The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable” • Hacker News Board

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#131

Post by treprinum » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

AnonCoward42 wrote: post #125

w______roy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate about physical exercise—I had debilitating long covid symptoms for about six months with no end in sight. Could not work out, had to plan climbing stairs around my schedule so I'd have 20 minutes after to recover. Until I was forced to go on a business trip to Europe for two weeks where I was walking 20-30,000 steps a day and carrying luggage everywhere. Afterwards I felt 80-90% better, it was crazy. Sti…

This is actually a good point. Not necessarily true for everyone, but it can be caused by avoiding physical exercise too much after being sick for weeks. It mimics/triggers depression and you feel sick/bad because of that. Had that pre-2019, so it sounds very familiar. I felt sick for months and when I had to ignore it, it went relatively quickly away (in a few days really). Some might call this psychosomatic, but I…

With LC it's difficult when you get POTS, i.e. my resting HR was 60 and the moment I stood up it shot to over 150, making me dizzy and super unwell. Rowing machine and electrolytes helped quickly though. Also, post-exertional malaise (PEM) is real, when I overdid it with sport on my good days, I paid by a week in bed unable to move. Pycnogenol/OPC turned out to be a great help with that.

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#132

Post by cjbgkagh » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

Nanana909 wrote: post #116

cjbgkagh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what LongCovid implies, that’s possibly referring to persistent spike proteins but that a separate thing. LongCovid specifically refers to post covid sequelae, as in not a chronic infection but the after effects from an acute infection. Viral impairments were called ME/CFS, the main difference now is that such a large number of people got it at one time which is making it more difficult to ignore.

99.999% of the population, including those who claim they have long COVID, do not know the words “persistent spike proteins” or “post COVID sequelae”. Therefore I assert you are incorrect, “long COVID” implies a “long case of COVID”. Similar to how no one would interpret “long marriage” to mean the after-effects of marriage. P.S. no I will not cite a source for the statistic nor will I cite one for the sky being blue…

Not sure what to say other than that you are flagrantly wrong.

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#133

Post by pfannkuchen » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #78

pfannkuchen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that mRNA based interventions have never before been deployed and as an individual it’s sensible to be cautious about using them until there is long term safety data?

We don't have long term safety data on any covid variant either...

No, but we do have an enormous amount of data on viruses in general. “The unknown” is limited to the unique attributes of a specific virus, and any common attributes across viruses in general or related-and-well-studied are low risk for producing unexpected long term effects. For mRNA interventions on the other hand, “the unknown” covers the entire mechanism.

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#134

Post by bigbillheck » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

Nanana909 wrote: post #80

retrac wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot comprehend a position of total long COVID denial, though I have encountered it online. Every virus you can think of that causes acute illness, can cause long term or even permanent damage. Sometimes rarely, sometimes often. Even the mildest common cold viruses, can, in very rare cases, be severe enough to cause pneumonia which causes scarring which leads to permanent loss of lung function. Hepatitis A is usu…

> For COVID to cause severe illness in a few % -- enough to kill in rare cases -- but to not cause permanent lung or heart or kidney damage etc. in some significant percent who got very sick is implausible, even incoherent with all other theories about how viral diseases cause disease. So then why do we never talk about long flu? Long meningitis? I don’t think people are in disbelief COVID can cause long term damage…

> So then why do we never talk about long flu?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2826837/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34694344/

> Long meningitis?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27105658/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01634...

Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7587542/

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#135

Post by treprinum » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

gerbilly wrote: post #124

treprinum wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was very different; prior to that I used to do 1-2h of strong cardio or lifting activity a day, was studying at multiple universities and worked multiple consulting gigs. This was like being hit by a train suddenly, going from hero to zero. I've noticed that positive thoughts helped but I attribute it to brain being low on processing power and negative thoughts taking more processing power/energy, causing even m…

> This was very different; prior to that I used to do 1-2h of strong cardio or lifting activity a day, was studying at multiple universities and worked multiple consulting gigs. I'm going to suggest that with this intense pace this might have happened one way or another. Take it from someone who has been there. When we push too hard for too long, and ignore our bodies and minds pleas for rest, at some point the body…

My theory is that as COVID depletes a month-worth of NAD+ in like 3 days, it leads to energetic deficit throughout the body, and the weakest links start failing first. So I assume I had some predisposition coming from my intense lifestyle and COVID just initiated the domino effect. I wish I knew about NAD+ prior to that, I might have skipped it altogether if I resupplied it right away.

