[HN Gopher] Long Covid, Cognitive Impairment, and the Stalled De...
___________________________________________________________________
Long Covid, Cognitive Impairment, and the Stalled Decline in
Disability Rates
Author : deegles
Score : 95 points
Date : 2022-08-27 15:35 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.federalreserve.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.federalreserve.gov)
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| "Good health is a crown on the head of a well person that only a
| sick person can see."
|
| - Robin Sharma
| chaosbolt wrote:
| >long-term COVID symptoms are much more prevalent among women,
| adults under 65, Hispanics and Latinos, and non-college graduates
| than among other demographic groups.
|
| Weird
| wongarsu wrote:
| "adults under 65, Hispanics and Latinos, and non-college
| graduates" all correlate with things like "people doing blue-
| collar work"
| Avshalom wrote:
| Yeah, part of the consensus as far as I know is that the best
| way to avoid long covid is to basically be a absolute couch
| potato for a month post infection. which of course, you can't
| do if you have to back to a physical job as soon as soon as
| possible.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| ME/CFS is known to impact 2 women to every 1 man and auto
| immune conditions tend to follow that pattern due to the
| differences between men and women when it comes to immune
| response. As to the social economic factors its probably an
| ability to isolate from catching the virus, "key workers" were
| forced to catch it whereas college graduates will have had the
| ability to work from home and avoid it, many still are and
| certainly after vaccinations unlike manual workers.
| invitrom wrote:
| I am unable to work for 18 months now. My covid infection was
| very mild and I was completely healthy before.
| halfjoking wrote:
| jdhendrickson wrote:
| Vaccines are safe, have been administered and tested more than
| any form of medicine ever.
|
| They save lives, both from death, and crippling complications.
|
| Literally nothing you said is true, and I'm glad that
| misinformation spreading lunatics are being de-platformed.
| [deleted]
| nuke2TechLead wrote:
| I know a lot people who were injury by the vaccine. My cousin
| is on aircrew and he has mycardis now because of it. 20 years
| old. Only reason they detected it is because he had to get a
| flight physical. Most of the other people are women who had
| their periods messed up by it.
| didibus wrote:
| Mycardis also happens from getting COVID-19, and the data
| shows it is more likely to happen and be more severe from
| an infection with Covid-19 than from the vaccine.
|
| If you understand how the vaccine works, this makes sense,
| the vaccine simulates an infection with Covid-19, but gives
| your body the upper edge as the virus is not produced in
| it's full form and can't reproduce.
|
| It's now believed the immune response is responsible for
| Mycardis, and that for COVID-19 infections the occurrence
| and effects are stronger because COVID-19 infects heart
| cells, and causes a stronger immune response than the
| vaccine.
|
| When evaluating the vaccine you need to compare it against
| the risks of unvaccinated Covid-19 infections. In your
| lifetime you'll get one or the other, but if you look at
| all the known data, there's much more risks in an
| unvaccinated Covid-19 infection than the vaccines. That
| doesn't mean the vaccines are zero risk, but they seem the
| the right trade off if you consider the odds.
|
| Edit: Also, only the lipid nanoparticle coating is unique
| to the mRNA vaccines, that means any side-effect caused by
| the vaccine is also caused by COVID, unless it's a result
| of the nanoparticle coating. From what I could find, it
| appears that only the allergic reaction is caused by the
| lipids, and the other known side-effects are all common
| with COVID as well and due to the body's immune response or
| the virus protein itself. And if you were curious, COVID
| also replicates using RNA, so both the vaccines and Covid
| also infect your cells with RNA.
| krackers wrote:
| > the data shows it is more likely to happen and be more
| severe from an infection with Covid-19 than from the
| vaccine.
|
| No, not when stratified by age group. 2nd dose of moderna
| vaccine is 6x more likely to cause it for < 40 year olds
| [1]. If you stratify further (12-25) I suspect you'd find
| it's even worse. There's also a dose dependence where
| your chance of myocarditis increases with the number of
| doses [2], which not only corroborates [1] that the 2nd
| dose of Moderna is significantly higher risk, but that
| even 2nd dose of Pfizer puts is basically equal odds with
| the actual thing. And considering it's not either/or
| (i.e. the vaccines are not 100% effective at preventing
| your catching covid), this would mean that the vaccines
| are a net harm for younger age groups.
|
| The dose dependence also seems to indicate some sort of
| cumulative effect (i.e. with enough infections or enough
| boosters, some vulnerable segment of the population will
| almost guaranteed to end up with myocarditis). Since we
| don't know how large this vulnerable segment is (perhaps
| somehow related to long-covid susceptibility), it's
| irresponsible to blindly recommend or mandate boosters
| for everyone.
|
| > the vaccine simulates an infection with Covid-19, but
| gives your body the upper edge as the virus is not
| produced in it's full form and can't reproduce.
