[HN Gopher] Antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy resolves long...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy resolves long covid in 24
       patients
        
       Author : tcamde
       Score  : 213 points
       Date   : 2022-01-05 13:41 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.researchgate.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.researchgate.net)
        
       | hammock wrote:
        
         | tokai wrote:
         | >a group of vocal doctors who get ignored or suppressed by the
         | media
         | 
         | You make it sound so ominous. But if you look them up they have
         | gotten a ton of coverage from all kinds of media. Pierre Kory
         | et. al. has also published (and are still publishing) numerous
         | articles in (non hoax/predatory) science journals. Sure they
         | are critiqued, but that is what happens when you go against a
         | majority opinion (disciplinary not popular).
        
           | _jal wrote:
           | > You make it sound so ominous
           | 
           | It is like a group of folks only recently discovered the
           | marketing value of being "banned". A lot of them apparently
           | just noticed punk rock this decade, I guess.
           | 
           | And so you get amazing spectacles like Bari Weiss whining
           | about being shut of out public discourse... in the NYT and
           | WSJ. I'm sure many of her intellectual adversaries would love
           | to be shunned to a similar degree.
        
             | EricE wrote:
             | Talking about bans is not an open debate about an actual
             | subject - it's just more dodging/suppression of dissenting
             | opinion.
             | 
             | Discourse around dissent of the popular narrative is simply
             | not allowed and indeed you are doing the same. Deflecting
             | to talking about bans/access, rather than the pro's/con's
             | of treatments other than just the vaccines for COVID. Gives
             | people like you the comfort of being open minded without
             | actually being open minded.
        
               | _jal wrote:
               | > Discourse around dissent of the popular narrative is
               | simply not allowed
               | 
               | What are you talking about? You're dissenting right here.
               | People do it in the national press daily, as they have
               | been for literally years now on this particular topic.
               | 
               | No, what certain people don't like is that their
               | preferred narratives aren't taken as seriously as they
               | want. So whining about "suppressing dissent" is a more
               | palatable explanation for their butthurt, whether sincere
               | (as you might be) or manufactured (like I was pointing
               | to).
               | 
               | My high-school band didn't suck after all. We were
               | suppressed!
        
               | ccn0p wrote:
               | Dissenting and getting downvoted, kind of proving the
               | point.
               | 
               | My experience living in a county and working in an
               | industry that are both dominated by one particular way of
               | thinking given to them by authority figures (CDC, New
               | York Times, etc.) is that if you step outside that way of
               | thinking and pose fairly innocuous questions that
               | challenge it, two things happen: you lose all
               | credibility, and you get called pretty bad things
               | (racist, conspiracist, etc). That alone is pretty
               | detrimental to pushing the envelope with hard
               | conversations.
               | 
               | I have no doubt (and hear) that what I personally
               | experience is also happening across the media and
               | entertainment industry resulting in groupthink even
               | inside the rooms that are supposed to be doing journalism
               | and asking the hard questions that criticize and question
               | authority.
               | 
               | As I type these words, it's almost as if the root of this
               | is whether you trust those in "authoritative" roles, or
               | not. And fear for ones health turns us against each other
               | if we feel like those authoritative figures are either
               | helping, or hurting.
               | 
               | Anyways. If you think what Bari does is whine, that's too
               | bad. Of the growing band of "counter-narrative" folks
               | (Glenn Greenwald, Bari, Matt Taibi, Russell Brand, etc.)
               | she's rock solid in her reporting and I oftentimes feel
               | like she's doing what journalism should be doing. Spend a
               | bit more time actually reading (or listening) to her. She
               | covers a gambit of topics.
        
               | _jal wrote:
               | > getting downvoted
               | 
               | In the US, you're entitled to free speech. You're not
               | entitled to respect, or even an audience.
               | 
               | And I'm sorry, but if getting downvoted is political
               | oppression to you, you need to grow some skin.
               | 
               | > She covers a gambit of topics.
               | 
               | I have read her. She's a boring and repetitive
               | replacement-level whiner who's built a brand appealing to
               | people with certain kinds of insecurities.
        
           | ccn0p wrote:
           | On that logic, if that's the case, then shouldn't a
           | responsible "mainstream" media (CNN, NY Times, WaPo, etc.) be
           | talking about these published papers by Pierre Kory et al.
           | even if positioned as "minority viewpoints"? Instead what we
           | tend to see is fact checkers springing into action and media
           | continuing to only push a single "majority" narrative further
           | dividing all of us instead of uniting us together to have
           | open dialogue and letting the best ideas win in the public
           | space.
           | 
           | It's all so bizarre.
        
             | mikeyouse wrote:
             | This is such a silly line of argument -- If someone writes
             | a paper that says "the sky is pink" -- you would afford
             | them no airtime at all, even as "minority viewpoints".
             | These doctors are quacks, they get as much mainstream media
             | coverage as quacks deserve.
        
               | edmcnulty101 wrote:
               | Listening to Robert Malone and numerous other scientists
               | like Anders Tegnell and Dr. Peter McCoullough and other
               | people with credentials that make your credentials look
               | like those of an HVAC technician, it's strange that the
               | HVAC technician would call them quacks.
               | 
               | Just because you have the main stream media on your side
               | doesn't mean your narrative isn't 'the sky is pink'.
               | 
               | It could mean the emperor wears no clothes but is too
               | unaware to see it.
        
               | mikeyouse wrote:
               | It's not the 'narrative' thats on the side of vaccines
               | and actual useful therapeutics -- it's the vast majority
               | of science.
               | 
               | You sound exactly like my elderly obese neighbor whose
               | rationale for not getting vaccinated is "all those
               | doctors who aren't getting it have to know something I
               | don't". If 99% of scientists and doctors are on one side,
               | and you need to resort to credentialism instead of actual
               | research to prop up those who are on the other, you're
               | not really standing on solid ground.
               | 
               | If ivermectin worked, it would have had signal in any of
               | the dozens of trials we've run. If Malone had anything
               | useful to say, he wouldn't be hanging out with Steve
               | Bannon and Tucker Carlson and lying about "inventing MRNA
               | and DNA vaccines" and whether vaccines are cytotoxic.
               | These people are frauds and we'd all be better for saying
               | that plainly.
        
               | edmcnulty101 wrote:
               | Labotomies won the Nobel price.
               | 
               | You're trading appeal to authority for appeal to the
               | crowd.
               | 
               | Both are logical fallacies.
               | 
               | Most smart doctors and scientists are reserving judegment
               | at this point, because all of this is happening in real
               | time, so any data to make a rational decision is
               | incomplete. Smart people would know better.
               | 
               | It's hubris to have the confidence that you and the
               | mainstream media do about a novel virus and a novel
               | vaccine using novel vaccine technology.
               | 
               | And it's really bad to shut out dissenting opinions from
               | public discourse especially when they're subject matter
               | experts.
               | 
               | New Orleans had full confidence in it's levees backed by
               | 99% of the scientists and engineers in the area, then
               | Hurricane Katrina happened. People reported leaks in the
               | levee's years before it happened and were ignored.
               | 
               | There are so many questions and conflicting or
               | inconsistent data in the mainstream narrative. The fact
               | that the media doesn't report anything conflicting is a
               | huge red flag for me.
               | 
               | Whether Ivermectin works or masks work or quarantine
               | works...it's all irrelevant.
               | 
               | If you haven't learned that this is an endemic virus by
               | now and that people need to make their own decisions and
               | not be co-erced by big government to follow a
               | questionable narrative built on incomplete data, ...your
               | HVAC technician and your obese neighbor are clearly
               | smarter than you.
        
           | EricE wrote:
           | how much stuff that just a few months ago could have gotten
           | you banned by social media/big tech is now accepted as fact?
           | 
           | This week the big revelation is cloth masks don't work. Well
           | no kidding. Last week it was PCR tests can give excessive
           | false positives if you had COVID or the vaccine. Something
           | the creator of the PCR tests was trying to point out over a
           | year ago and he got banned from social media for his efforts.
           | 
           | So yeah, it's far more than critique - it's been flat out
           | scorched earth to suppress anyone who remotely deviates from
           | the the blessed narrative and frankly it's been extremely
           | disgusting to watch. We had hundreds of thousands if not
           | millions of people who ended up in hospitals when it was
           | utterly unnecessarily.
           | 
           | If Ivermectin was still under patent and not available in
           | generic form I'd be willing to wager large sums of money it
           | wouldn't have been demonized as a horse dewormer by the media
           | shills. Japan's cases and hospitalizations have fallen off a
           | cliff and the Washington Post just had a big article where
           | they were all puzzled and trying to figure out what was
           | different. Well they completely overlooked (intentionally?
           | ignorance?) that in early August Japan authorized Ivermectin
           | for COVID treatment.
           | 
           | Purely a coincidence, I'm sure. Never mind COVID never broke
           | out as intensely as was expected in Africa despite them not
           | having as early access to the vaccines. Gee, I wonder what
           | was different in Africa too.
        
