Anyone have long covid?

On the Beach

I'm wondering are a lot of these "long covid" cases of people who were treated at the start of all this or say back around April/ May when the medical profession were still learning how to treat patients as it was all new. Apparently they've learned a lot since then and they know how to treat covid better now. It's only down the line we'll learn more about how more recent cases are affected I suppose.

JDD

I think it's a cop out to say that long Covid is psychological. We don't understand enough about the virus and how it effects our body. If the lingering symptoms were panic attacks or headaches then yes, I'd say it might be psychological. But when it's stuff like your hair falling out or muscle aches and pains then I think it's much more likely to have a physical cause rather than a mental cause. That's just my non-scientific opinion.

This "growing consensus" is nonsense. What it is, is a theory, based on the fact that the medical community don't yet understand long covid.

_Whimsical_

The notion that long Covid is regarded as psychological is just bunk and does not reflect current medical opinion. Below a statement by Anthony Fauci, Head of NIH, one of the most recognised and important medical bodies in the world to the American Medical Association.
Several of these symptoms and indications of illness are clinically measurable and can not be a facet of imagination. Very depressing that people are so quick to minimise illness as psychological, not only because of the stigma and associated suffering that causes to those that are ill but also when it's so important that people do not contract this illness to face the same fate.

Dr. Fauci : "We do know for absolutely certain that there is a post-COVID syndrome,” Dr. Fauci said. “Anywhere from 25% to 35%—or more—have lingering symptoms well beyond what you would expect from any post viral syndrome like influenza and others. It’s fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle aches, dysautonomia, sleep disturbances and what people refer to as brain fog,” he said, or an inability to focus or concentrate.

“That can last anywhere from weeks to months,” he explained. Cardiologists also report that even among asymptomatic COVID patients, about 60% have some indication of inflammation of the heart which may or may not have a future effect on cardiac health."

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/dr-fauci-offers-2021-forecast-covid-19-vaccines-treatments

wadacrack

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

The notion that long Covid is regarded as psychological is just bunk and does not reflect current medical opinion. Below a statement by Anthony Fauci, Head of NIH, one of the most recognised and important medical bodies in the world to the American Medical Association.
Several of these symptoms and indications of illness are clinically measurable and can not be a facet of imagination. Very depressing that people are so quick to minimise illness as psychological, not only because of the stigma and associated suffering that causes to those that are ill but also when it's so important that people do not contract this illness to face the same fate.

Its crazy that anyone would think that. Hundreds of thousands suffering from a condition due to psychological reasons. Pharmaceutical drugs and some anti depressants cause long term side effects and this is denied by those companies and claimed to be psychological. It extremely condescending of people who did'nt suffer from that to just dismiss people that are suffering long term. The video I posted above is very interesting. Females far ore likely to suffer from this condition and people with Atopy Asthma, Rhinitis and Eczema seem more susceptible to picking this up. It seems their is strong immune response when contracting the virus and it remains in that state to some degree for some time. Likely to improve in time. This happens with some drugs too and the body struggles to adjust and can be altered permanently . Their are thousands in support groups on facebook trying to get their lives back in some cases. Its very worrrying but as this information is not mainstream its not seen as trustworthy

Thats me

wadacrack wrote: »

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

The notion that long Covid is regarded as psychological is just bunk and does not reflect current medical opinion.

Its crazy that anyone would think that.

:eek:

wadacrack wrote: »

Females far ore likely to suffer from this condition and people with Atopy Asthma, Rhinitis and Eczema seem more susceptible to picking this up. It seems their is strong immune response when contracting the virus and it remains in that state to some degree for some time.

Earlier in this thread i have posted a link to dr. Paul E Marik's video where he is explaining current (at the end of September) understanding of all of that. Shortly speaking he does consider the illness split into four phases.



Phases.


1. "incubation period"

On the first stage virus getting into the body, settled in the nasopharynx and starting breading like crazy. It can distribute over some other areas in the body where appropriate tissues exist- lungs, guts (this is why you asked about diarrhea when passing COVID questionnary), brain (unlikely because of strong immune barrier), may be something else.


While virus is sitting and breading there it does not cause much damage or significant symptom. It just borrowing cells of your body for its own needs. These needs are to spread everywhere. Symptom-less first stage serves the purpose on the best way - the infected person still being unidentified does release into air millions of virions with each exhalation and they still flying in air for a long time. This is named as incubation period in dr.Marik's illustrations.


2. Symptomatic phase

After about 5 days since contamination, amount of the virus in the body reaching such huge density that immune system of the infected person recognises something is out of order and starting destroying the virus. Now we have symptomatic phase. To the 6th - 8th day virus suppressed by immune system.

3. Early pulmonary phase.

Virus is deactivated by immune system, but deactivated exemplars (virus is molecule, immune system damaging it somehow, but damaged molecule is still persist) of the virus are still in the body in huge amounts (viral debris by dr.Marik), concentrating mainly in the respiratory tract. This debris still having attributes of original virus, so immune system still attacking the lungs where it has biggest concentration causing early pulmonary phase.