|
| You could alternatively hypothesize that when acquired
| "naturally" the virus (and whatever proteins it ends up
| producing) don't immediately go into systemic circulation
| (instead it needs to progress from respiratory
| downwards), and the body has time to mount an attack
| before it hits systemic circulation.
|
| [1] https://newsroom.heart.org/news/myocarditis-risk-
| significant...
|
| [2] https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-
| reports-myoca...
| andrekandre wrote:
| > I know a lot people who were injury by the vaccine.
|
| we are just trading anecdotes here, but i can can
| definitely say after taking the vaccine, especially the 3rd
| one, my long covid was relieved greatly and felt great
| afterwards... should i go around telling people to get the
| vaccine multiple times to cure long-covid based on that
| anecdote? > My cousin is on aircrew and he
| has mycardis now because of it. 20 years old.
|
| i won't deny your experience but let me just ask you this,
| whats the chance of getting myocarditis from real covid vs
| vaccine? which one is potentially more dangerous?
| krackers wrote:
| >whats the chance of getting myocarditis from real covid
| vs vaccine? which one is potentially more dangerous?
|
| If you're less than 40, 2 doses of moderna will put you
| at 6x odds of myocarditis than natural infection. Or 3
| doses of pfizer is slightly more than natural infection.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| This is satire I assume?
|
| Sometimes I think it would have been helpful to force Covid
| deniers and anti-vax people (at gunpoint? guns seem popular in
| the US) to tour the ICUs, the morgues, and the orphanages as
| the pandemic raged. To help them understand what they had been
| complicit in.
| halfjoking wrote:
| wincy wrote:
| Wow, what a great idea!
|
| Also maybe you could have been forced to meet my grandfather
| who languished and died in an old folks home alone because
| nobody was allowed to visit him. Or maybe you could have had
| a phone call with my wife's old school friend before she
| committed suicide during the pandemic because she had mental
| health issues that were exacerbated by forced isolation and
| took her over the edge.
|
| At least they didn't catch Covid though. Thank goodness.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| - and didn't spread it to many other vulnerable people.
|
| No mitigations are going to be entirely or even largely
| consequence free. It is a balance of harms. Do nothing was
| never an option, we should have been better at what we did
| do, in terms of effectiveness against COVID and also in
| reducing other harms.
|
| Of course, the sooner and the more completely the virus is
| controlled (e.g. China) the sooner normal life can resume.
| jotm wrote:
| itsthemmrvax wrote:
| kevingadd wrote:
| I'm glad that your 4 cases of COVID did not leave you with any
| debilitating side effects, but treating Long COVID so
| flippantly when it has ruined so many lives is a pretty
| ghoulish thing to do. I know people who are absolutely
| miserable because it left them with breathing/fatigue issues or
| cognitive disabilities - things that _are_ known to be real and
| are observable via diagnostic tests.
|
| Whataboutism like "has anyone studied Long Cold" really does no
| one any favors.
| Thlom wrote:
| This is all very strange to me. Basically everyone I know
| have had Covid, but no one are reporting any "long Covid".
| Same with the rest of the country. Pretty sure most of us
| have had Covid at this point, but very little reports of long
| term effects. I'm sure there's some people who experience
| long term effects of Covid, much the same as many people will
| experience long term effects from f.ex influenza. It's just
| something that doesn't fit right in my head. From the start
| of the pandemic Covid has been reported as much more
| dangerous in the US than in many other countries. I would be
| interested in seeing a comparison of long Covid in the US and
| a country that is much more relaxed about the whole thing,
| perhaps one of the Scandinavian countries. There might be
| cultural issues and/or "pre-existing" health issues that
| effects how Covid works on the populace.
| mlyle wrote:
| https://covid19dataportal.se/dashboards/post_covid/
|
| 8500 recorded cases may not sound like much (for one
| possible diagnostic code of a few choices), but that's 0.1%
| of the population, and about half the number of people who
| died in Sweden. That's a pretty substantial amount of
| increased disability, especially if the risk of long COVID
| on each infection is close to independent (e.g. we keep
| accumulating people with long term effects at this kind of
| rate).
|
| I have a family member affected; went from highly active to
| completely intolerant of exercise in her early 20's.
| Walking half a mile wipes her out for a few days.
| clcaev wrote:
| Our neighbor got long covid. Went from a very active,
| helpful and involved community member .. into a recluse who
| lost his job, has not been able to function let alone work
| for almost 2 years now, and combined with economic strain
| is now facing bankruptcy and a divorce. Dramatic and tragic
| outcome for something that is "just the flu". My dad's take
| on it? "bad genes". For those suffering, to hear such
| casual dismissal is just salt in the wound.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| People quite often 'suffer in silence'.
|
| Furthermore, I can assure you that Covid has been reported
| as just as dangerous outside the US as within. Indeed, it
| was within the US that it became most strongly politicised,
| spawning such dangerous nonsense as it is 'just the flu'.