             | nradov wrote:
             | Currently the Japanese ministry of health recommends that
             | ivermectin only be used as a potential COVID treatment in
             | clinical trials. It's not otherwise authorized. Some
             | physicians do prescribe it off label, and it's possible
             | that could have affected the course of the pandemic in
             | Japan, but at this point we have no reliable data either
             | way.
             | 
             | https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/12/21/national/iverm
             | e...
        
         | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
         | Just for my own curiosity I clicked on your link. The I-MASK+
         | protocol also currently recommends Ivermectin (and if you don't
         | have ivermectin, use black cumin seed), mouthwash, and a half
         | dozen different vitamins for prevention and early treatment.
        
           | nradov wrote:
           | There is some clinical evidence to support curcumin as a
           | prophylactic or treatment for COVID-19. The evidence so far
           | is weak, but it's cheap and has no real side effects at
           | normal dosage so from a risk versus reward standpoint it may
           | be worth a look.
           | 
           | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.6693.
           | ..
        
             | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
             | Fair enough, but outside of the ivermectin misinformation,
             | it feels a lot like busywork, giving people agency and a
             | feeling of having done something when they haven't.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | Where is the busywork? Other than ivermectin, the other
               | recommended interventions also have at least some
               | clinical evidence and no major negative side effects for
               | those that choose to use them. Have you actually analyzed
               | each of them within a risk versus reward framework?
        
               | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
               | I'd argue that doing a list of things with the argument
               | of "might as well" is the definition of busywork.
        
         | axel6665 wrote:
        
       | surgeryres wrote:
       | Very interesting study.
       | 
       | I am an expert in the field of clotting mechanics (US NIH funded
       | research / vascular surgery fellow). Not sure why they chose TEG
       | to monitor coagulation status - it does not reflect well changes
       | from any of the drugs used in the study.
       | 
       | It would be interesting to see the results broken down by gender
       | - females respond much differently to aspirin and have less of a
       | survival benefit than males (don't get me started, many of the
       | initial trials in the 60's with aspirin were done with mostly
       | males).
       | 
       | Also, in my own research - we have found that aspirin "softens"
       | clots which allows platelets to squeeze pathological clots to
       | smaller sizes, which allows more recannalization of thrombosed
       | vessels and thus less ischemia - would be interesting to see if
       | that same MOA happens here.
        
       | cpncrunch wrote:
       | Uncontrolled, open label.
        
       | mkarliner wrote:
       | So 24 patients reported relief of symtoms. It would occur to me
       | that a placebo effect could account for this. A study with a
       | control group would hold greater validity in my mind. This seems
       | purely anecdoctal despite academic styling.
        
         | merpnderp wrote:
         | Placebo effect accounts for changes in their blood markers for
         | micro clots? I'm a big believer in the power of the mind, but
         | this seems a stretch.
        
           | johncearls wrote:
           | It could also simply be time. To me this is obviously a small
           | study that should be followed up (quickly) with a double
           | blind, randomized trial. Until then, I'd be hesitant to put a
           | bunch of ppl on anticoagulants.
        
             | _3u10 wrote:
             | My advice, don't prescribe people anticoagulants until
             | you're satisfied it's safe for your patients.
        
           | iamthepieman wrote:
           | The point is that without a control group there's no way to
           | know.
        
             | nradov wrote:
             | That's not strictly true. Consider our complete set of
             | medical knowledge today. What percentage of that knowledge
             | came from studies with control groups?
        
               | yamrzou wrote:
               | When experimenting with new treatments, a control group
               | is very important. Otherwise the study could be biased in
               | favor or against the treatment. Even when a control group
               | is present, a poorly-designed experiment could later turn
               | out to be problematic, such as the Diethylstilbestrol
               | (DES) medical tragedy
               | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylstilbestrol). In
               | that case, studies that were in favor of the treatment
               | were poorly-designed and used historical controls instead
               | of contemporaneous ones.
        
               | kadoban wrote:
               | I suspect nobody would argue that lack of a control group
               | is better, but this should still be a good lead for
               | something to look at more deeply. It's not like it gives
               | you no information.
        
               | yamrzou wrote:
               | Agreed.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | inciampati wrote:
               | It's about the fraction of that medical knowledge is
               | likely to be revised when considering new controlled
               | studies.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | Over a sufficiently long time horizon the fraction of
               | medical knowledge likely to be revised approaches 1. That
               | includes all knowledge generated from controlled studies.
        
             | _3u10 wrote:
             | Even with a control group, there's no way to know.
        
             | texasbigdata wrote:
             | I drove to Germany to see the machines. Spoke to the doc
             | admistering it. It's a potentially painful almost full day
             | procedure. We discussed the placebo thing. I'm not an
             | expert on medical ethics but personally I would not want to
             | be intubated (potentially wrong word) into that thing for
             | hours and not get treatment.
        
             | costcopizza wrote:
             | No, there is a way to know, just not the way you want to
             | know.
        
               | iamthepieman wrote:
               | Ad hoc trials? Aka testing in production.
        
               | ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
               | Observational studies, which are much more frequent than
               | randomized trials and just as effective, if not more.
        
       | swader999 wrote:
       | I'd urge anyone suffering long covid to take a look at the FLCCC
       | protocol for treating it. Results were immediate for myself and
       | I've seen tens of others that have followed it resolve their
       | issues.
       | 
       | https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-recover...
        
         | yuubi wrote:
         | Is this the FLCCC that pushes ivermectin (a fine worm killer,
         | but no panacea) for covid?
        
           | mikeyouse wrote:
           | Yes - a bunch of discredited quacks (with multiple papers now
           | retracted for the terrible quality of their science) causing
           | enormous headaches for every practicing doctor and nurse
           | having to treat the unvaccinated "Facebook Researchers" who
           | end up in the hospital trying to get their useless cocktail
           | of meds.
        
             | swader999 wrote:
             | What specifically in the linked protocol do you disagree
             | with?
        
               | mikeyouse wrote:
               | I don't need to do a line-by-line rebuttal of a Covid
               | protocol my HVAC technician wrote -- though he likely did
               | more to help the pandemic by changing out HEPA air
               | filters than the Front Link covid quacks did with their
               | awful advice and martyr complex.
               | 
               | If someone is catastrophically and unapologetically wrong
               | on problem 1a, you don't really need to pay attention to
               | their solution to problem 1b.
        
               | swader999 wrote:
               | Ok, so just ad hominem then I guess. Lazy and a
               | disservice to yourself and anyone suffering from this.
        
               | mikeyouse wrote:
               | Sometimes the timing is just great -- how about the fact
               | that the protocol was designed by several grifters
               | selling fraudulent "long Covid" tests and charging people
               | thousands of dollars for tele-health visits where they
               | then lie about lab tests and prescribe drugs that don't
               | remotely work.
               | 
               | Just published now:
               | 
               | https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/01/desperate-
               | patie...
               | 
               | These people should be in prison.
        
               | swader999 wrote:
               | I didn't suggest anyone use IncellDX or covid long
               | haulers.com. Just because Bruce Patterson had his name
               | associated with the flccc doesn't prove anything about
               | it's viability. Keep trying.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | mikeyouse wrote:
               | If the fact that fraudulent grifters developed the
               | treatment protocol you're advocating for, I'm not sure
               | where to go from there. (Not just Patterson, but Yogendra
               | too -- it's not just "his name associated" with flccc --
               | he and yogendera are two of the primary authors of the
               | protocol!)
               | 
               | And if I understand your timeline right --- you think a
               | single dose of the vaccine gave you "long covid"
               | symptoms? So you're going to rely on the long-covid
               | treatment path, even though you've never had the virus?
               | Yikes man..
        
               | swader999 wrote:
               | Yikes man indeed. Hard to describe how desperate I was
               | back then. If you read the protocol, you'd see where they
               | describe how a subset of vaccine injury and long covid
               | essential present and are treated identically.
               | 
               | My story: got all the long covid symptoms, started eight
               | hours after the AZ vaccine. Tested negative twice on pcr.
               | 3.5 months with little improvement. Optometrist noted
               | blood heme in eye, had a clot removed from forehead vein
               | recently. Both of those noted within a week or three of
               | vaccine date. At the 3.5 month date I started that
               | protocol, first with ivermectin. Within five hours I felt
               | better than I had in the past three months and then in
               | five days brain fog, sob, headaches, extreme fatigue,
               | heart issues, high blood pressure all resolved. I quit
               | the daily dose of ivm then and started prednisone for
               | remaining lung inflammation. (Describe this like extreme
               | asthma, any deep inhalation would trigger coughing). That
               | worked. I still have a bit of a dry like congestion that
               | lingers (8 months since vax).
               | 
               | Maybe I caught covid same time frame as vax but the two
               | negative tests seem to not support that. The symptoms
               | certainly presented right after the shot. They very
               | clearly resolved a few hours after the ivermectin. It was
               | like a light switch. My wife noticed improvement in my
               | color even.
        
               | texasbigdata wrote:
               | Super not helpful. Also, some of your points could be
               | debated (fluvoxamine recently, statins in trials, vitamin
               | C, etc). But overall the tone makes it hard to have a
               | civil discussion.
        
