Getting COVID More Than Once Linked to Back Problems, Study Finds

COVID-19 has already picked up a reputation for causing problems long after the initial infection is over.

Now, a new study has found another connection that researchers weren't necessarily looking for: people who had COVID more than once were much more likely to receive a new diagnosis for back problems.

The study looked at 8,809 adults in Canada between April 2022 and June 2023. Those who had been infected with COVID twice had 76% higher odds of receiving a new medical diagnosis than people who hadn't had the same infection history.

How Back Problems Stood Out

People with repeat COVID infections had nearly four times the odds of receiving a new back-related diagnosis. Respiratory problems were even more strongly associated, with about five times the odds. That doesn't mean getting COVID twice automatically causes back pain. The researchers were looking at diagnoses that occurred after infection, not proving that the virus itself created each new condition.

There's another wrinkle, too. People who have more serious or lingering symptoms may simply end up seeing their doctors more often. That gives doctors more opportunities to find something that might have been missed before.

The researchers also pointed to the possibility of what they call reverse causation. In some cases, symptoms that continue for months could be related to a medical problem that was already there but hadn't been diagnosed yet.

So the numbers aren't a prediction that someone who catches COVID twice is going to develop a back problem. They're a comparison between groups.

The study found that even people who had COVID just once had higher odds of receiving a new diagnosis. People whose symptoms interfered with daily activities during their first infection had 63% higher odds of a new diagnosis. And people whose COVID symptoms lasted at least three months had more than three times the odds of receiving a new diagnosis.

There Are Other Variables

The people showing the highest number of new diagnoses also tended to have other risk factors. Older adults were more affected, as were people who smoked, had obesity, had a disability or were already living with another health condition.

Vaccination status showed up in the findings, too. Adults who weren't fully vaccinated before their first COVID infection had higher odds of receiving diagnoses for conditions including cardiovascular problems and high blood pressure. None of that means vaccination prevents every one of these conditions. The study was looking at patterns in a population, not establishing a direct cause for each diagnosis.

The timing of the study is also worth noting. COVID cases have started rising again in parts of the U.S. as fall approaches. The CDC recently estimated that infections were increasing or likely to increase in 35 states. For people who've already had COVID more than once, the researchers' findings add another reason to pay attention to symptoms that don't go away.

There has also been growing interest in what COVID might do elsewhere in the body. Earlier research from the University of Texas at Austin suggested that infection could reactivate viruses that had been dormant in the body, including Epstein-Barr virus and other members of the herpesvirus family. That research is separate from the Canadian study, and it doesn't explain the back problems found in the new analysis.

The Bottom Line: There Is a Pattern

What the Canadian researchers did find was a pattern: repeat COVID infections were followed by more new diagnoses, and back problems were among the conditions with the biggest difference between the groups.

For anyone who has had COVID twice and is still dealing with unexplained symptoms — whether that's back pain, fatigue, shortness of breath or chest pain — the takeaway is fairly straightforward.

Don't automatically assume every lingering problem is just part of recovering from COVID. It may be worth getting it checked out.

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