| vkou wrote:
| > This is all very strange to me. Basically everyone I know
| have had Covid, but no one are reporting any "long Covid".
|
| Five of my teammates had it. One of them got long Covid.
|
| > From the start of the pandemic Covid has been reported as
| much more dangerous in the US than in many other countries.
|
| The US is a leader in the developed world when it comes to
| the venn diagram of co-morbidities, obesity, and poor
| access to healthcare for the people most afflicted by it.
|
| It also has a generous helping of anti-collective-action
| public attitudes, horrible sick time policy, and a large
| fragment of the population that's been primed to believe
| all sorts of unscientific nonsense, due to a few decades of
| cynical and self-serving political messaging.
|
| All of these factors are present in other countries, but to
| a lesser extent.
| jotm wrote:
| Yeah? I need plenty of health care myself and I've been shat
| on nearly every time. My flippant attitude doesn't affect you
| nor anyone else. I just shit online like everyone else.
| [deleted]
| mlyle wrote:
| > Whataboutism like "has anyone studied Long Cold" really
| does no one any favors.
|
| Which, you know, we've probably messed up by not studying
| post-viral syndromes more as we're accumulating more and more
| evidence that they're important to long-term health outcomes.
|
| It just took COVID to fully convince us of this importance,
| because it does it so visibly at such a higher rate.
|
| I believe half to 3/4 of "long covid" is anxiety and
| hypochondria. But that still leaves a pretty substantial
| "real" burden.
| monetus wrote:
| This has implications in the levels of coverage hospitals
| and insurance will have to extend to aftercare right? I
| wonder how long that will take to play out.
| mlyle wrote:
| Maybe. I mean, in general, if you have a health plan
| you're covered for something whether it's a follow-on
| effect of something before or it's something new.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| There are strong genetic predispositions for LongCovid, most
| people can't get it no matter how sick they get or how many
| times they get it. The fact that you're in the majority group
| is not yet statistically significant.
| Animats wrote:
| > There are strong genetic predispositions for LongCovid
|
| Data? There are enough large genetic sample projects, such as
| 23andMe, that this is testable.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| You'd think so, but doctors seem to be crazy bad at
| statistics which is astounding since it's so important to
| what they do. But its easy to look at the instance of
| hypermobility and hEDS among LongCovid populations. They
| occur at rates of 40% to 30% in LC populations and they're
| supposed to be rare conditions of 2% to 0.2%. The fact that
| something so basic and obvious could be repeatedly
| overlooked should give you and indication on what I think
| about doctors and medical researchers.
| Izkata wrote:
| Here's some data that shows the strongest predictor of long
| covid is whether or not your parents are claiming long
| covid: https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/social-contagion-
| is-long-...
|
| It's especially interesting because that predictor is
| stronger than whether or not anyone involved has ever
| tested positive for covid.
| shkkmo wrote:
| That is not what that link shows. Couldn't you find a
| link that at least tries to appear non-biased and doesn't
| descend into needless partisanship?
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| That link is just awful partisan politics. It's
| unfortunate that LongCovid is getting swept up into the
| culture wars. Obviously genetic predispositions are
| inherited and will be a strong predictor. There is very
| little difference between ME/CFS and LC, many of these
| kids will have inherited ME/CFS but would not have been
| aware of it until awareness of LC picked up. In addition
| the vaccine is sufficient to cause LC in those
| predisposed to it. My pre-existing ME/CFS was made
| substantially worse due to the vaccine and I have not yet
| had covid. I do have extremely strong ACE2-AAbs which is
| a marker for LongCovid.
| samastur wrote:
| I'm not sure it has been shown that you can't get it at later
| infections and anecdotally from friends and family (I know)
| that doesn't seem to be the case.
|
| I'm also not sure if everyone notices changes if they are
| mild enough. I am fairly sure that a recent cold was COVID
| (because I infected my wife who lost her sense of taste) and
| it took me a while to notice my sense of smell is
| significantly worse. Too early to describe it as long COVID
| and certainly as annoyances go, this is as mild as it gets
| (if it is all there is).