               | mikeyouse wrote:
               | It's my contention that it's actively harmful to truth,
               | science, and public health when we pretend like there's
               | value in having a "civil conversation" with bad faith
               | actors.
               | 
               | There's no benefit to cosplaying as Socrates when there
               | is no data point or research result that could change the
               | mind of these weird conspiracy theorists. If a well-done
               | study came out tomorrow that demonstrated Ivermectin
               | worked to help Covid patients, it would literally be in
               | every hospital's protocol tomorrow.
               | 
               | On the opposite side, these charlatans have been
               | promoting IVM since March 2020 with absolutely no
               | evidence of efficacy (often at the expense of convincing
               | people to not get vaccinated). What little evidence has
               | come out has only weakened the case for it as a
               | treatment, and yet, they're still promoting it as
               | fervently as ever.
               | 
               | If you want a long-covid treatment protocol, you should
               | absolutely look somewhere else aside from the pages of
               | the most stubbornly wrong people in this whole pandemic.
               | They've shown repeatedly that they don't care about
               | updating their priors when there's contradictory
               | evidence. At least the HCQ dorks have mostly retired to
               | complaining about cancel culture.
        
               | texasbigdata wrote:
               | I personally formed a three person reading group with 2
               | friends (one chemistry PhD and one retired tech CEO
               | that's a longevity genius) and we read a stack of these
               | papers end to end and even attempted to fumble through a
               | recalcution of a meta-analysis following the retraction
               | of one paper.
               | 
               | Before personally taking the medicine we spent 1.5 weeks
               | reading everything we could find. Straight from Google
               | Scholar or pubmed. Respectfully, I disagree with you. But
               | that's based on my own reading and I'm not an MD or
               | medical professional.
               | 
               | I would say, a) it is very common in certain countries,
               | and like hey, they awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine
               | partially for it in 2015, but b) we have to agree to
               | disagree here, were just too far apart on tone. But
               | respect your point of view.
        
               | mikeyouse wrote:
               | Ivermectin is a fine anti-parasite, and plausibly has a
               | mechanism of action that could benefit specific patients
               | infected with specific viruses. Unfortunately for all of
               | us, it has no measurable benefit on Covid. As shown again
               | and again.
               | 
               | We have hundreds of millions of active infections, it's
               | dead-simple to do research studies to determine whether
               | something prevents hospitalization, or shortens length-
               | of-stay, etc etc. You don't have to spend weeks of your
               | life reading primary materials -- here's the EUA for
               | Paxlovid (Section 14):
               | 
               | https://www.fda.gov/media/155050/download
               | 
               | A pre-registered RCT, with specific endpoints and
               | statistically significant evidence that it lowers viral
               | load, and prevents hospitalization and death. It only
               | took 4 months from study enrollment -> results to see how
               | effective it was. Paxlovid works! Hurray! IVM doesn't.
               | Rats.
               | 
               | Good faith individuals would move on and investigate
               | something else that could help humanity but admitting you
               | were wrong doesn't get you invited onto Joe Rogan so here
               | we are, with people _still_ referencing their nonsense.
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | If anyone is interested in the data available on ivermectin
           | for COVID, and whether it works, you can find a lot of it
           | here: https://c19ivermectin.com/
        
             | jrussino wrote:
             | I found Scott Alexander's review to be very informative:
             | https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-
             | more-t...
        
               | swader999 wrote:
               | I read all that a while back. It is good and about all
               | you can get out of it is to conclude that ivermectin
               | needs more study. Unfortunately its off patent and won't
               | get much $$$ thrown at it. Its getting hard to ignore the
               | growing mass of people that have just said, hey, this is
               | obviously safe and I'll just try it. And holy sh-t it
               | worked! (that's my story...).
        
           | swader999 wrote:
           | Ivermectin has many modes of action. It's been recognized as
           | a potent anti viral long before covid.
           | 
           | For instance, see Ivermectin is a specific inhibitor of
           | importin a/b-mediated nuclear import able to inhibit
           | replication of HIV-1 and dengue virus.
           | 
           | Ivermectin is a potent inhibitor of flavivirus replication
           | specifically targeting NS3 helicase activity: new prospects
           | for an old drug.
           | 
           | A screen of FDA-approved drugs for inhibitors of Zika virus
           | infection.
        
             | [deleted]
        
       | nicoburns wrote:
       | Huh. This is interesting. I also have some fatigue, but my most
       | obvious long-covid symptom is heart pain/strain which is
       | aggravated by either an elevated heart rate or dehydration.
       | 
       | I'm no expert, but intuitively this would seem to provide a good
       | explanation of those symptoms.
        
         | andor wrote:
         | Dehydration is not a symptom, it's a cause. Just drink more.
        
         | runnerup wrote:
         | I'm hopeful that research into whatever "long covid" syndrome
         | is/isn't leads to excellent new medical knowledge that applies
         | to much more than just COVID edge-cases.
         | 
         | I suddenly got similar symptoms since getting a nasty version
         | of strep throat last October. Notably I had an elevated fever
         | (>102F) for quite a few days straight. I've never had COVID but
         | I did get the mRNA vaccines + booster.
         | 
         | Since that fever, my heart goes into light arrhythmia all too
         | frequently. It used to be maybe once or twice a year I'd notice
         | 1-3 seconds of "off-beat" heart pattern. All of of a sudden
         | it's a few times a week. I'm also getting older (entering mid
         | 30's now), live in some of the worst air quality in the US
         | (next to a bunch of chemical plants which are frequently
         | releasing quantities of ethylene
         | oxide/mercaptans/styrenes/acrylates/etc), and haven't been
         | exercising much at all the past few years (largely due to air
         | quality issues). My diet isn't the best either, but I
         | incorporate a lot of fresh salmon which keeps my blood pressure
         | down, triglycerides low, and HDL really quite high.
         | 
         | There's probably more I could do to help myself using just
         | current medical knowledge, but additional knowledge and medical
         | practices are always, always welcome IMO.
        
           | superbaconman wrote:
           | Tell your doctor about your symptoms and then ask for an ECG.
           | You want to know if you have an underlying heart condition.
           | Depending on what you find, there may be options that will
           | eliminate your arrhythmias.
        
             | dmichulke wrote:
             | Anecdotally, I also had arrhythmia and after a few months
             | and visits to doctors I figured out it was the _type_ of
             | coffee I drank. Changed back (from Espresso so standard)
             | and the arrythmia was gone. YMMV
        
           | kingsloi wrote:
           | I had similar symptoms in January 2019, I went to Urgent Care
           | and then the ER because of heart arrhythmia, I felt sick, but
           | no major fever. I put it down to anxiety (never suffered with
           | before), but part of me wonders if it was COVID.
           | 
           | Out of curiosity, where do you live? I too live next to a
           | bunch of chemical/steel plants and have been tracking air
           | quality, weather, traffic, etc. https://millerbeach.community
           | in Gary for a few years. Winds from North>South produce the
           | best air quality, E>W or W>E produce worse, same with S>N.
        
             | nradov wrote:
             | There was no COVID in January 2019. However there are a
             | zillion other infectious diseases and other medical
             | conditions that can cause cardiac symptoms.
        
             | TechBro8615 wrote:
             | You might be interested in reading this (very long,
             | amateur, pseudononymous, non-peer-reviewed) analysis
             | theorizing "SARS-CoV-2 presence in China as far back as
             | March 2018." [0]
             | 
             | [0] https://theethicalskeptic.com/2021/11/15/chinas-ccp-
             | conceale...
        
               | Panther34543 wrote:
               | For a very long time I've held a theory that the general
               | pandemonium due to the mischaracterization of the media
               | regarding the danger of the virus to the average person
               | resulted in substantially more voluntary hospital
               | admissions than would have otherwise occurred, thus
               | reducing availability for those who actually needed to be
               | hospitalized, thus increasing deaths.
               | 
               | I, and nearly every colleague in the downtown San
               | Francisco office I worked at, contracted Covid in early
               | January 2020. There should be no doubt that there was
               | already widespread community transmission in California
               | in late 2019. Yet, strangely, "hospital capacity" did not
               | become a concern until right after the U.S. declared a
               | nationwide state of emergency in March.
               | 
               | Why was it not a problem in the nearly 4 months prior? I
               | believe many people were convinced that the virus was far
               | more dangerous than it was, and voluntarily began seeking
               | hospitalization when none was actually needed.
        
               | mikeyouse wrote:
               | You'd be more informed (less uninformed in reality)
               | reading a tabloid about bigfoot on the moon than whatever
               | the hell that is.
        
