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Post-COVID Psychosis: A Rare But Serious Virus Reaction
Chicago Tribune
An outgoing former college football player, Ben Price could fill a room with his energy and enthusiasm.
But that changed, his wife Jennifer said, after Ben, 48, got COVID-19 in February.
The man who emerged from the hospital was withdrawn and anxious, with a vague, deer-in-the-headlights gaze that Jennifer didn’t recognize. At his tractor and power equipment business in Morris, 60 miles southwest of Chicago, her normally hard-charging husband couldn’t answer a simple question. At home, he became increasingly panicked that he was falling behind with his side business, a small farm, and no reassurance that it was only February — too early for crop work — seemed to help.
“I’m so behind,” he kept saying. “I’m so behind.”
Ben Price’s descent into panic and despair, which ended in suicide Feb. 28, fits the pattern of post-COVID psychosis, a little-known but very serious reaction to the virus, according to Dr. Isaac Mezo, a Morris neurologist who did not treat Price but is familiar with the details of the case. Post-COVID psychosis occurs within months of infection, and is marked by hallucinations or delusions, as well as strong negative feelings such as fear and anxiety.
Post-COVID psychosis is still a new diagnosis, and there are many unknowns, but there’s growing evidence that psychosis can be caused by the virus itself, not psychological stress, and that treatment can help.
Jennifer Price, 45, who works for the family tractor business and runs a nonprofit, said she feels a responsibility to get the word out, so that others don’t have to suffer what she and the couple’s two children, Jett, 17, and Maya, 14, have gone through.
“We miss (Ben) with every ounce of our being every day,” she said. “The only thing that brings us peace is this was not our Ben that left us. He just never would have.”
As the pandemic has raged on, evidence that the virus can cause long-term effects on the brain and central nervous system have grown, with a recent Northwestern study of COVID-19 long-haulers (people with lingering symptoms) finding that 85% reported four or more neurological symptoms, problems such as “brain fog” (attention and memory problems), loss of taste or smell, headache and blurred vision.
Research on post-COVID psychosis is thinner, but here, too, evidence is building, according to Dr. Royce Lee, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago.
“We’ve seen a few cases (at the University of Chicago) where we can be really certain that COVID is causing the psychiatric illness, and we’ve seen tens of cases where we suspect that’s true,” he said.
At this point, there’s no way to know how many people experience post-COVID psychosis, Lee said. A British study of 153 people who had neurological or psychiatric problems after COVID-19 found that 10 experienced new-onset psychosis, the type easiest to link to COVID-19.
Researchers don’t yet know exactly how COVID-19 causes psychosis, Lee said, but some brain scans show lesions in areas linked to psychotic symptoms. That’s important to note, he said, because such abnormalities generally don’t appear on brain scans of people with non-COVID psychosis.
Among the theories researchers are considering: The COVID-19 virus causes direct damage to the brain; the virus triggers an immune response that negatively affects the brain; or the virus causes changes in blood flow to the brain.
Medications can reduce the symptoms, at least temporarily, and patients do tend to get better over time, although it’s too early to say whether they recover completely, Lee said.
He advised family members to call a doctor if a patient has hallucinations or delusions, or experiences a very marked emotional change.
Mezo said to watch out for symptoms such as withdrawal or anxiousness, feelings of paranoia or statements such as, “I just don’t feel well.” People with post-COVID psychosis need to be watched very closely and cared for by a medical team that includes a primary care doctor or a neurologist, as well as a psychiatrist, he said. A therapist may also be helpful.
Ben and Jennifer Price met at Minnesota State University at Mankato, where he played for the football team and she ran cross-country and track.
They were a strong team, she said, weathering challenges such as the premature birth of their son Jett, who is nonverbal, with cerebral palsy and autism.
Born at 24 weeks, Jett spent his first four months fighting for his life. Then, at age 4, he had a seizure so serious he had to be airlifted to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.
Medication eventually brought Jett’s seizures under control, but there was always the risk that they would suddenly return, and his parents had him sleep in their bed every night, so that they could respond immediately in the case of a medical crisis.
“(Ben) defined unconditional love as a parent,” Jennifer said. “He told that boy every day of his life how blessed he was to be his dad.”
Ben had never experienced a psychotic episode and was very active and healthy, both mentally and physically, when he was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Feb. 12, Jennifer said. A week later, he was admitted to the hospital for a remdesivir infusion to speed his recovery, and he was discharged Feb. 23.
When he came home, he made an effort to get out and walk one of the dogs, but as the week continued, he grew more withdrawn and scared.
Jennifer recalls him sitting in a chair with his head in his hands, a pose that was completely out of character.
He was preoccupied with the idea that he was falling behind with the corn and beans he grew, even though there was no work to be done and friends and family members would have been happy to pitch in if necessary.
“He was so very paranoid, and I couldn’t even rationalize with him. It was like talking to a child,” Jennifer said. “His whole disposition was different. His voice was different. I would tell him to calm down, and he would look at me and shake his head and say, ‘OK! OK!’ like a 2-year-old, and I was like, what is going on here?”
On a Friday, she called his doctor, who prescribed an anti-anxiety medication, and on Saturday morning, his brother stayed with him as he did some farm work.
The next morning he told Jennifer he had slept well and was feeling better. She was thrilled, she said, and Ben left to do some paperwork at his office.
A half-hour later Jennifer checked her phone and saw that Ben had gone to a different plot of land where he farmed, but when she called, he sounded great. Twenty minutes after that, she got a call from a family member saying that Ben’s truck was at the farmland but Ben was nowhere in sight.
Two minutes later, she got another call: Ben had shot himself. His death was ruled a suicide, according to a spokesman for the Grundy County Coroner.
After Ben died, a friend told Jennifer about post-COVID psychosis and sent her medical studies; Jennifer said she immediately recognized Ben’s symptoms.
“Had I known about this, I never would have let him out of my sight,” she said.
She appeared on local TV stations — WGN, FOX 32, NBC 5 — to highlight the problem, and through her disability advocacy contacts, was able to secure a brief meeting with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who in turn forwarded information to the White House COVID-19 task force.
Jennifer’s Change.org petition, which has over 21,000 signatures, calls for the Biden administration to appoint a neurology expert to investigate post-COVID psychosis.
Ben’s close friend since childhood, Scott Spiezio, a former professional baseball player and Morris resident, described him as someone who was “always there for you, whenever you needed something.” Another good friend, professional musician Tony DeBlois, who is blind and autistic, recalled Ben picking him up at the airport in a snowstorm and taking him for out for coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts.
“(Ben) being gone in this community is a huge hole for a lot of people,” said Spiezio. “The number of lives that he touched is huge.”
Close friends and family attended a small memorial service for Ben in March, but they said the party they’re planning in his honor, scheduled for July 17, will be more his style.
“Ben would not want us to sit in sorrow,” Spiezio said. “He’d want us to laugh and remember him and take care of each other and love each other — that’s what Ben was all about.”
Comments
Thank you very much for your article. Our youngest son (healthy 35 years old) went through a complete medical breakdown after testing positive for the 2nd time of covid back in November of 2021. Not only did he develope long Covid from a new strain brought to work direct from Venezuela destroy his life he lost his family, his job and he faces time in jail for something he doesn't remember. The entire family was affected. The only medical assistance was to pump him full of narcotics that caused him even more delusion and mania. Our family would love to tell the entire story its heartbreaking. He's had spinal taps and MRIs the medical field had not a clue of why. We begged for help, begged he was I seven hospitals with no improvement.
—Rick Smith, Davis, Illinois