UPDATES are in comments
The GAO is a US government accountability office that makes reports to Congress to keep them up to date of economic issues and is this case, health issues. 2-22 ... USA GAO gives an excellent overview of long COVID. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105666
How many people in the U.S. have developed "long COVID"? It could be in the range of 7.7–23 million, some estimates say.
Being one in 5 people who contract COVID have at least one symptoms that lurks long after, Congress needs to be made more aware of what the future holds. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351
There are many other posts on Long COVID here on the forum. To access them, use the second search line at the top right. Today, I am going to focus on just one symptom. Tooth loss and Alveolar bone loss. (I am not a medical professional or a dentist. I will add information from those who are...)
I have loose teeth and have since my thirties. My mom and dad had Pyorrhea(The severe form of gum disease) from WW2 rationing, stress and likely also shared living quarters with many others, so both had false teeth in their early thirties. All of us kids have had to be extra careful to stave off severe gingivitis... which I did until now. It has advanced because I used to get my teeth cleaned every 3 months, and during COVID I had 5 dentists due to 2 quitting and one moving away and more. I was lucky to get an appointment every 6 months. What has that got to do with Long COVID, you may be asking? Well during the early stages, some people were losing their teeth a few months after a COVID bout. In Ghomert's case it was 6 months. https://mashable.com/article/louie-gohmert-loses-tooth
Well that was me this morning... and it was an expensive capped molar with 3 roots. It was sudden, painless and almost bloodless. (Which is how many others describe it as well) I had COVID last month.
So now we have gotten to the "root" of the problem. Is this poor hygiene, stress, aging, or COVID ?
It is very likely all 4, being few people saw their dental hygienist as regularly during COVID as before, stress was relatively high for everyone and even more so for the poor and elderly who already have more health and gum issues and cannot afford the Dental insurance and COVID itself wrecks havoc on the vascular system. Healthy gums require a good blood flow and COVID makes it sticky...
And wait... there's more...
Tooth loss
Alveolar bone loss and tooth loss are associated with COVID-19 severity but are not independent risk factors. An explorative study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8603227/
COVID Infection of the mouth may contribute to gum and teeth problems and bone loss. Investigating the mouth–COVID connection https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02922-8
Calcium absorption
Calcium absorption and COVID: (Vitamin D, magnesium and calcium supplements help assure all 3 work together for activation and absorption) 7k samples studied using peer-reviewed data, that is far more robust than most.
"It is the first of its kind in the world to actually biologically identify the overlap in the dysfunction with long COVID and ME/CFS patients," she said. Dr Marshall-Gradisnik said damaged receptors, like a dysfunctional lock and key, do not allow enough calcium in. "The receptors are located on every cell in the body," she said. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-11/long-covid-and-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-pathology-overlap/101318522
Hypocalcemia in COVID-19: Prevalence, clinical significance. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8041474/
Blood abnormalities
This is a preprint, not peer reviewed but interesting. Blood abnormalities found in people with Long Covid. Battle weary immune cells. https://www.science.org/content/article/blood-abnormalities-found-people-long-covid
It is still all so new ... and I am so very tired. (One of my symptoms that I hope to shake) and we have to hope we will not all be exhausted and ravaged by COVID even though we are vaccinated and boosted. Vaccines and boosters still give a relatively high degree of protection from long COVID, and certainly for keeping us out of the hospitals and dying.
I will wake tomorrow with one less tooth... but, I'll be alive and kicking.
Sorry to hear this but not surprised. Only more surprised that people politicized this virus, this very nasty virus that potentially affects every organ system we have.