               | TechBro8615 wrote:
               | Do you have any substantive critique to offer of the
               | various lemmas established throughout the piece, which
               | refers to itself as "an argument and petition for
               | plurality under Ockham's Razor?"
               | 
               | Or do you rely solely on appeals to authority when
               | filtering signal from noise? I've noticed throughout this
               | pandemic that many arguments supported on such a weak
               | basis have later been disproven or severely undercut by
               | further evidence.
               | 
               | Some examples: the virus likely leaked from a lab (at
               | some time); masks reduce transmission; the virus is
               | airborne; there is no sterilizing vaccine; vaccinated
               | people can catch and transmit Covid; vaccines have waning
               | efficacy; "fully vaccinated" will eventually turn to
               | "recently vaccinated;" the mRNA vaccines can lead to
               | myocarditis to such a degree that their risk may not
               | outweigh their benefit for some age groups; a variant
               | will eventually emerge with a high degree of immune
               | escape...
               | 
               | There are many examples of conspiracy theories becoming
               | mainstream narrative months later. So while many of them
               | remain conspiracy theories, and the information
               | environment continues to be overwhelmingly noisy, it
               | seems imprudent to discount a source based on appeal to
               | an authority that has been so consistently wrong,
               | sometimes even willfully so (like when CDC lied that
               | "masks don't work" in order to save them for healthcare
               | workers).
        
               | mikeyouse wrote:
               | Are there any conspiracy theories you don't believe or do
               | you just assume they're all equally plausible?
               | 
               | It's a workday and I'm busy but I'll grant you one
               | substantive critique; the OP heavily relies on "mutations
               | per year" as a metric to derive how plausible it is that
               | something like Omicron could have mutated in the
               | timeframe necessary.
               | 
               | Does it strike you as a bit suspect to rely on a
               | mutations/time period, and completely ignore the number
               | of infections? It should. The rate of mutations/year is a
               | useful metric for determining the average mutation rate
               | between two different viruses given certainty of their
               | dates -- it's not at all useful for "aging" a specific
               | variant because the calculation is independent of the
               | number of infections.
               | 
               | We're in the midst of a pandemic with hundreds of
               | millions of infections, so the selection pressure for
               | more "fit" viruses is immense. OP tries to get around
               | this by claiming that the rate of mutation that we've
               | actually measured (which is an order of magnitude higher
               | than his assumption!) is suspect and would "extinguish
               | SARS COV2 within a season" but that's just gibberish.
        
             | runnerup wrote:
             | Propublica has some excellent research published lately
             | (it's an entire series of articles based on one primary
             | analysis): https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-
             | poison-in-the-air
             | 
             | It's based on somewhat-voluntarily reported data, rather
             | than measured air samples. Mainly because we don't have
             | effective air monitoring stations in anywhere near enough
             | density to any kind of useful data science.
        
           | sva_ wrote:
           | Are you sure it's caused by COVID, or perhaps ever since you
           | were sick you were exercising less?
           | 
           | I had similar symptoms to what you describe after just not
           | being very active for quite a while, but it resolved after I
           | did regular cardio (cycling) for a while and ate better.
        
             | runnerup wrote:
             | I noted:
             | 
             | > I've never had COVID.I did get the mRNA vaccines +
             | booster.
             | 
             | Regardless of root cause, probably just need to exercise
             | more. See a doctor for good measure. Could be
             | age/underlying condition, but exercise improves most of
             | these things.
        
           | JPKab wrote:
           | I have a recommendation for you:
           | 
           | You need to exercise. You are in your mid-thirties now. It's
           | a big problem if you don't. But you have bad air quality
           | where you live. I've dealt with this myself in the past.
           | 
           | A relatively inexpensive solution that I recommend for anyone
           | in areas with poor air quality is to build your own filter
           | fans. Get a standard box fan, get a furnace filter that has
           | HEPA ratings, duct tape the furnace filter to the back of the
           | fan. One of these in a whole house does a good job. Put three
           | of them in there and it's crazy how big of a difference it
           | makes. My wife has respiratory issues and my son has asthma.
           | My wife had to be hospitalized twice for wildfire smoke in my
           | neighborhood. Once I started doing the filter fan trick the
           | issues went away. You can then work out in your home. Used
           | cardio equipment is ridiculously easy to come by. I purchased
           | a reflex punching bag for my basement a few months ago and
           | it's the best piece of cardio equipment I've ever gotten.
           | Doesn't take up too much space wasn't too expensive either.
           | 
           | I applaud you on your diet though. You definitely have a good
           | grasp of the metrics that matter. Low triglycerides and high
           | HDL are crucial, and good for you keeping that blood pressure
           | solid. That diet is clearly doing good things for you.
           | 
           | Just keep in mind that exercise does great things for mental
           | health by relieving stress via hormones.
           | 
           | One side note:
           | 
           | You may have contracted covid and never known it. The only
           | reason I knew I caught it back in February of 2021 was
           | because of my complete loss of sense of smell. If not for
           | that single symptom I would have never known I had it. It
           | didn't impact me in any other way. My wife and kids caught it
           | as well and had absolutely no symptoms. They only knew they
           | caught it because they got tested along with me.
        
             | runnerup wrote:
             | I appreciate this. I used to row competitively through high
             | school and college, so I do consider myself an "athlete" as
             | an identity, but non-practicing. I recently lost 30 lbs
             | (6'0" from 200lbs to 170 lbs) over the past year through
             | diet, but need to exercise.
             | 
             | Your advice for air filters is good general advice, IMO. I
             | have a 700 sqft apartment with:
             | 
             | 1x Honeywell HPA300 (rated for 465 sqft)
             | 
             | 6x Coway AP-1512HH (each rated for 361 sqft)
             | 
             | 1x Honeywell HPA100 (rated for 155 sqft)
             | 
             | I also have a Honeywell FPR 10 filter on the HVAC air
             | return. So, over 2800 sqft of CADR-rated filtering for a
             | 700 sqft apartment. Activated carbon pre-filters are
             | changed every 2 weeks and the HEPA filter is changed once a
             | month. We spend about $400/mo on filters, on top of
             | $1,100/month rent.
             | 
             | Unfortunately, HEPA filtration does little for the type of
             | air contamination that we're dealing with. Ethylene oxide
             | is more like a "VOC" than a "PM2.5". The activated carbon
             | filters help a bit, but are "used up" very quickly (1-2
             | days IME). The HEPA filters do very little/nothing for VOC
             | contamination as far as we can tell.
             | 
             | Indeed, it is time to move away. I am in one of the most
             | heavily-affected featured areas in this article[0].
             | However, my wife and I work in the chemicals industry, so
             | we have personal experience identifying most of the
             | compounds by smell and have unusual awareness of their
             | effects vs. most of the nearby citizens.
             | 
             | 0: https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-
             | air
        
               | JPKab wrote:
               | Wow. Just wow.
               | 
               | Really terrible to hear this. You aren't fucking around
               | with this, but it's still not enough. $400 a month on
               | filters is insane.
               | 
               | Thanks for that article. Very eye-opening.
               | 
               | I hope you get out of there soon, but I can't imagine the
               | guilt you feel for the citizens left behind. Horrible.
        
             | JohnicBoom wrote:
             | You can use more than one filter. I've heard it called a
             | Corsi box: https://www.texairfilters.com/a-variation-on-
             | the-box-fan-wit...
             | 
             | Basically, you're making a cube. One side is the box fan,
             | with the intake coming from the inside of the cube. The
             | other sides are taped together filters. It significantly
             | reduces the strain on the motor of the fan, and you can use
             | the cube for a long time before replacing the filters,
             | since each one is filtering so much less air.
        
             | mindslight wrote:
             | "Ethylene oxide/mercaptans/styrenes/acrylates" are chemical
             | pollutants and thus won't be taken care of by particulate
             | filters. You need something like an activated carbon filter
             | for that.
        
               | JPKab wrote:
               | Do they sell any furnace filters capable of stopping
               | these?
        
               | mindslight wrote:
               | Well it's more like neutralizing as opposed to filtering,
               | and sure there probably are some aimed at people with
               | central air that want to reduce VOCs. I believe I've seen
               | standalone filters in the context of plant growing. And
               | perhaps there are carbon aquarium filters that would work
               | for DIY? I myself just went for some off the shelf air
               | "purifiers", which have a prefilter + particulate filter
               | + carbon filter stack. It's the path of overpaying for a
               | fan and gimmicky replacements, but they're quiet,
               | automatically ramp up speed for high VOCs, and didn't
               | require me to DIY something for once.
        
             | Karunamon wrote:
             | >Get a standard box fan, get a furnace filter that has HEPA
             | ratings, duct tape the furnace filter to the back of the
             | fan.
             | 
             | Please be very careful with this. This significantly
             | strains the motor of your average cheap box fan, and hot
             | motors tend to die faster and can get hot enough to melt
             | plastic and start fires.
             | 
             | I'd really recommend an actual air purifier instead,
             | especially if it will run while you're asleep or not at
             | home.
        
               | JPKab wrote:
               | I always run it on the lowest setting, but yes, you need
               | to be careful. Good point.
        
           | inglor_cz wrote:
           | I had heart arrhythmia after a full-blown covid. The 1-3
           | seconds of strange patterns sound very familiar.
           | 
           | It slowly resolved itself after some 4-6 months, but not on
           | its own, I needed small dosage of Concor prescribed by the
           | cardiologist.
        
