COVID and Back Pain
As a physician who specializes in spine care, I’ve had a number of people asking about Covid Back Pain. Why does COVID-19 sometimes causes back pain? What does COVID-19 back pain feel like?
First, COVID-19 is a respiratory infection caused by a virus in the coronavirus family called SARS-CoV-2. It most typically causes flu-like symptoms like fever, cough, and fatigue. This can include body aches and pain as frequently reported symptoms. And the lower back is one of the most common places people with Covid report feeling pain.
This back pain often appears in the early stages of the disease, but it can also be a long-haul symptom that persists for weeks, or even months, after infection.
In fact, “pain” is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. And it often appears as one of the early symptoms, sometimes in the absence of other symptoms. The types of pain people have reported most frequently include:
headaches
body aches
back pain
General muscle aches presented as a symptom in up to 36 percent of people, according to a late 2020 data review. However, body aches do not necessarily mean you have COVID-19. They are also a common early flu symptoms.
Another 2020 study found that 69 percent of people with COVID-19 reported pain as a symptom. Of those, 46 percent reported pain as their primary symptom, while 43 percent specifically reported back pain. And a different research review found that back pain was one of the most frequently reported COVID-19 pain symptoms — in 10 percent of the cases analyzed.
So, why? It’s thought that pain is primarily caused by your body’s immune response. COVID can stimulate the release of pro-inflammatory molecules called cytokines by your immune system. These molecules may stimulate the formation of another molecule called prostaglandin E2. This acts on your nerves and sends pain messages to your brain. Another possibility is that muscle aches caused by viral infections are linked to an up-regulation of a specific cytokine called interleukin-6. And it has also been posed that the virus that causes COVID-19 may cause tissue damage that plays a role in pain development.
Of course, back pain can have many possible causes. It’s impossible to know if your back pain was caused by COVID-19 unless you also had a positive COVID-19 diagnostic test. However, diagnostic tests also aren’t 100 percent accurate. Back pain caused by COVID-19 is often described as a deep pain versus a sharp or stabbing pain, like what may accompany a sudden muscular injury. Additionally, pain caused by viral infections is also less likely to be eased by changing your position as opposed to pain caused by muscular injuries.
Some people with COVID-19 develop symptoms that last weeks or months after the original infection. This is what we refer to as “Long COVID,” making those persistent complications long-haul symptoms. A few of the most common include:
Shortness of breath
Fatigue
Altered smell or taste
Brain fog
Joint or muscle pain
Cough
And some patients report having persistent back pain following a COVID infection. However, researchers are still trying to figure out how common this log heal symptom is, although reports have been as high as 25 percent of patients with Long COVID in more recent studies.
Back pain and muscle pain are commonly reported by people with COVID-19. This is a result of your body’s immune response to the infection. But having back pain alone isn’t necessarily a symptom of COVID-19. The only way to know for sure is to receive a positive diagnostic test.
If you have had a positive COVID test, been sick with a COVID-19 infection for a long period and are experiencing on-going back pain once your infection has passed, it is best to talk to your doctor or a spine care specialist about options available to lessen the pain. It is important that you let the physician know that you have had COVID and if back pain was a significant symptom for you.