4. Late pulmonary phase.

The last phase the immune system getting into desperate cytokine storm killing everything what it will find killable, no difference is it remains of the virus which was suppressed two weeks ago, or the body's own cells.



For each of these 4 phase dr. Marik have recommended specific approaches, it should be part of global COVID protocol now.



(Disclaimer: i'm not intnended to attribute achievements of global medical society to dr.Marik's team, just referring particular works, of course this is compilation of expirience of medical personnel around of whole world during the pandemy, a lot of this was understood from the findings Chinese specialists before pandemy even spread out of China, but practical approaches to address challenges of each phase took a time to develop and systematize).



Now about your findings from the video which i didn't watch.

In front of all, females are far less likely to suffer from disease than male, this is simple statistical fact Scientists are explaining this by cells of female body are somewhat more penetrable for immune system so it can deactivate virus on earlier stage, which is in line with dr.Marik's theory - the less viral debris you have, the less chances of "long covid" (i.e. phases 2, 3 and 4).



But females are also suffering, may be less severe, but they are. So i'd guess there is gradation of accessibility of cells to immune system (or of other factor if this theory will not be confirmed). Or may be females are just more accurate than males, obeying recommendations and less exposing themselves to the virus. By dr.Marik's hypothesis the less amount of virus you got - the lesser will be illness, as he told face mask will save your life even if you get covid. If you have no proper mask - bad mask will help you too, if you have no mask - any rag will be better than no protection at all. So i think may be reason of why ladies less suffering from covid just because they are generally better organised than these drunken b'astards males


There is nothing surprising in "people with Atopy Asthma, Rhinitis and Eczema" and other pre-conditions (like age for example) suffering from covid more severe then these who has no pre-conditions. This is true by definition. Another question who in Ireland can say for sure she or he has no any pre-conditions...



Subsequences.



1. If your immune system have killed or significantly damaged your own organ - what you would consider "recovery" in this case? You are still alive - is this enough?


2. Do you remember what face mask haters were telling us recently? The mask, told they, decreasing amount of oxygen reaching our brain, unrecoverably damaging it. You can imagine how damaging can be hypoxia caused by COVID? I've read somewhere (dont remember where), most intriguing fact for ICU personnel was sometimes patients delivered to them had somewhat around 45% of oxygen in the blood which was considered impossible for alive humans, but they could looking well, concious and even feeling nothing suspicious because of neurotoxic effect caused by the virus. I think this will need further investigation, but the fact is. And, if these people were released from the hospital, if they happy and laughing non-stop, would you consider them recovered?



One more comment. If you had enough patience to read the text above, i simply do not understand why would not you go and check out information from the first hands instead of spending time on reading my non-professional interpretation of only part of it. smile.

speckle

something possibly of interest

The3rdTruth

Please get someone to buy you a bottle of organic elderberry syrup. That stuff is magic for colds and flu's. Admittedly, it works best when you use it early on after symptoms but it will help. Don't worry so much about recommended usage on the bottle, its for guidance only. I drank it straight out of the bottle. It's a natural product with very low risk and no side affects. Obviously get loads of Vitamin C and D into you with some echinachea as well. Stay away from Tamiflu and the likes which is severe on the body and proven to only reduce a flu length by half a day! Hope this helps.

speckle

discussion on long covid and post viral care especially gps and some latest cardaic research from Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTrIl52jV0s

Pandiculation

I’m just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?

Early in the pandemic I had all the symptoms of COVID, but never got tested as things were bad and I just assumed I had it and self isolated for several weeks.

I had a very bad cough, crackling lungs when l breathed, tight chest, body aches everywhere, a bad headache, high temp and very bad brain fog. I just stayed mostly in bed for a couple of weeks and it went away.

I mostly recovered but maybe after 7 or 8 weeks I was still coughing a bit and I didn’t feel myself.

The problem is that I genuinely haven’t felt right since and it’s now way too long ago to still be unwell.

I’m too lacking in energy and I get short of breath if I walk even up a steep hill and my joints are getting sore a lot - knees and back.

I was always somewhat prone to back pain but this is getting ridiculous. I’ve just spent several weeks with a stiff back, very bad back pain and my knees and feet have been in a similar state and it’s only slowly fading. It’s bad enough that I can’t get out of chairs or sit in chairs for any extended period and get stuck a lot.

If I walked to say a steep hill I would get so breathless that I need to sit down. I’m not talking just a bit breathless I literally can’t catch my breath at all and my heart rate goes fast enough to trigger smart watch warnings.

I’ve been putting it down to lack of access to the gym and my gp seems to be writing it off as laziness or that I have sunk into a slump due to lockdown but it isn’t accurate.

Is anyone else experiencing anything like this ?

lastusername

Could you get a test for Covid antibodies to check it out?

Pablo Escobar

Pandiculation wrote: »

I’m just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this?

Early in the pandemic I had all the symptoms of COVID, but never got tested as things were bad and I just assumed I had it and self isolated for several weeks.

