Davis donated her blood at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, with a few other founding members of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, all of whom had been infected in the first wave of the pandemic and are still sick nearly 3 years later. Seeing the pictures of their blood clots, Davis and her fellow patients cried what she called happy tears. Then the reality of having those notorious blood clots sank in.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency room doctors and others treating patients noticed the sickest produced excessive blood clots. The clots clogged kidney dialysis machines, caused strokes, and killed patients long after they left the hospital. Some long COVID researchers have suspected smaller, less obvious blood clots may be causing many of the puzzling symptoms reported by patients who have lasting effects of the virus.
The theory is that these weird and persistent clots, called microclots, might be blocking delicate blood vessels throughout the body, and stopping oxygen from getting to where it needs to go, causing everything from shortness of breath and organ damage to brain fog and debilitating fatigue. But if all the havoc is being done inside these minuscule clots, regular pathology tests won’t pick it up. A network of specialists is now setting out to see if specialized tests can be accessible and if the clots can be treated.
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