           | chaosmachine wrote:
           | > I've never had COVID but I did get the mRNA vaccines +
           | booster.
           | 
           | > my heart goes into light arrhythmia all too frequently. It
           | used to be maybe once or twice a year I'd notice 1-3 seconds
           | of "off-beat" heart pattern. All of of a sudden it's a few
           | times a week. I'm also getting older (entering mid 30's now)
           | 
           | This is my situation exactly, starting a few weeks after
           | getting my second booster (Moderna). I've read enough
           | anecdotes and news reports to believe there are many people
           | dealing with this:
           | 
           | https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/myocarditis-ottawa-
           | mrn...
           | 
           | https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/she-thought-she-
           | wa...
           | 
           | It gradually improved (enough to stop waking me up), but I
           | still get a lot more "off-beats" than I used to. Got my third
           | booster recently (Pfizer), so far no major regressions.
        
             | TechBro8615 wrote:
             | > Got my third booster recently
             | 
             | Out of curiosity, if you noticed these negative side-
             | effects affecting the health of your heart after the second
             | shot, why did you choose to proceed to get a third shot?
        
           | nradov wrote:
           | Any one of us could have had an asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2
           | infection without knowing it. But there are myriad different
           | medical conditions that can cause arythmia.
        
       | znd wrote:
       | Ctrl+f placebo - Phrase not found. Such a waste.
        
       | Madmallard wrote:
       | So is long covid post-thrombotic syndrome like in patients that
       | survive pulmonary embolisms?
        
       | neom wrote:
       | Although never formally diagnosed I'm pretty sure I have/had long
       | covid. I had mild covid in the summer, and it never fully went
       | away, but what was left was inability to recall facts, brutal
       | short term memory, and waking up with pounding pounding head
       | aches that would not go away no matter how much Tylenol I took.
       | Honestly it was awful, working was so difficult. It started to
       | clear up about 2 months ago, around the same time I switch from
       | Tylenol to Advil, and also started rubbing high CBD cream on my
       | head daily. Headaches are now at about once a week, and last a
       | lot less time, memory is getting better. I also decided to spend
       | long period of time listening to familiar music from high school
       | and college. My memory is pretty auditory, I thought maybe it
       | would somehow help with recall. There was a time there that I
       | genuinely worried about getting back to normal in terms of being
       | able to work hard. I'm not exactly sure what this paper is about,
       | but I'd love to get back to normal. :\
        
       | cdrini wrote:
       | The link between microclots and long COVID is new to me and
       | fascinating. Anecdotally, this gels with some of the symptoms
       | I've seen in friends/family. My father had reduced motility in
       | his arm-- where he'd broken it many years before--for many months
       | after recovering from COVID. Then one random day, after he'd
       | strained himself a bit, he noticed the pain/restriction
       | completely gone, and the skin had turned slightly black in the
       | region where it used to hurt. Not a doctor, but feels like
       | something related to a microclot? He described the pain as almost
       | like a twisted nerve or vein.
       | 
       | This HN post talks more about the link:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29808020
        
         | treeman79 wrote:
         | I was diagnosed with micro clots a couple years before covid.
         | My symptoms mirror long covid exactly.
         | 
         | Blood thinners resolved.
         | 
         | When I got covid all the symptoms came back. I had to double my
         | blood thinners for six months.
         | 
         | Actual cause is Factor 5 Leiden. But seems to cause exact same
         | sort of issues.
        
         | SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
         | One of my more bizarre long COVID symptoms was blood vessel
         | leakage on my feet. One day a month or so after getting over
         | COVID my feet started noticeably swelling. I was worried I had
         | a clot in my leg so I went to the ER but sonogram came out
         | fine. Turns out I had worn too-tight shoes the day before and
         | the vessels in my feet had swelled/leaked. This was my same
         | pair of shoes I had always worn at same tightness (they were
         | running shoes that I had always slipped on and off, never tied
         | or untied) so I knew that it had to be COVID related.
        
           | nradov wrote:
           | Why do you know it had to be COVID related? Many conditions
           | can cause swollen feet.
        
             | SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
             | Because I had been wearing those same shoes for years with
             | the exact same level of tightness and never in my life had
             | swollen feet problem before. The bruising was also
             | following the lines of the shoes which is how it was
             | discovered it was related to the shoe tightness
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | None of that implies that COVID was the cause. It could
               | just be a coincidence.
        
               | ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
               | Everything can be a coincidence, it's not an helpful line
               | of inquiry when discussing personal experience. If the
               | man experiences a once in a lifetime health issue after
               | having caught a virus with symptoms that bear
               | similarities to that issue and with all other factors
               | remaining constant, that's as much validation as you're
               | going to get from someone's personal experience.
        
               | lmkg wrote:
               | > Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle
               | its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while
               | mouthing 'look over there'.
               | 
               | Randall Munroe, https://xkcd.com/552/ (mouseover text)
        
               | delecti wrote:
               | I feel like the two different definitions of "imply"
               | (formal vs colloquial) make "correlation doesn't imply
               | causation" simultaneously true and false. On one hand,
               | correlation doesn't necessarily demonstrate causation,
               | but on the other hand (like the comment says) it does
               | suggest fertile ground for research.
        
               | bcrosby95 wrote:
               | We also don't make all our decisions in life based upon
               | research.
               | 
               | If I eat something and it upsets my stomach, I'm not
               | going to commission a study on it. I'm just gonna avoid
               | eating it.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | mlyle wrote:
             | It's reasonable to wonder if the illness you just recovered
             | from is causing some ongoing symptoms, especially when many
             | other people are experiencing ongoing morbidity from that
             | illness.
             | 
             | In the end, when it comes to individual cases of anything
             | (even conditions we have a very strong understanding of),
             | all we can rely upon is guesswork. (e.g. even if we know A
             | causes significantly increased rates of B in study
             | populations based on RCT evidence, it still doesn't tell us
             | for any given person with A & B that their A caused B).
        
           | cdrini wrote:
           | Someone else in my family had a similar symptom after the
           | vaccine ; legs were swollen, and then the night after, her
           | legs became black/bruised! But it went back to normal
           | shortly.
        
       | ck2 wrote:
       | It's a preprint that has already been criticized by peers
       | 
       | It's resolving a symptom, not the cause and there's no long-term
       | followup to see if the results stuck around.
        
         | tcamde wrote:
         | What are the critics saying?
        
         | texasbigdata wrote:
         | Can you please link to discussion (positive or negative) by
         | knowledgeable commentators? Genuinely interested.
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | Could covid not actually be just a disease?
       | 
       | Maybe it's a disease + chronic unhealth. Due to age, pollution,
       | obesity, bad diet, sitting on yr butt too much and/or etc
        
         | ciphol wrote:
         | Nearly all diseases are worse if you're in bad health to begin
         | with. That doesn't make them "not just diseases".
        
           | swayvil wrote:
           | Well if they have no symptoms then they aren't really
           | diseases, right?
           | 
           | And there are a thousand species of varmint that inhabit our
           | body without helping or hurting anyway.
           | 
           | So yes, massive unhealth can definitely spell the difference
           | there.
        
             | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
             | I'm not following. For some people a cold can have
             | basically no symptoms and can even spread asymptomatically,
             | and for most people it's just an irritation, but for the
             | especially vulnerable it can kill. Would you argue that the
             | common cold is also not a disease?
        
               | swayvil wrote:
               | The key word here is "for some". If nobody gets a symptom
               | then it isn't a disease. If only a very few get a symptom
               | then maybe we call it a disease and maybe we call it
               | something else.
               | 
               | A disease requires some minimum proportion of the
               | infected to feel it. Otherwise it's just commensalism or
               | something.
               | 
               | Therefore, as the general health shifts, so does what we
               | call our relationship with that varmint.
        
       | jonathan-adly wrote:
       | I was rounding in the ICU when COVID hit, we knew this 2 weeks in
       | - so not new information at all. All my patients got a higher
       | dose of Lovenox (anticoagulant) as soon as they hit the unit.
       | 
       | The trick is balancing risk vs. benefits. Anticoagulants and
       | antiplatelet will kill a 30 yo healthy person who slips on ice
       | and hit his head. Your mild concussions are now massive brain
       | bleeds.
        
         | dpark wrote:
         | > _I was rounding in the ICU when COVID hit, we knew this 2
         | weeks in - so not new information at all._
         | 
         | Sorry, what? You're telling us that you were treating long
         | COVID patients in the _ICU_ when the pandemic _started_?
         | 
         | I don't know if you misspoke or misread the headline or what,
         | but in no way is it possibly true that you were treating long
         | COVID with anything in the ICU at the beginning of the
         | pandemic, or any time for that matter.
        
           | jonathan-adly wrote:
           | One of the underlying problems of COVID is an excessive
           | immune system response, which we have known for 10+ years
           | that it leads to coagulation issues. Long COVID or acute
           | COVID - it is fundamentally your body fighting a battle in
           | the wrong way. So, in that specific way, COVID is COVID.
        
             | dpark wrote:
             | So...you misspoke?
             | 
             | I also find this a really odd line to draw. The fact that
             | treating ICU patients with anticoagulants is standard does
             | not automatically mean it's useful for long COVID patients.
             | If it turns out that it's useful, awesome, but it's not
             | obvious _a priori_.
        