I had a very bad cough, crackling lungs when l breathed, tight chest, body aches everywhere, a bad headache, high temp and very bad brain fog. I just stayed mostly in bed for a couple of weeks and it went away.

I mostly recovered but maybe after 7 or 8 weeks I was still coughing a bit and I didn’t feel myself.

The problem is that I genuinely haven’t felt right since and it’s now way too long ago to still be unwell.

I’m too lacking in energy and I get short of breath if I walk even up a steep hill and my joints are getting sore a lot - knees and back.

I was always somewhat prone to back pain but this is getting ridiculous. I’ve just spent several weeks with a stiff back, very bad back pain and my knees and feet have been in a similar state and it’s only slowly fading. It’s bad enough that I can’t get out of chairs or sit in chairs for any extended period and get stuck a lot.

If I walked to say a steep hill I would get so breathless that I need to sit down. I’m not talking just a bit breathless I literally can’t catch my breath at all and my heart rate goes fast enough to trigger smart watch warnings.

I’ve been putting it down to lack of access to the gym and my gp seems to be writing it off as laziness or that I have sunk into a slump due to lockdown but it isn’t accurate.

Is anyone else experiencing anything like this ?

Not to that extent. Myself, partner and son all had symptoms in February 2020. They both had the 7/8 week cough. It was actually almost exactly 8 weeks for both of them. I didn't have that. But I was the only one to develop breathing difficulties. I had a short productive cough afterwards and then thought I was back to normal. But I felt incredibly tired consistently for a few months and my lungs also gave me trouble. I wasn't able to run very far without becoming severely out of breath and lungs felt like they weren't working properly. I went to a lung specialist who said it had most likely been Covid and gave me some meds to clear some sediment from my lungs. I went back for a review but the lungs were still giving me issues. He put me on a 6 month course of Symbicort which definitely helped. I'm 15 months on now and lungs aren't 100%, but much better than they were. They also haven't really regressed at any point either.

Lumen

Sounds like you need to get yourself a better GP.

From my position of complete unqualification I would have thought that pulmonary function tests would be a good place to start.

Pandiculation

Quite possibly will change GP.

It just feels like the virus may have gone but it’s like I’ve been slowly, slowly recovering. I definitely don’t feel quite as bad as I did a few months ago but I’m probably 25% as fit as I was in early 2020.

What I feel like when I run or even walk briskly uphill is my chest gets tight, my heart pounds and I get very out of breath and start absolutely pouring sweat.

You’d think I had run a marathon when I’d only walked up a steep hill.

The bigger concern is the back, hip, knee, foot and shoulder aches and stiffness.

I’ll get to the bottom of it eventually!

Pandiculation

Pandiculation wrote: »

Quite possibly will change GP.

It just feels like the virus may have gone but it’s like I’ve been slowly, slowly recovering. I definitely don’t feel quite as bad as I did a few months ago but I’m probably 25% as fit as I was in early 2020.

What I feel like when I run or even walk briskly uphill is my chest gets tight, my heart pounds and I get very out of breath and start absolutely pouring sweat.

You’d think I had run a marathon when I’d only walked up a steep hill.

The bigger concern is the back, hip, knee, foot and shoulder aches and stiffness.

I’ll get to the bottom of it eventually!

Sounds like you may have recently entered your forties?








In all seriousness, hope you get to the bottom of it

MacDanger

I was listening to Luke O'Neill on the radio recently and he was saying that some studies are showing that receiving a covid vaccine helps with the symptoms of "Long Covid" - I think it was ~33% of patients in the study who had experienced long covid symptoms reported an improvement after vaccination. Perhaps not the most reliable of studies since the symptoms of long covid are not well defined and are likely to be subjective but maybe it provides some hope to those suffering from it nonetheless

Beasty

Threads merged

sunbabe08

my best friend who is 38 years old got covid back in august of last year. got told this morning that she is gonna need her heart valve replaced in the next five years and she has lung damage as well. she was perfectly healthy before all of this.

snnowwy

Does anyone have any good experiences with getting help from their GP?
I'm not looking forward to raising the issue with mine.

I've found a really interesting talk about what long haul is, from a doctor that was originally involved in understanding HIV back in the day. He really seems to have the measure of the condition.

It's quite technical so all I could take from it as a non doctor was to take Omega 3 (fish oil) and vitamin D.
I've been doing that while waiting for my appointment and it has helped with the headaches and numb arm but not cleared them up.

I think the value the video would be for your doctor but I'm not sure if it would be in a GP's wheel house.
Either way, it is being taken seriously by someone. I hope a similar understanding is emerging in the Irish medical system.

To that end, I'd be interested to know if anyone has been referred to a specialist by their GP and if so what kind?

joseph brand

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/115199493#Comment_115199493

JP Liz V1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/115198287#Comment_115198287

I have a friend on life support for long covid, praying and hoping for the best 😪

Is there a diagnostic test available for long covid?

Lumen

This is fairly recent and quite good, gives a sense of where the medical science is at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EmJtQZSk5E