Internal tremors and vibrations in long COVID: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Internal tremors and vibrations are symptoms previously described as part of neurologic disorders but not fully described as a part of long COVID. This study compared pre-pandemic comorbidities, new-onset conditions, and long COVID symptoms between people with internal tremors and vibrations as part of their long COVID symptoms and people with long COVID but without these symptoms.
Methods: The Yale Listen to Immune, Symptom and Treatment Experiences Now (LISTEN) Study surveyed 423 adults who had long COVID between May 12, 2022 and June 1, 2023. The exposure variable was long COVID symptoms of internal tremors and vibrations. The outcome variables were demographic characteristics, pre-pandemic comorbidities, new-onset conditions, other symptoms, and quality of life.
Results: Among study participants with long COVID, median age was 46 years [IQR, 38-56]), 74% were female, 87% were Non-Hispanic White, and 158 (37%) reported "internal tremors, or buzzing/vibration" as a long COVID symptom. The 2 groups reported similar pre-pandemic comorbidities, but people with internal tremors reported worse health as measured by the Euro-QoL visual analogue scale (median: 40 points [IQR, 30-60] vs. 50 points [IQR, 35-62], P = 0.007) and had higher rates of new-onset mast cell disorders (11% [95% CI, 7.1-18] vs. 2.6% [1.2-5.6], P = 0.008) and neurologic conditions (22% [95% CI, 16-29] vs. 8.3% [5.4-12], P = 0.004).
Conclusions: Among people with long COVID, those with internal tremors and vibrations had different conditions and symptoms and worse health status compared with others who had long COVID without these symptoms.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest Bornali Bhattacharjee is supported by, and César Caraballo was supported by, a grant from the Yale-Mayo Clinic Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) (U01FD005938). Jeph Herrin receives funding from multiple institutes of the National Institutes of Health, from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the American Heart Association, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for research projects; from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for development of quality measures; and from Pfizer. Chenxi Huang receives K12 funding from the National Center for Advancing Translational Science of the National Institutes of Health (UL1TR001863). Akiko Iwasaki co-founded RIGImmune, Xanadu Bio, and PanV, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Roche Holding Ltd and Genentech. Rohan Khera is an Associate Editor of JAMA. He receives support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (under award K23HL153775) and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (under award, 2022060). He also receives research support, through Yale, from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, and BridgeBio. He is a coinventor of U.S. Provisional Patent Applications 63/562,335, 63/177,117, 63/428,569, 63/346,610, 63/484,426, 63/508,315, and 63/606,203. He is a co-founder of Ensight-AI, Inc. and Evidence2Health, health platforms to improve cardiovascular diagnosis and evidence-based cardiovascular care. Harlan Krumholz received options for Element Science and Identifeye and payments from F-Prime for advisory roles. He is a co-founder of and holds equity in Refactor Health and Ensight-AI, Inc. He and his spouse are co-founders of, and have equity in, Hugo Health, the personalized health data platform company that developed the Hugo Kindred platform. His spouse is an officer with Hugo Health. The Yale Conflict of Interest Committee oversees his involvement in this study. He is associated with research contracts through Yale University from Janssen, Kenvue, Novartis, and Pfizer. Yuan Lu received research grants from the United States National Institutes of Health, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and the Sentara Research Foundation outside of the submitted work. Mitsuaki Sawano receives support from Polybio and Pfizer.
(Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)