               | edmcnulty101 wrote:
               | I didn't see them misspeak. They just clarified. Their
               | follow up statement was right in line with their
               | original.
               | 
               | Pretty cool that they're ahead of the curve on this.
               | 
               | Even if they didn't know about long covid officially,
               | they followed the known science up to that point, and
               | this is incompletely but interesting new data that's
               | showing it's helping more than possibly known at the
               | time.
        
           | GenerocUsername wrote:
           | I can tell you with absolute certainty that there are circles
           | of of the web which knew incredible amounts of very accurate
           | and precise details about COVID in Feb/March of 2020. The
           | early mistreatments accounted for vast amounts of preventable
           | deaths while people proposing the eventual correct solutions
           | were deplatformed
        
             | dpark wrote:
             | 1. I would love some actually citations rather than a hand-
             | wavey claim that sounds like conspiracy theory. This sounds
             | like you're talking about hydroxychloroquine.
             | 
             | 2. None of this matters to the claim I addressed. Long
             | COVID it's not something that would be treated in an ICU.
             | It's also not something that even had a name "when COVID
             | hit".
        
       | wantsanagent wrote:
       | This is a big hammer. Please note this section:
       | 
       | "A proton pump inhibitor (PPI) pantoprazole 40 mg/day was also
       | prescribed for gastric protection. Such a regime must only be
       | followed under strict and qualified medical guidance to obviate
       | any dangers, especially haemorrhagic bleeding, and of the therapy
       | as a whole."
       | 
       | Induced hemophilia is no joke.
        
         | merpnderp wrote:
         | Do people really get holes in their stomach often enough that
         | this regiment would cause them to bleed to death?
        
           | kahrl wrote:
           | Yes. Absolutely. GI issues are some of the most common
           | medical problems. Ucers, polyps, sores, diverticula...
        
             | QuercusMax wrote:
             | My dad got a hole in his stomach from taking too much Advil
             | (ibuprofen) for pain related to a broken vertebra.
        
         | allturtles wrote:
         | To be clear in case it's not clear to others, the PPI is not
         | the 'regime' that creates the risk of bleeding, it's the thing
         | you take to provide some stomach protection against the
         | damage/potential damage from the other drugs.
        
           | favorited wrote:
           | Right. PPIs are available without prescriptions in the US,
           | and are considered very low risk medications.
        
             | jonathan-adly wrote:
             | Using PPIs for a short duration is safe, using PPIs
             | chronically is not safe and the risks have to be weighted
             | very carefully. It's by far the most intervened on
             | medications by clinical pharmacists (usually discontinuing
             | for inappropriate use)
        
             | MarcoZavala wrote:
        
         | tasogare wrote:
         | > Induced hemophilia is no joke.
         | 
         | Note that this is one of the possible side effect mentionned in
         | Pfizer documentation of their covid vaccine, reported in
         | article research articles like [1], and it doesn't seem to
         | bother too much people.
         | 
         | [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33783953/
        
       | jokethrowaway wrote:
       | Sounds exactly like chronic fatigue syndrome, I don't know why we
       | keep calling it Long COVID while we have a name for it.
       | 
       | https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-cfs/ >
       | Suggested causes or triggers for ME/CFS include: > viral
       | infections, such as glandular fever > bacterial infections, such
       | as pneumonia > problems with the immune system > a hormone
       | imbalance > your genes - ME/CFS seems to be more common in some
       | families
       | 
       | I have a friend who got CFS out of nowhere (shortly before the 2
       | years to flatten the curve started, no COVID involved) and it's
       | bad, there is no cure and it's incredibly disruptive. At the same
       | time, it's hard for people to take you seriously and not just
       | call you lazy.
       | 
       | Hopefully this study goes somewhere and we'll find a cure for
       | CFS.
        
         | myoldohiohome wrote:
         | I hope so too. I recognized the symptoms (in myself) as soon as
         | I started reading the abstract.
         | 
         | ---
         | 
         | from the link cdrini posted above, which is a Guardian article
         | by one of the authors of the study in the original post.[0]
         | 
         | "Even those without long Covid could benefit from such
         | research, as symptoms noted in long Covid patients show many
         | similarities to those seen in chronic and viral-related
         | illnesses including myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue
         | syndrome (ME/CFS) - another disease that has been dismissed as
         | "psychological" for decades. Just because we have not yet
         | identified a biomarker for long Covid does not mean biomarkers
         | do not exist. We just need to look harder."
         | 
         | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29808020
         | 
         | PS. Hope the post is done correctly, it's my first one here.
        
           | aarongray wrote:
           | If you're interested in Biomarkers for Long Covid and ME/CFS,
           | look up Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). MMP-9,
           | MSH, ACTH, TGF-beta 1, Cortisol, Glutathione, and Vasoactive
           | Intestinal Peptide are a few of them. Lots of research here
           | that was started by illnesses triggered by mold mycotoxins
           | and lyme disease - the initial trigger is different than
           | Covid - but the end result in terms of biomarkers and
           | dysregulation in the body is the same. Doctors have been
           | using these protocols to successfully treat patients for a
           | few years now, but it just hasn't trickled down to the
           | mainstream medical community or the medical schools yet.
           | 
           | Further reading:
           | 
           | - https://www.survivingmold.com/Publications/2493-Treatable_m
           | e...
           | 
           | - https://www.survivingmold.com/docs/Shoemakers_Protocol_for_
           | p...
           | 
           | - https://www.survivingmold.com/Publications/CIRS_diagnostic_
           | p...
        
         | aarongray wrote:
         | Tell your friend to look into dysautonomia. There are some
         | cutting edge treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome, they just
         | haven't become mainstream knowledge yet.
         | 
         | The two most effective approaches are using neuroplasticity
         | exercises to retrain the limbic system (cheap, but time
         | consuming - an hour a day for 6 months): https://ansrewire.com/
         | https://retrainingthebrain.com/
         | 
         | Or doing microcurrent neurofeedback (costs ~$150 a session, do
         | one session a week for a couple months):
         | https://microcurrentneurofeedback.com/
         | 
         | Essentially you have got to get the brain producing the proper
         | amount and type of brain waves again, and then once you have
         | that, slowly work back into exercising while trying to avoid
         | triggers and push / crash cycles.
        
           | texasbigdata wrote:
           | God bless you for this. Seriously.
        
       | invitrom wrote:
       | How risky is this therapy?
        
         | aborsy wrote:
         | Anticoagulants and anti-platelets increase the chance of
         | hemorrhage in the brain.
         | 
         | So while they prevent ischemic stroke and help with
         | circulation, they might cause hemorrhagic stroke. The dose and
         | time duration has to be carefully adjusted. It's a slippery
         | slope in dealing with cerebrovascular accidents.
         | 
         | Anti platelets (specially Aspirin 80 and Clopidogrel) are less
         | risky than anticoagulants (such as heparin or warfarin).
        
         | haroldskavar wrote:
        
       | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
       | I think I'm going to start taking aspirin. Oddly enough I took
       | that a few times because I didn't have ibuprofen and I do feel
       | like it helped a lot with the weird long symptoms I am
       | experiencing.
       | 
       | I'm triple vaccinated before anyone asks. I haven't tested
       | positive for Covid on rapid tests but a lot of people seem to be
       | in the boat I'm in right now.
        
         | andor wrote:
         | I assume you have read the hint that the authors left in the
         | introduction for people like you:
         | 
         |  _" Such a regime must only be followed under strict and
         | qualified medical guidance to obviate any dangers, especially
         | haemorrhagic bleeding, and of the therapy as a whole."_
        
           | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
           | Well yes I'm doing a very light version of the protocol, no
           | industrial strength anticoagulants. :)
        
             | lrem wrote:
             | So likely you won't meet the "better than placebo"
             | threshold.
        
               | nick__m wrote:
               | A placebo is frequently better than nothing and sometimes
               | better than the real thing. I can even work if you know
               | that it's a placebo !
               | 
               | Also placebo are getting stronger
               | https://drdavidhamilton.com/the-placebo-effect-is-
               | getting-st... ;)
        
               | soperj wrote:
               | My favourite drug to take for the placebo effect is
               | water.
        
               | ouid wrote:
               | Mechanistically, placebo can only work on psychosomatic
               | symptoms. There isn't any magic going on. If the problem
               | is in your head, then thoughts can maybe help.
        
               | baq wrote:
               | The world you see, touch, hear, smell and taste exists
               | only in your head.
        
               | dpark wrote:
               | Your head largely controls the rest of your body. If you
               | take a placebo that you expect to make you angry, your
               | levels of adrenaline will likely rise. There are all
               | sorts of measurable, physiological changes that can be
               | induced by placebo.
        
               | sheinsheish wrote:
               | Please reconsider after having a look on Joe Dispenza's
               | book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18051504-you-
               | are-the-pla... At least consider the possibility that
               | maybe (maybe = 10-50% chance?) there can be magic in our
               | heads & bodies.
        
               | mmastrac wrote:
               | The recent paper on brain memory in immune response
               | suggests this is no longer common wisdom. We just don't
               | know. Evolution twists a lot of random wires together.
        
