According to studies, those who exhibit extreme flexibility are 30% more likely to claim that they have not completely recovered from COVID-19.
According to study, those with too flexible joints may be more susceptible to long-term weariness and chronic illnesses.
When a person has hypermobility, it means that some or all of their joints have an abnormally wide range of motion because of structural variations in the connective tissues that surround, support, and provide shape to their organs, joints, and other tissues.
Adults who are hypermobile might range up to 20%, and many of them are in perfect health. With their very flexible joints, many artists and sportsmen might even benefit from hypermobility. But it may also lead to issues including a heightened susceptibility to pain, exhaustion, joint injuries, and digestive or stomach issues.
When the Covid epidemic struck, Dr. Jessica Eccles of Brighton and Sussex Medical School and her colleagues were looking into a possible connection between hypermobility, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and fibromyalgia, a disorder that causes pain throughout the body.
“We began to wonder if hypermobility, which may be a contributing factor to ME/CFS, also plays a role in prolonged COVID-19?” stated Eccles.
In order to determine whether or not 3,064 participants in the Covid symptom study (now known as the Zoe health study) had hypermobile joints, had completely recovered from their most recent Covid episode, and whether they were dealing with chronic tiredness, she joined up with academics from King’s College London to analyze participant data.
According to the study, which was published in BMJ Public Health, those with hypermobile joints were much more likely to have extreme weariness and were almost 30% more likely than those with normal joints to report that they had not completely recovered from COVID-19.
While the research does not establish a causal relationship between the patients’ hypermobility and the disease, it does provide a conceivable mechanism by which it can be linked to symptoms including weariness, cognitive fog, and postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS), a condition in which standing causes an abrupt spike in heart rate.
“We’ve known for a while that PoTs is closely associated with hypermobility,” Eccles said. According to the idea, individuals may experience symptoms like palpitations and dizziness when their loose connective tissue in their veins and arteries causes blood to pool in their tissues. This puts more strain on the heart to pump blood to the brain when the person stands up.
“Perhaps some of these anomalies were always present, but Covid exposed them in a susceptible individual,” Eccles said.
She is looking into the possibility that, in certain cases, brain fog and exhaustion might be caused by decreased blood supply to the brain. There are other options, however.
Eccles said, “We also know that hypermobility is linked to conditions like fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, and autism, so fatigue may be a result of that.”
She emphasized that while long-term Covid was unlikely to be a single entity, a deeper comprehension of the connection to hypermobility might facilitate the creation of novel therapies.
According to the research, there could be a subset of individuals with long Covid who are more prone to be hypermobile.
It’s critical to recognize this. It’s possible that some of the same interventions, like core muscle support and strengthening, that benefit individuals with discomfort and hypermobility may also benefit everyone else.