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| More people do get it from multiple infections but it is
| still a minority and it seems to be the same genetic
| predispositions. I have hEDS which comes with ME/CFS,
| probably the best way to explain it is that it feels like
| burnout that doesn't go away.
|
| LongCovid has become an overloaded term with multiple PASC
| and acute organ damage being added. That's slowly being
| fixed with PEM being the defining characteristic. Basically
| if you exercise as hard as you can a normal person can
| repeat in two days, a LongCovid/ME/CFS person cannot get
| close.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Why do you think that your personal experience might be valid
| when comparing your case to how millions of people have
| experienced Covid? Are you so blind to the human body that you
| haven't realized that not everyone react the same way to
| sickness, drugs, food, allergies?!??!
| jotm wrote:
| I don't.
|
| I'm not.
|
| I'm just posting my brain waste here like everyone else.
| [deleted]
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Did you know whole million you taking about? Generalisations
| won't helps here.
| morsch wrote:
| People have studied post viral syndrome (I guess you could call
| it "long cold", though it's not limited to cold viruses) for a
| while, though covid has given rise to much more research.
| bicijay wrote:
| Anecdote, had covid in the end of 2020, still dont feel 100%,
| maybe i just grew old while sick and thats just life, but i feel
| like shit comparable to what i felt before it.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| I'd argue that it feels precisely like that - that you became
| old in last months.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Yeah, I'm definitely not where I was before. Dunno if it's the
| effects of covid, but social isolation and lack of physical
| exercise certainly hasn't done my overall well-being any favors
| either.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| It's not just you. I know someone who had Long COVID for 1
| month. I also know someone who works with someone who was
| running marathons every weekend and now they can't walk stairs
| because of knee pain, all because of COVID. I know someone else
| who had COVID and then was not doing any sport or social
| interaction for almost two years, barely left the house and who
| feels much more tired and depressed now, because of COVID. I
| know a child, who had COVID, then didn't have proper education
| for nearly two years and now is really underdeveloped, because
| of COVID of course.
| binkHN wrote:
| It's not just you. I know a physically fit personal trainer
| that has had long COVID for over 8 months now.
| daflip wrote:
| this is exactly me also
| monetus wrote:
| Work on lung exercises for fatigue.
|
| I have had health complications that caused the same problem as
| long covid seemingly causes; tiny tiny clots wreaking havoc on
| capillaries. I think it depends on where the viral load landed
| and grew, but if it was in your lungs, you would maybe need to
| treat it as if you have chronic bronchitis.
|
| If it was in your sinuses and mouth, messing up your senses,
| then I'm sorry, idk what to do. ...maybe a similar approach
| with anti-inflammatories, hopefully something for your nerves
| too.
|
| Hope you're good atm
| bicijay wrote:
| Yeah, had literally 100s of lab tests, all came back ok.
| Exercise intolerance for at least an year. But im slowly
| getting back on form, gym doesnt kill me anymore. Still have
| some random digestion issues, slightly elevated HR and just
| generally feeling worse than before. But ill look into lung
| exercises, thank you for the tip
| JoshTko wrote:
| Did you tests include inflammation markers such as
| sedimentation test D-dimer, CRP, or Ferritin?
| [deleted]
| loxias wrote:
| This is me also. I was also isolated seeing only one other
| human for the entirety of COVID (including now, but I'm gonna
| move soon so I can at least go into a physical office). I feel
| like my brain still works at lots of stuff, once it gets going,
| but I forget what I'm doing randomly and I think I used to be
| not _THIS_ bad at interacting with other humans :/
| guestbest wrote:
| How much did you self isolate? I've noticed that the elderly
| who self isolated while having it or being around partners who
| had it have gone through a marketed mental decline. I think
| physical declines are probably there as well especially as we
| all age it is difficult to turn back the clock in physical
| fitness, past 35 more so.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| The data showing the difference between percentage of college
| graduates and noncollege graduates who believe they have long
| COVID seems to point to a placebo effect. I don't see why college
| grads and non-college grads would have any reason to be affected
| differently by a virus.
| newsclues wrote:
| Education levels tracked the acceptance of masking and
| vaccination, and the political divide that has emerged from
| Trump.
|
| I think highly educated people are often simply indoctrinated
| with facts and beliefs rather than trained to be intelligent
| and knowledgeable.
| m1sta_ wrote:
| Education is about using intelligence not gaining it. That
| said, in practice knowledge can be more useful than
| intelligence if the circumstances presented fit the available
| knowledge well.
| cameldrv wrote:
| There is now fairly substantial evidence that COVID can cause
| your brain to physically shrink. Maybe some people experience a
| placebo effect, but long COVID is clearly a real, physical
| disease at this point.
| mudx wrote:
| College graduates may be less likely to be exposed to larger
| quantities of COVID molecules (e.g. driving via car, vs taking
| the subway, or any other number of possibilities), or perhaps
| they had better treatment of their COVID due to their financial
| capabilities.
| hyperpape wrote:
| Far too quick. Of course, there isn't a direct causal
| connection between college degrees and severity of Covid, but
| there are huge average differences between more and less
| educated individuals, including lots of health related
| outcomes. https://www.economist.com/graphic-
| detail/2021/03/17/educated... (chosen basically at random,
| basically any relevant google search will get you many articles
| saying similar things).
|
| It's also unbelievable that these groups don't differ in
| frequency of having Covid, vaccination rates, likelihood of
| having had Covid in 2020 vs. post vaccination, etc. Since we
| know vaccination has some protective effect against long-covid,
| that's another factor.
|
| This doesn't mean these reports reflect underlying reality
| permanently (maybe a desk jockey reports disability differently
| than someone with a physically demanding job, maybe other
| factors make people less likely to report). But there are
| plenty of ways education can predict outcomes that aren't just
| reporting bias.