         | heyoni wrote:
         | Might work for Covid. Oddly enough, it was recently declared to
         | be unsafe for long term use unless directed by a doctor since
         | it can increase the chance of getting a stroke.
         | 
         | https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/health/aspirin-heart-atta...
        
         | treeman79 wrote:
         | I clot like crazy. Micro and bigger ones. stroke symptoms in 48
         | hours without meds. Prescription blood thinners solve symptoms
         | extremely well.
         | 
         | I couldn't handle side effects, so I switched to Aspirin. It
         | mostly works. But not as well. Side effects aren't as bad.
         | Doctors are pissed. But quality of life matters.
        
         | LinuxBender wrote:
         | I believe this was attempted at the start of covid once doctors
         | saw some of the initial mechanisms. I want to say they stopped
         | this because it caused downstream problems and complications
         | with covid but I can't recall what. I believe it was Dr. Roger
         | Seheult and another doctor discussing this on Medcram but he
         | releases so many videos I can't find the specific one.
        
         | easymodex wrote:
         | I just got the booster shot today, previous times I had a weird
         | headache and a new vein (felt it pulsing, didn't have it
         | before) popped up in the white part of my eye (it's still there
         | after 6 months), second time I had minor heart palpitations the
         | day after so I'm kinda worried this time. Would taking Aspirin
         | help prevent any kind of weirdness like that? I need to know
         | asap so I can take it before anything potentially starts
         | happening.
        
           | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
           | Unfortunately I think any anti inflammatory is not
           | recommended when you get a vaccine. You want the immune
           | system to be fully armed. That is my recollection from
           | googling when I got my vaccines.
           | 
           | Just hang in there you'll feel better soon.
        
           | frostwarrior wrote:
           | Vaccines are not Covid.
           | 
           | Even the inactivated virus ones. They're just a very small
           | viral load with an adjuvant to enhance immune response.
        
             | merpnderp wrote:
             | The mRNA vaccines create spike proteins which are fully
             | functional and will bind to ACE2 receptors. The only real
             | difference is that the mRNA vaccine spike proteins don't
             | cleave off their connectors and litter your blood with
             | extra trash and also won't flex down to the cell wall. But
             | any cell randomly getting a spike protein tag-alone likely
             | will no longer be a fully functioning cell.
        
               | kyralis wrote:
               | > But any cell randomly getting a spike protein tag-alone
               | likely will no longer be a fully functioning cell.
               | 
               | Do you actually have any evidence to back this up? Cells
               | have a myriad of receptor sites, and single bindings
               | without other resultant activity are highly unlikely to
               | cause the cell significant damage.
               | 
               | The side effects of the vaccines have nothing to do with
               | the vaccine particles themselves and everything to do
               | with your body's immune response.
        
               | whatshisface wrote:
               | Typically speaking the immune system will clear away
               | cells with abnormal stuff on their membranes but I don't
               | know about this specific case.
        
               | swader999 wrote:
               | Yes! And I think it's fair to assume that the vaccine
               | spike can distribute widely throughout your body. Long
               | covid and a subset of vaccine injury cases are very hard
               | to distinguish. They present the same symptoms.
        
               | manwe150 wrote:
               | Why? We can hypothesize anything, but we shouldn't just
               | assume everything. The manufacturers made changes to the
               | RNA sequence to reduce the ability to leave the cell, and
               | then tested it in animal studies to confirm.
        
               | swader999 wrote:
               | As OP indicates, it can still bind to ACE-2 and that
               | changes the way these cells behave. Peristalsis in your
               | veins is changed when the endothelial cells which have
               | ACE2 are hit with spike (vaccine origin or covid origin)
               | for instance.
               | 
               | I think there's enough evidence out there that spike from
               | vaccines circulate widely. I can dig it up if you want?
        
               | manwe150 wrote:
               | You are welcome to look for evidence, but OP is also
               | wrong about the spike protein being "fully functional" in
               | the vaccine. The spike protein sequence was modified in
               | many ways in creating the vaccine, including to prevent
               | it from undergoing the conformal change upon encountering
               | ACE2 which would normally then cause the virus to then
               | enter a cell.
               | 
               | For a sample reference:
               | https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/JVI.00203-21
        
         | randcraw wrote:
         | 80 mg/day aspirin generally has been shown to be safe long
         | term, though it does increase irritation of the stomach. Maybe
         | taking it with food will help that.
         | 
         | I would absolutely NOT do the same with ibuprofen or any other
         | NSAID. All other NSAIDs but aspirin have been shown to reduce
         | blood vessel elasticity after habitual use. Adopting any med
         | for regular use is not something to take lightly.
         | 
         | "Ibuprofen, aspirin, and COX-2s all belong to the class of
         | medicines called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).
         | Most of them boost blood pressure and can counteract the effect
         | of some blood-pressure drugs. They can also impair blood
         | vessels' ability to relax and may stimulate the growth of
         | smooth muscle cells inside arteries. All these changes can
         | contribute to the artery-clogging process known as
         | atherosclerosis."
         | 
         | https://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/nsaid-side-eff...
        
         | naasking wrote:
         | Long-term ibuprofen use has a lot of its own problems, like
         | gastrointestinal bleeds and interference with androgen
         | production.
        
         | ck2 wrote:
         | The clotting in covid is fibrin based not platelet.
         | 
         | If aspirin did anything for covid you'd be seeing it on the
         | news every single day for the past two years.
        
           | EricE wrote:
           | "If aspirin did anything for covid you'd be seeing it on the
           | news every single day for the past two years."
           | 
           | lol! You seriously believe that? After all the BS about
           | "horse dewormer" despite Africa, India and now the impact in
           | Japan (hint they aren't spiking and their hospitalizations
           | are practically zero and have been for more than two months
           | now).
           | 
           | If you think the mainstream media/public officials/big tech
           | "fact checkers" have been remotely truthful on this thing you
           | are beyond ignorant.
           | 
           | Example - most recent backtrack that if you state on social
           | media will still probably get you banned:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOEtZJPning
        
             | lame-robot-hoax wrote:
             | I don't see Ivermectin on the following list:
             | 
             | https://www.pmda.go.jp/english/about-pmda/0002.html
             | 
             | Over 77% of Japan's population is fully vaccinated.
             | 
             | India doesn't even recommend using Ivermectin anymore.
        
             | _Microft wrote:
             | Have you read [0] already? This might give you an idea what
             | might be going on with Ivermectin. Summary: parasite
             | infections are widespread in some parts of the world.
             | Treatment for Covid surpresses overzealous parts of the
             | immune system which, unfortunately, makes the patient
             | vulnerable to these parasite infections which in turn can
             | kill the patient. Giving someone Ivermectin before treating
             | them for Covid solves the problem by killing the parasites
             | first. Therefore Ivermectin decreases the risk of death
             | _with_ Covid (not _by_ ).
             | 
             | [0] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-
             | more-t...
        
           | beagle3 wrote:
           | Budedenide was shown to help significantly if given early. So
           | does fluvoxamine. And sufficient vitamin D3 level seems to
           | work well as a prophylactic.
           | 
           | And yet there's hardly any mention of them, let alone
           | "everyday".
        
         | open-source-ux wrote:
         | " _I think I'm going to start taking aspirin_ "
         | 
         | In the UK there is a large, ongoing clinical trial called
         | 'RECOVER' to test different COVID treaments for _hospitalised
         | COVID patients_. One of the trials included giving hospitalised
         | patients aspirin. The trial was not looking at the treatment of
         | long-covid symptoms (at least not directly in hospital
         | patients).
         | 
         |  _" A total of 7351 patients were randomised to aspirin 150 mg
         | once daily and compared with 7541 patients randomised to usual
         | care alone. There was no evidence that aspirin treatment
         | reduced mortality."_
         | 
         | Link: _RECOVERY trial finds aspirin does not improve survival
         | for patients hospitalised with COVID-19_ :
         | https://www.recoverytrial.net/news/recovery-trial-finds-aspi...
        
           | criddell wrote:
           | If aspirin doesn't improve survival, does that mean it also
           | will not help with COVID symptoms?
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | deelowe wrote:
           | It feels to me that the medical community at large looks
           | almost exclusively at data regarding severe cases. I'm
           | certainly no medical expert but it seems reasonable to me
           | that the treatments for someone who is literally dying from
           | COVID could be completely orthogonal from those who are in
           | the early stages of the infection. My understanding of severe
           | cases is that the body is no longer or not only fighting the
           | virus but also it's own immune response amongst other things
           | (e.g. blood clotting). And that outcomes are mostly
           | determined by how well the individual is able to weather the
           | storm of their own immune system attacking them. I would not
           | expect aspirin or similar treatments to have much effect when
           | the patient has gotten to this point. Thought certainly,
           | there could be some treatments that help which would prevent
           | this from happening in the first place.
           | 
           | And, I'm aware of the research (and money) being poured into
           | antivirals. Of course that's a thing. I'm sure there are
           | billions if not trillions to be made off a pill you "simply
           | take daily" to prevent the "severe and long covid." The
           | headlines write themselves. But I seriously wonder what
           | research is being done on "mild" covid cases using more
           | cheap/traditional medicines. I know where I live, the doctors
           | don't even talk to you unless your case gets severe -
           | basically once you need oxygen supplementation. Prior to
           | that, you're told to stay home and rest. I'm not even sure
           | they create a record in their medical system.
        
