Flu patients are more likely to need medical care for migraine and other common brain disorders than COVID patients
during the year following infection, according to a new study.
Researchers compared health data from more than 154,000 people hospitalized with flu or COVID and found more flu patients received treatment for migraine, epilepsy, stroke, neuropathy, movement disorders and dementia.
The results showed participants with COVID were 35% less likely to need care for migraine.
And their risk was 7 to 44% lower for the other neurologic conditions included in the study.
The researchers say these results were unexpected but reassuring.
One author says, “Since COVID-19 has now infected the majority of adults in the U.S., it’s good news that it behaves similarly to other respiratory viruses with respect to these common neurologic conditions.”
The researchers stress they did not specifically look at neurologic outcomes related to Long COVID.