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| Probably because they were able to work remotely at a higher
| rate and thus fewer were actually infected. Being diagnosed
| with COVID was not a prerequisite for this study.
| epgui wrote:
| People with more (or later) education will often have better
| outcomes for things like Alzheimer's Disease. It's not
| unreasonable to think that education may have a protective
| role.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| One theory is that educated people compensate better for
| decline on cognitive tests, basically by "muscling through
| it". I've heard it doesn't change the overall course of the
| disease much but it does make the decline less noticeable in
| the early stages.
| hericium wrote:
| I agree. Research papers and books (can currently think of
| one[1]) mention that there is more nicotine users among less-
| educated.
|
| It's not far-fetched to assume that this substance is not
| atypical and educated people make in general more health-
| conscious choices.
|
| [1] https://moleculeofmore.com/
| yywwbbn wrote:
| Nicotine itself is not particularly dangerous and smoking
| cigarettes with no nicotine would be just as bad for your
| lungs. The main with it is the addiction however there is
| bo clear link between long term use of nicotine itself and
| any significantly negative health outcomes.
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| I would argue that education enables a lifestyle that is
| protective, rather than education itself.
| Retric wrote:
| Education is also self selected, so it likely
| representative of other choices as well.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| Obesity among college graduates is relatively low in aggregate,
| and obesity is associated with LC.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| There are strong selection criteria biases at work here; this
| does not indicate psychosomatic.
| taeric wrote:
| I think you are right, but I don't think placebo necessarily
| means psychosomatic. Does it?
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| If a placebo is effective it's presumed to psychosomatic as
| there have been no underlying medical changes. In this case
| I presumed that the term 'placebo' was being used
| incorrectly and what was meant was psychosomatic.
| taeric wrote:
| That is certainly an explanation. But I'm large studies
| like this, it seems as likely it was just an uncontrolled
| variable. Right?
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I'm unsure as to what you mean. There most certainly are
| lots of uncontrolled variables. I'd be highly surprised
| if this study wasn't flawed in a number of material ways.
| wesleywt wrote:
| No, the data does not show placebo effect.
|
| Reason: College grads are more likely to get vaccinated against
| COVID than non-grads. Leading to a reduction in symptom
| severity and perhaps long covid.
|
| https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/evidence-base/education-is-now-...
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| But there could be other causes. You are operating under the
| default assumption long COVID must exist. But non-grads on
| average are poorer, work in different environments, and have
| different health (i.e. obesity and diabetes) than grads.
| There could be any number of underlying health conditions
| causing brain fog and other long COVID symptoms. Obesity and
| diabetes are known to impact brain function and are
| correlated with Alzheimer's. Sedentary lifestyles and poor
| diet can also lead to low energy.
|
| The reason I say placebo is because any of these pre-existing
| conditions could be blamed on long COVID. Think about it: you
| don't know much about diseases, you see CNN/Fox News/MSNBC
| talking about long COVID. You think to yourself, hey I've got
| those symptoms! You blame long COVID, even though the
| underlying cause could have been obesity, diabetes, sedentary
| lifestyle, diet, etc.
|
| We know obesity is harmful yet the fat acceptance movement
| exists. Do you think those people are going to blame their
| symptoms on their obesity?
| spapas82 wrote:
| I was sick with covid for around five days 2 months ago. I had
| high fever, tiredness, pain on my body and coughing.
|
| After I felt better I observed that I was feeling much more tired
| than I usually felt.
|
| Now, after two months I feel a little better but not that much...
| Could this be related to my covid infection? Is there a way to
| improve my situation?
|
| I did a normal check up but didn't get anything abnormal...
| leetrout wrote:
| My doc said i was fine too after having covid twice in 9 weeks.
|
| I am still getting winded easily and while i was already out of
| shape i notice after riding a bike or being active for a full
| day i still feel bad the following day
| saila wrote:
| Additional anecdata: This is similar to what happened to me. I
| got covid earlier this year and had it bad for a week, had
| stuffiness and a possible sinus infection for a few weeks, and
| was tired all the time for a few weeks after that. The coughing
| lingered for a while too. Eventually I got back to normal just
| waiting it out (disclaimer: this is _not_ a recommendation).
| spapas82 wrote:
| Glad you are better! How much time did it take to improve? I
| have heard of people that were feeling worse for months after
| their infection ...
