Long Covid sufferers may develop psychosis

What happened to a Loveland woman's son is very similar to what is being seen across the U.S. and world in a small number of cases. 

Normally, these persons get Covid-19 then develop a psychosis turning them into a totally different personality.

CBS4 is not using the name of the mother who described her son before Covid.

"Normal young adult, recently married, just finished engineering school, had a bright future ahead of him."

But she said he suddenly changed weeks after he contracted Covid.

"He's a completely different person you talk to him/ It's like he's not home all the time."

She suspects that he has what's called 'Covid Psychosis.'

It's being studied at the University of Colorado Anschutz campus which has a "Post Covid Mental Health Clinic."

Dr. Thida Thant is a psychiatrist who calls the problem rare but something the medical community is well aware of.

"Covid causes very significant inflammation in the body and the brain." 

She adds the body's immune system may play a role in developing the psychosis symptoms.

Dr. Thant says delusions and hallucinations in people after getting Covid are part of this apparent psychosis.

"Essentially like paranoid ones, people are 'after you' or exaggerated self importance."

One delusion the son of the Loveland woman has is that law enforcement is conduct surveillance on him. 

He feels his neighbors are trying to impact his mind.

There is hope for those who have Covid psychosis symptoms through medication. But this mother says he must acknowledge he has a problem.

"He was normal and he had such a bright future, now we don't know what's going to happen," she said.

To make matters worse, her son was arrested for throwing rocks at the apartment whom her son perceived was trying to affect his mind through radio frequencies.

Covid psychosis could become part of his defense.