Reply to “Musculoskeletal complications of Covid-19 can contribute to its morbidity and mortality” by Finsterer et al.

Thanks to Finsterer et al. for their letter to the editor highlighting the limitations in our recently published research article assessing the risk factors associated with musculoskeletal manifestations in post-COVID19 patients.1 The authors mentioned that potential complications such
as rhabdomyolysis, Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), and myasthenia were missed in the evaluation. They also highlighted that the manifestations noted in the study were not accounted for other possible causes such as drug-induced neuropathy or myopathy received by the
COVID-19 patients admitted in the intensive care. There are a few clarifications that we wish to state in this regard.
Our study was conducted as a cross-sectional study in COVID-19 patients to assess the relationship between the severity of the postCOVID-19 musculoskeletal manifestations measured through the questionnaire developed by Cella et al.2 and the associated risk factors contributing to the severity. We identified male sex, non-vaccination,
and associated co-morbidities to increase the risk of severity of the common musculoskeletal manifestations analyzed. Our explanation to the queries raised by the authors was as follows: First, although we analyzed the common musculoskeletal manifestations, we did not attempt to elucidate all the possible musculoskeletal
manifestations from COVID-19.3