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| I am sorry that you have been burdened with this. Fatigue is
| indeed a known long-term symptom which is not uncommon after
| the "acute phase".
|
| In a tweet, here's the start of a trail of very good
| information from solid research into these conditions:
| https://twitter.com/putrinolab/status/1557403364941496320
| spapas82 wrote:
| Very interesting info, thank you. It's nice to know that
| there's a measurable way to know if you've got long covid!
| zdragnar wrote:
| My brother's heart and lung health suffered extensively after
| his second bout with COVID. O2 uptake is somewhat diminished,
| and resting heart rate is still very high. Walking up two
| flights of stairs requires a 5 to 10 minute sit down as he is
| completely winded by the time he gets to the top.
|
| If any of that sounds familiar, you may want to get some more
| extensive tests done. I don't know what will come of it, pretty
| much the only thing that has helped my brother so far is a
| regular low dose of Benadryl. There's a bit of edgy research or
| internet driven anecdata (not sure which) that led him to try
| it, but it is better than nothing, at least.
| mynameishere wrote:
| _regular low dose of Benadryl_
|
| That supposedly can cause dementia. Just FYI.
| spapas82 wrote:
| My symptoms are definitely not that significant. My O2 is >
| 98% (and never fell below even when I had the covid) and I
| can easily ascend stairs. I only feel that I am more tired
| than before the covid.
| pfisherman wrote:
| Another anecdote. I also experienced a long tail of symptoms -
| randomly getting tired, cough inability to write coherent
| paragraphs after getting COVID.
|
| I found that exercising - starting with 10 min yoga /
| stretching and then slowly ramping up over 1-2 weeks - got me
| back to normal.
| ohCh6zos wrote:
| My experience is very similar to yours. COVID let me feeling
| very negative but build up to doing a good deal of cardio
| every day seem to have fixed it.
| spapas82 wrote:
| Thank you for the info and I'm glad that it gets better for
| you. I had stopped going to the gym because I wanted to rest
| and because of summer but I will definitely start it again
| (mainly low impact resistance training) in the following days
| and see how it works for me!
| programmarchy wrote:
| Funny, had the same happen to me. Thought maybe it was a
| coincidence, but getting back into my cardio routine
| eliminated the lingering fatigue I had after Covid, too.
| desperadovisa wrote:
| If a doctor found nothing wrong, there's probably nothing
| wrong. Not that doctors are infallible, but generally they're
| more often right than wrong.
| clcaev wrote:
| Doctors all too often think that if you are experiencing
| something that their measurements don't validate ... that you
| are not sick.
|
| In my experience [6 weeks hospitalization; now chronic rare
| disease] it's that the doctors simply lack the knowledge,
| techniques, and instruments to identify the problem.
|
| Rare diseases are an interesting thing. Individually, each
| rare disease is challenging to study, and hence poorly
| understood, hard to diagnose, etc. However, with thousands to
| choose from, getting a rare disease isn't all that rare.
| However, getting good care while having one might very well
| be.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Nothing is wrong based on given measurements taken, their
| limits these days, skill set of doctor evaluating them and so
| on. If your lung capacity or strength of some particular
| heart muscle degraded by 7.3% and your veins became 2.3% more
| susceptible to popping nobody will find it out.
|
| My wife is a doctor, worked on emergencies too, and the
| amount of "we have no clue what is wrong with him" cases is
| staggering. Sure they can more or less treat symptoms but
| often that's it.
|
| People often make a mistake (I used to make it too) and take
| medicine/healthcare as some rigid science keen to astronomy
| or mathematics where numbers don't lie and you always know
| where you are and why. Couldn't be further from truth these
| days.
|
| Just a random sample from me personally - had broken my foot
| this June, and had plaster for a month. Have taken anti-
| coagulant medicine during it. Stopped when plaster went away
| as per doctor, within few days I've developed an ache in
| middle of calf, it was unlike any tiredness I had ever
| experienced there. But that fixation made my leg stiff like
| wooden plank, so I thought its just super tiredness of
| muscles when attempting to walk again. Wife mentioned that
| maaaaaybe it could be thrombosis, who knows. Went to
| hospital, they did blood tests which young doctor concluded
| were below threshold so I should stop taking medicine
| immediately and all is a-ok. Well, luckily I also went to
| venereologist who did ultrasound and voila - trombosis like
| hell there.
|
| I could have died anytime during this, when it gets to lungs
| its rather quick process, brain is no fun neither. All this
| in biggest hospital in Switzerland.
|
| Generally trust doctors and science. Don't trust them
| blindly. I guess most folks have some stories like this,
| albeit I hope with less risks.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Wow that was a close call, happy to see that got resolved
| and _very_ scary that it almost wasn 't picked up.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This is not true at all. Long covid, chronic fatigue, etc.
| are currently not understood, and have no known mechanisms or
| tests. There is nothing for doctors to identify as 'wrong'
| besides the subjective feeling of fatigue. This is not a
| matter of doctors making mistakes or not, this simply is
| beyond the limits of our current medical understanding. It
| definately sounds like the parent is suffering from long
| covid.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| There are a lot of known disease mechanisms and tests. Just
| not known to most doctors who don't keep up with the latest
| research, or even research in the last few decades. Also as
| it's cross disciplinary it often gets placed in the too
| hard basket and passed on to some other specialty.
