From National Geographic:
Six weeks after a mild case of COVID-19 early in the pandemic, Erika Thornes started waking up every night between 2 and 3 a.m. Unable to fall back asleep, she would listen to podcasts, read, and scroll through Twitter before finally dozing off by 4 or 5 a.m. Thornes, the mother of three teenagers in San Diego, continued to struggle to sleep through the night for more than two years after that—a pattern that improved only after she started taking a new medication following her second bout with the virus in the summer of 2023.
A similar thing happened to her husband during a COVID-19 infection. He was suddenly waking up at 3 a.m. every night. His sleep improved when he stopped testing positive, but the symptom was extreme while it lasted. “He was quite shocked,” she says. “He knew I was waking up, but I don’t think he quite understood the severity of ‘awake.’” Nightmares. Days without sleep. Waking in a panic in the middle of the night. Sleeping for 18 hours a day