Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning • Hacker News Board

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#71

Post by sebmellen » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

lambdaba wrote: post #56

mygoodaccount wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another one here (Woman, 24 y.o.). Contracted COVID, had a terrible three-weeks of infection. Nine months later, I am having weekly heart palpitations, I'm constantly fatigued and fogged in the mind and my lung capacity is half what it used to be - I now require an inhaler to go on my runs. I know several women my age experiencing far worse. Long COVID should not be ignored.

I hope this is taken the right way, but have you tried "vitamins" (broadly speaking)? Some I have seen with specific effects: Niacin, Black Seed Oil (Nigella Sativa), Magnesium megadoses, etc. etc. Don't dismiss these as "quack medicines", I've recovered from severe chronic illness thanks to some of these... I could expand if people ask, but really it's quite easy, especially for the HN crowd, to level-up rapidly on…

I am not sure what I think of your comment, but I think it at least deserves discussion.

I have used said supplements before. In fact, I have a close friend who is very enamored with supplements and has about 50 different pill bottles in his medicine drawer.

Out of curiosity, I once spent two weeks taking about 25 pills a day at his recommendation, and I'm afraid they did not do very much for me — at least that I could noticeably discern.

The only supplement/herbal medicine I've had success with is St. Johns Wort, but I've been strongly discouraged from using it by a psychiatrist who emphatically emphasized that an SSRI is a much safer and more controllable way to achieve the same effects if need be.

Magnesium deficiency is relatively common, though I wonder if that isn't more of a dietary issue.

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#72

Post by andy_ppp » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

DeRock wrote: post #36

ElViajero wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got CoVid in Osaka at the beginning of November 2019. The symptoms lasted around 5 months. I got it again in May 2021 and this time I was fully recovered in 3 weeks. I got vaccinated, even during the second infection I felt extremely tired and slightly confused, I want to minimize as much as possible the risk of repeating again. update: For all the down-votes. Time will say. But "A new study shows that first cases…

> I got CoVid in Osaka at the beginning of November 2019. Impossible, cases did not appear in Wuhan until mid-late November. You must have had some other flu/virus.

I don’t think it’s impossible, unlikely given current information. Of course that information can change…

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#73

Post by deregulateMed » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #49

When my first daughter was born in 2018, I had a respiratory infection. It lasted three months before I went in to the doctor. I hesitated to seek medical advice because it was clearly viral. But the cough was so bad it was causing the newborn to wake up. The doctor (at a walk-in clinic) told me viral respiratory infections can last months and there's nothing you can do. Just wait. HE gave me some pills to stop the c…

Physicians are not scientists. They repeat what was taught in their craft.

If their professors and coworkers never mentioned this, they don't know.

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#74

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

DeRock wrote: post #36

ElViajero wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got CoVid in Osaka at the beginning of November 2019. The symptoms lasted around 5 months. I got it again in May 2021 and this time I was fully recovered in 3 weeks. I got vaccinated, even during the second infection I felt extremely tired and slightly confused, I want to minimize as much as possible the risk of repeating again. update: For all the down-votes. Time will say. But "A new study shows that first cases…

> I got CoVid in Osaka at the beginning of November 2019. Impossible, cases did not appear in Wuhan until mid-late November. You must have had some other flu/virus.

[deleted]

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#75

Post by TaupeRanger » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #55

bb2018 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder if this is proportional to your symptoms/proportional to other ailments. For instance, is someone with Covid (who was on the verge of needing oxygen) more likely to have long term symptoms than someone the same age who got the flu/pneumonia (and was also on the verge of needing oxygen). In other words - is there something unique about Covid? Or is that any disease that sets you back has serious long-term…

For me varicella-zoster was the causative agent. I had a lot of trouble being taken seriously by friends/some medical staff after I said that I had serious issues after a bad infection with it, because of most people believe it to be a relatively benign disease. I think it's the case that most viruses will cause chronic disease in a small subset of people. > “If Covid didn’t cause chronic symptoms to occur in some pe…

It's frustrating but it's not a blind spot - we simply have no way to help these patients. You have brain fog and occasionally your heart feels like it's beating out of your chest for no discernable reason? Sorry, there's nothing we can do...try exercising and getting good sleep, we guess?

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#76

Post by spidersouris » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #49

When my first daughter was born in 2018, I had a respiratory infection. It lasted three months before I went in to the doctor. I hesitated to seek medical advice because it was clearly viral. But the cough was so bad it was causing the newborn to wake up. The doctor (at a walk-in clinic) told me viral respiratory infections can last months and there's nothing you can do. Just wait. HE gave me some pills to stop the c…

Interestingly I had a similar experience three years ago as well. I would cough non-stop and no medication was of any help. It lasted three months and then slowly disappeared. The weeks after I still had some respiratory problems (whistling when breathing), but nothing too annoying compared to the cough. Without joking, this was far from being an agreeable period and it impacted my studies quite a lot as coughing all day made me very tired and I was unable to study properly. Doctors never found what had happened.

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#77

Post by guscost » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

elzbardico wrote: post #27

Self-reported symptoms. And now we will have the litany of hypochondriacs that didn't even got tested for SARS-COV-2 but swear they have some misterious long term viral syndrome that in the real world, if it really exists, is extremely rare. The trash that passes as science nowadays.....

Your comment was not the right tone, to put it mildly. On the other hand there is probably no way to bring up this possibility without being attacked.

For anyone curious, I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, and every case is different, but state of mind alone can almost certainly do real and serious damage:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09540261.2017.13...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447278/

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#78

Post by andy_ppp » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

ElViajero wrote: post #53

DeRock wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got CoVid in Osaka at the beginning of November 2019. Impossible, cases did not appear in Wuhan until mid-late November. You must have had some other flu/virus.

Maybe you are right and it was something else. But, it was very similar and the timing is quite close. I just feel to share it if it may help someone to build a timeline. And, as I have said in another comment, Osaka has many many Chinese visitors and I was in a very busy airport. I doubt that it took a lot of time to jump from China to other Asian countries.

Yes there’s a small chance of it being COVID then, was there an Osaka-Wuhan direct flight!

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#79

Post by amirhirsch » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

OzyM wrote: post #25

How likely are these numbers to be accurate? This Swiss study of 431 adults gives a 26% incidence of "Long Covid" at 6-8 months. But another study that I'm more familiar with that tracked 4,182 people (mostly from the U.K., U.S., and Sweden) says only 2.3% of participants reported symptoms past the three month point. [0] I feel like every time I look into this topic I find a new study with a wildly different estimate…

>>Symptoms were present in 385 (89%) participants at diagnosis and 81 (19%) were initially hospitalized.

The US hospitalization rate is (2,297,764 hospitalized / 33,604,986 tested positive) 6.8% so the study is a cohort of extra-sick folks.

Also consider the selection bias of those who want to tell the surveyor about it. I've been thinking about how to correct for this in cohort studies, like perhaps ask people if they are vegan.

Re: Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning

#80

Post by kamilafsar » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

Not “long Covid” but my sense of smelling/tasting is still not the same after 6+ months.

I had mild symptoms, but my sense of smelling and tasting were totally gone for a few weeks. After a few weeks it turned almost back to 80% only intense smells (like gasoline, garlic and diapers :shrug:) were filtered out. Since ~3 months these things stink intensely with an indescribable way… (I guess the diapers always did ;)) Additionally very neutral tasting stuff like cucumber and paprika stink too..

Curious to hear if anyone totally “recovered” from similar symptoms and if so, how they did it.

Edit: seems like loss of smell/taste like symptoms is also called “long covid”