| kaczordon wrote:
| Or people could just be depressed/were not working out. All
| this talk in the news of long covid probably causes
| psychosomatic symptoms.
| clcaev wrote:
| As a society, those who are able bodied are often so
| quick to dismiss illness that others are experiencing. A
| bit more humility would be a kinder way to approach the
| world. Just because there may be a few that abuse
| charity, does not negate the many more that are
| deserving.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| I agreed with that. Social connections were significantly
| destroyed last year's. Overall fear agenda in news will
| not helps with mental helth either. Also vaccines harm
| with uknown effects.
| LiminalFrame wrote:
| Some avenues to consider/investigate (consult with your doctor
| before trying any treatment, but expect to hear "there's no
| reason to believe that will work" in many cases):
|
| FLCCC I-RECOVER protocol:
| https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-recover...
|
| "Could tiny blood clots cause Long COVID's puzzling symptoms?"
| (article reports some people have had success with anti-
| coagulant therapies, but be especially careful with those):
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02286-7
|
| Theory of Long COVID as Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (from one
| of the physicians who pioneered use of fluvoxamine in
| treatment):
| https://twitter.com/farid__jalali/status/1315060197988036608
|
| From personal anecdata, I took a PQQ/CoQ10/NAC combo supplement
| recommended by the local supplements store after both of my two
| infections, and have never had any long-term symptoms. NAC in
| particular seems to show up often in the various recovery
| protocols that are floating around.
| spapas82 wrote:
| Thank you very much for the information, I will research it
| more and try the supplements
| coding123 wrote:
| I'm sorry to everyone here. Keep wearing n95 in public if you
| can. The virus never leaves, vaccines or not.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| jdkee wrote:
| Q: How do you distinguish Long COVID from similar diseases like
| fibromyalgia?
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/...
| 18amxn18 wrote:
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Going to tread lightly here, but here is the section on 4 "facts"
| about long COVID:
|
| > In this note, I use two survey datasets to document four facts
| about long COVID in the United States. First, long-term COVID
| symptoms are much more prevalent among women, adults under 65,
| Hispanics and Latinos, and non-college graduates than among other
| demographic groups. Second, COVID "long haulers" cite specific
| physical and cognitive impairments commonly associated with the
| condition in media and medical reporting. Third, the share of
| working-age adults reporting serious difficulty remembering,
| concentrating, or making decisions has risen steadily since the
| start of the pandemic. Fourth, growing shares of women and of
| non-college graduates report simultaneously (i) being out of the
| labor force due to disability and (ii) experiencing these
| cognitive difficulties.
|
| I'm generally interested in a good summary of what _medical_
| research tells us about long COVID. Reason being I think it 's
| fair to hypothesize that the following facts are at least fair
| confounding factors:
|
| 1. Whenever economic situations become weaker, disability rates
| rise. This is largely because people who are "on the cusp" may
| find it worth it to find a job in good times, but in bad times
| find it's not worth it to "push through" their disability.
|
| 2. There has been _so_ much news coverage about long COVID that
| it 's difficult for me to tell how it compares to other long term
| viral syndromes. E.g. infection with Epstein Barr virus has long
| been implicated in a lost of long term conditions like CFS and
| MS. Is long COVID more common in COVID sufferers than these other
| syndromes are in EB infection?
|
| 3. There have been huge societal changes that have occurred in
| the past couple years that can make it difficult to tease out the
| effects of COVID alone.
|
| Not trying to discount any individual suffering from long COVID
| symptoms, but I think caution is warranted when trying to
| ascertain the effects at a society-wide level, _especially_ when
| all the data for this article appears to come from self-reports.
| __derek__ wrote:
| > E.g. infection with Epstein Barr virus has long been
| implicated in a lost of long term conditions like CFS and MS.
|
| Sorry for the complete non sequitur, but this is the first time
| I've seen a reference to Epstein-Barr outside of the Sopranos
| (Tony's sister Janice is on disability because of it). I had no
| idea it was linked to MS.
| strogonoff wrote:
| COVID is definitely not the only case where acute form might
| shift into a chronic one. For a recent overview see, e.g.,
| _Unexplained post-acute infection syndromes_ [0].
|
| > As of now, the true extent of PAISs remains uncertain, as
| there is a significant risk that a lot of cases, especially
| under sporadic circumstances, remain unrecognized.
|
| > The research that is available concentrates on PAISs in the
| context of either well-monitored acute infectious diseases, or
| as a follow-up of outbreaks and epidemics.
