Based on symptoms alone, it is difficult to determine the root cause of breathing difficulties.
Behind the current pollen season, there is also a corona that is still going strong.
Many people have allergic respiratory symptoms, but people can also experience prolonged coughing or shortness of breath after a corona.
Prolonged lung symptoms are when, for example, the cough lasts for more than eight weeks.
Even for healthcare professionals, it is difficult to recognize the aftereffects of an allergy or the corona virus based on respiratory symptoms alone.
Seppälä also reminds that even if Corona acts as a trigger for prolonged respiratory symptoms, in more detailed investigations, asthma or another disease may also be found in the background.
International studies have found that approximately one in twenty corona patients experience prolonged respiratory symptoms.
In the patient statistics of the Päijät-Häme lung clinic, there are a total of 50 people from the tough corona years 2020 and 2021, whose one of the reasons for visiting was corona.
– Not an incredibly large group, but there are certainly many more patients who have visited the health center for these types of symptoms, says Seppälä.