             | phkahler wrote:
             | >> It feels to me that the medical community at large looks
             | almost exclusively at data regarding severe cases. I'm
             | certainly no medical expert but it seems reasonable to me
             | that the treatments for someone who is literally dying from
             | COVID could be completely orthogonal from those who are in
             | the early stages of the infection.
             | 
             | This seems to be a problem with every account of "treatment
             | X doesn't work". They wait until someone is half dead, use
             | X, patient dies at same rate as without X, conclude X is
             | worthless. "preventive" or "protective" are different words
             | than "curative" and that seems to get overlooked in a lot
             | of cases.
             | 
             | Doctor A: When I see someone with Covid Symptoms I give XYZ
             | and they never end up in the hospital.
             | 
             | ER Doctor: We've tried X,Y, and Z in every combination with
             | patients on ventilators and none of that saves them with
             | any statistical significance.
             | 
             | They can both be correct.
        
               | Jabbles wrote:
               | Obviously the medical community is aware of this.
               | 
               | Take for example the very recent approval of
               | Molnupiravir:
               | 
               | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59163899
               | 
               | https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116044
               | 
               |  _We conducted a phase 3, double-blind, randomized,
               | placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy and
               | safety of treatment with molnupiravir started within 5
               | days after the onset of signs or symptoms in
               | nonhospitalized, unvaccinated adults with mild-to-
               | moderate, laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 and at least one
               | risk factor for severe Covid-19 illness._
        
           | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
           | Thank you for the study.
           | 
           | I'm not worried about mortality so much as getting over the
           | strange long effects I'm feeling. I see this study as well.
           | 
           | https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210315/low-dose-aspirin-
           | ma...
           | 
           | > But Magen's group found that people who'd already been
           | taking low-dose aspirin to reduce their risk of heart disease
           | had a 29% lower risk of contracting COVID-19 compared to
           | those who didn't take aspirin, and that rates of aspirin use
           | were much lower among COVID-19 patients than among those who
           | didn't get infected.
           | 
           | >Among people who did get COVID-19, the time it took for
           | SARS-CoV-2 PCR test results to go from positive to negative
           | was significantly shorter among those who used aspirin, and
           | the duration of their disease was two-three days shorter,
           | depending upon preexisting health conditions.
        
           | phkahler wrote:
           | >> RECOVERY trial finds aspirin does not improve survival for
           | patients hospitalised with COVID-19
           | 
           | How is survival defined? Do they mean "gets released from
           | hospital vs. dies in hospital"? Because it seems a lot of
           | things that can reduce severity of Covid (including vitamin D
           | for example) don't change much at the last minute when you're
           | at deaths door.
           | 
           | In this case, we're talking about long Covid symptoms so it
           | would seem a reduction in 1-year mortality should be the
           | deciding factor (since Severe Covid patients who "survive"
           | still have significantly increase mortality over the next
           | year).
        
           | cinntaile wrote:
           | He's not talking about using aspirin as a treatment for when
           | you are hospitalised due to covid.
        
           | cdrini wrote:
           | This doesn't feel super applicable. The body in the middle of
           | a COVID infection vs months later is in a VERY different
           | state. Also I don't even know if there's any mortality data
           | for long COVID; it could just provide quality of life
           | degradation.
        
             | jacobolus wrote:
             | I saw an observational study tracking hospitalized (but
             | nominally surviving) Covid patients for a year where a far
             | higher number died (of various causes) than the base rate
             | in the population [sorry I can't find a link now in a few
             | minutes of searching]. Some of this is selection bias
             | (people who get bad Covid cases tend to be in worse shape
             | to begin with), but I would expect the after-effects of
             | Covid to cause significantly increased mortality. We'll
             | have much better data about this in a few years.
        
         | kybernetyk wrote:
         | >I think I'm going to start taking aspirin.
         | 
         | Hmm, this is probably hardcore anecdata and off topic but a
         | friend of mine who got Corona pretty bad (but not hospital bad)
         | said that once he took Aspirin his symptoms weren't that bad
         | anymore.
        
           | merpnderp wrote:
           | I mean everyone should consult their doctor before doing
           | something like this, but it seems reasonable that a disease
           | which damages the body through blood clots would be
           | alleviated by a drug which thins the blood.
        
       | LinuxBender wrote:
       | Are there by chance any similar tests on long covid patients
       | using the enzymes Serrapeptase and Nattokinase? Or any of the
       | other 30 or so related enzymes? Asking because Natto has the nice
       | side benefit of binding to ACE2 and it is super easy to acquire.
       | These enzymes are also Fibrinolytics.
       | 
       | As a related question, how is Japan doing in terms of long covid
       | cases relative to everywhere else? They eat a lot of Natto.
        
         | nykiwi wrote:
         | Thanks for this comment, I found it very interesting and now I
         | want to learn about it all. Thanks :)
        
         | pfisherman wrote:
         | Why would fibrinolytics have any therapeutic effect? They are
         | not anti coagulants (i.e. serine protease inhibitors), and work
         | via an entirely different mechanism.
        
           | LinuxBender wrote:
           | Absolutely not anti-coagulants. They work in conjunction with
           | them to break up clots and absolutely have many different
           | mechanisms. I use six of those mechanisms for controlling
           | blood pressure.
           | 
           | The article topic covers fibrin amyloid microclots which is
           | precisely what many surgeons have used these enzymes for in
           | addition to removing scar tissue from the vasculature. On a
           | side note this is a very divided and heated topic within the
           | different groups of heart surgeons.
        
             | sithadmin wrote:
             | You're specifically using compounds like nattokinase to
             | control blood pressure?
             | 
             | Would be interested in hearing what your approach here is,
             | or any literature you could share.
        
       | imnotreallynew wrote:
       | It was my understanding that the existence of "long covid" is
       | still debated as there hasn't been any real evidence for it other
       | than patient anecdotes.
        
         | codingdave wrote:
         | > https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-
         | effects/...
         | 
         | Highlighted on the page: "As of July 2021, 'long COVID,' also
         | known as post-COVID conditions, can be considered a disability
         | under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). "
        
         | nradov wrote:
         | Most any serious viral infection can potentially cause post-
         | viral fatigue syndrome. We've known that for decades and
         | COVID-19 is nothing special in that regard.
         | 
         | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3063394/
         | 
         | But many cases of "long covid" appear to be psychosomatic.
         | 
         | https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
        
           | ciphol wrote:
           | And that's why this result is exciting - not only is it
           | promising for long covid, but also for post-viral fatigue
           | syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome.
        
           | henrikschroder wrote:
           | An old friend of mine has long covid, the real deal, but she
           | was also sick in covid for months in 2020. What she has
           | matches post-viral fatigue syndrome perfectly, and she's
           | getting care for it, from realistic doctors who've been
           | saying that recovery is gonna be slow but steady. She's
           | better now, a year later.
           | 
           | And then, just as you say, there's "long covid", which is a
           | large number of people who have very generic ailments, and if
           | you start digging into the numbers, you realize it's all
           | self-reported bullshit, where a good chunk of the sufferers
           | haven't even been diagnosed with covid in the first place!
           | Their symptoms match depression very well, though.
           | 
           | It's extremely frustrating watching people like my friend
           | getting ridiculed for having an imaginary disease. She
           | doesn't. And at the same time it's even more frustrating
           | watching a relatively huge number of psychosomatic
           | hypochondriacs getting all the attention and using up the
           | wrong kind of healthcare resources, just because a lot of
           | people are using long covid for generating fear porn and
           | _want_ it to be worse than it is.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | vnchr wrote:
         | It has a strong following on HN. Personally, I haven't heard
         | about it anywhere else.
        
           | Brave-Steak wrote:
        
           | sj4nz wrote:
           | The news media is kind of fickle about coverage about
           | anything that doesn't get more ad revenue/impressions.
           | Everyone's filter-bubble affects what they see. At least last
           | July it got a minor boost of awareness from the White House:
           | 
           | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-ada-long-
           | covid...
           | 
           | Medically it just seems to fall outside the flowcharts of
           | modern medicine where an "easy fix" or "procedure" is not
           | prescribed. Going outside of the "acceptable medicine" of
           | what insurance will cover is practically a unicorn event. So
           | you'll see a lot of doctors just calling it "anxiety."
           | Functionally, Long Haul Covid has become a huge cash bonus to
           | medicine as sufferers get referred (passed around) from
           | specialist to specialist for more testing and diagnostics
           | that nearly always comes up as "normal."
           | 
           | About the only good news about this situation is very likely
           | once they really get the studies done (and they're going to
           | have to do it, because there will be millions of people
           | suffering from this) they are likely also going to find how
           | to help people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) since all
           | the long hauling symptoms appear to over lap. CFS sufferers
           | already have had the feeling of being ignored/ridiculed by
           | medicine for decades.
        
       | rendang wrote:
       | Does anyone know if microclots have ever been investigated in
       | relation to other post-viral disorders?
        
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