|
| [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01810-6
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| And I want to add that side effects of the vaccination are
| often treated as long COVID as well. Long COVID is a
| representation of symptoms, therefore this is not unusual that
| it is classified the same, however one might mistake these as
| virus related when some are not.
| Terretta wrote:
| These four observations sound like a Rorschach test.
|
| If one thinks "long COVID" is imaginary, one can read these
| facts as confirmation of placebo effects or mass sociogenic
| illness.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness
|
| Or, if one thinks it's plausible, each can be read the other
| way, for instance:
|
| >> _long-term COVID symptoms are much more prevalent among
| women, adults under 65, Hispanics and Latinos, and non-college
| graduates than among other demographic groups_
|
| OK, so groups least likely to choose to isolate, or be able to
| isolate (because they _have_ to work).
|
| >> _Second, COVID "long haulers" cite specific physical and
| cognitive impairments commonly associated with the condition in
| media and medical reporting._
|
| Put another way, reporting and media sound like what people
| cite.
|
| >> _Third, the share of working-age adults reporting serious
| difficulty remembering, concentrating, or making decisions has
| risen steadily since the start of the pandemic._
|
| Condition attributed to a disease known to be experienced by a
| steadily increasing population share, steadily increases share
| reporting -- confirmed!
|
| >> _Fourth, growing shares of women and of non-college
| graduates report simultaneously (i) being out of the labor
| force due to disability and (ii) experiencing these cognitive
| difficulties._
|
| So these go together, and see #1 -- everything is as expected.
|
| Remarkable how simultaneously contradictory all four
| interpretations can be, almost as if crafted to be so.
| dmix wrote:
| > I'm generally interested in a good summary of what medical
| research tells us about long COVID.
|
| Has there been any good summaries?
| dogmatism wrote:
| Yes, Eric Topol wrote one up for the LA times recently
| jointpdf wrote:
| From his blog: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/some-light-
| on-long-covid
| nope96 wrote:
| 34,423 subscribers:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/covidlonghaulers/
|
| I wonder if some % of the population can be extrapolated from
| that
| User23 wrote:
| I wonder how much of the covid related long term cognitive
| impairment is due to the marked lockdown induced increase in
| alcohol consumption[1]. I'm assuming that if deaths increased
| other than death bad outcomes probably increased too.
|
| Edit: I see nothing in the submission showing there's no
| substance abuse effect, clearly or otherwise.
|
| [1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/news-events/research-
| update/deaths...
| yomkippur wrote:
| No the data clearly shows this is independent of substance use.
| [deleted]
| krono wrote:
| Funny, I was just searching if the temperature dysregulation -
| randomly sweating and feeling hot or cold without a change in
| body temperature - might have anything to do with my covid
| infection two months ago (the answer seems to be: maybe, who
| knows!).
| Kenji wrote:
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Thermogenesis is controlled by the autonomic nervous system
| (ANS), dysfunction of the ANS is called dysautonomia and it is
| a central component to Long Covid. There are a variety of
| medical interventions that are helpful for dysautonomia.
| krono wrote:
| The light searching I've been doing since my last comment had
| indeed been leading me in that direction. I even came across
| a mention of this here on HN from a few months ago[1]. A
| sibling comment to yours also suggested a hormonal imbalance
| as a possible cause which can't hurt getting myself checked
| for.
|
| Some anacdata: This strange temperature dysregulation feels
| somewhat similar to what a too high dosage of my ADHD meds
| does to me.
|
| Anyway thanks for your comment. I'll be seeing a doctor about
| this for sure.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31512100
| dustinmoris wrote:
| It's definitely a symptom of COVID. I know someone who had
| COVID and one day they coughed suddenly, dropped their iPhone
| on the floor and since then even the iPhone's temperature
| sensor doesn't work anymore. This is how infectious and
| terrible COVID is, just one cough caused the loss of
| temperature sensation!
| kevingadd wrote:
| FYI, temperature dysregulation can be a common sign of hormonal
| balance issues (thyroid, etc could be a factor), so if it's
| causing you a lot of trouble you should see if your doctor can
| check the levels of key hormones. IIRC testosterone and
| estrogen are two key ones that can be out of whack for various
| reasons and will cause temperature dysregulation. The test is
| pretty cheap and easy to do with a regular blood draw so it
| shouldn't be too hard to get it done if they haven't already
| checked it before.
| krono wrote:
| Cheers, I'll bring it up with the doc!
|
| Luckily he's one to take it well when his patients bring up
| internet-sourced thoughts or suggestions :)
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I've been feeling that a lot since I caught Covid a few months
| back too, thanks for mentioning, now I can look it up in
| context
| krono wrote:
| It's mentioned in most official resources that I've come
| across as a potential "long-covid" symptom, but I don't
| recall ever having seen it listed as one of the researched
| criteria - those seem mostly limited to just the (I suppose
| much more prevalent) cognitive impairments and exhaustion as
| in the linked article also.
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