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#136

Post by mikeyouse » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

svnt wrote: post #25

mikeyouse wrote: post #3

There's a popular opinion I've seen on HN that "long Covid" isn't a real phenomenon but it's pretty easy to reject that out of hand. There have been several studies, including a recent quadruple blinded one (where participants, care providers, investigators and outcomes assessors are all blinded to treatment/control groups) that show some interventions have statistically significant benefits to treating it; https://w…

There are some major qualifiers to this study: 1) The ages and BMI: > The median age was 45 years (IQR 37–54) and median BMI was 29·8 kg/m2 2) The diagnosis of long COVID-19 was done by survey — this has been shown to be an unreliable method of assessing persistent symptoms of disease. This is in part because people will tell you they have symptoms if you give them a cause and ask. The diversity of the claimed presen…

This is partly what I was talking about. Just odd dismissals of actuals scientific evidence.

It's a "major qualifier" that this study looked at middle aged overweight people? Or that they relied on a survey to assess symptoms but then quadruple blinded everyone? They added the long-covid assessment as a secondary endpoint to a group they were studying since before "long Covid" was a phenomenon.

And then to dismiss the result because you apparently misread the CI for the hazard ratio? For those on metformin, it extends to 0.89 not to 0.99 -- and is centered at 0.59 with a P = 1.2%. You can obviosuly quibble about subgroup analysis but for the 3-day group, it's 0.37 [0.15 - 0.95]. That's a fairly strong result!

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#137

Post by treprinum » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

dunefox wrote: post #119

treprinum wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to carnivore 100% for a month when I started improving. I was taking mitochondrial supplements like megadosing B1/B2/B3/Niagen/NMN, CoQ10 + PQQ, L-carnitine, R ALA, pterostilbene. I took 1000-2000mg bovine lactoferrin with up to 120mg iron bisglycinate and 25-50mg benadryl for nights. I mixed my own AXA1125 (BCAA, Glutamine, NAC and Arginine + vitamin C) and took about 50g a day of that. I took endothelial…

Would have been interesting if you had logged your biodata with an Oura ring, or so. I'm planning on doing something like this to get out of a kind of fatigue and sleep problems. I also have a rowing machine, incidentally.

I only tracked data with my smartwatch, my resting HR was basically going down from over 100 to under 60 in 1 month. Oxygen level was 95-99% all the time, but I never got ScvO2/SvO2 measured in the hospital (some say LC folks have only 20-40% SvO2 which is ICU level).

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#138

Post by bigbillheck » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:44 PM UTC

Nanana909 wrote: post #116

cjbgkagh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what LongCovid implies, that’s possibly referring to persistent spike proteins but that a separate thing. LongCovid specifically refers to post covid sequelae, as in not a chronic infection but the after effects from an acute infection. Viral impairments were called ME/CFS, the main difference now is that such a large number of people got it at one time which is making it more difficult to ignore.

99.999% of the population, including those who claim they have long COVID, do not know the words “persistent spike proteins” or “post COVID sequelae”. Therefore I assert you are incorrect, “long COVID” implies a “long case of COVID”. Similar to how no one would interpret “long marriage” to mean the after-effects of marriage. P.S. no I will not cite a source for the statistic nor will I cite one for the sky being blue…

I thought we weren't supposed to do 'shallow dismissals' on this site.

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#139

Post by spondylosaurus » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:46 PM UTC

strken wrote: post #72

monero-xmr wrote: post #28

There is a lack of hard scientific evidence definitively proving this. However you may know in your bones that this is real, from lived experience or from people you know. Please keep that in mind when you dismiss other things that lack definitive scientific evidence. We as humans seem to pick and choose which currently unverified things to believe and which to dismiss.

I think it's less "this is bullshit" and more "this is receiving far more attention than long influenza or long any other infection". We've fixated on long COVID to a degree that might not be productive and which - if it has a psychosomatic component in some cases - might be causing more long COVID.

> "this is receiving far more attention than long influenza or long any other infection"

Yeah, because a loooot of people have caught COVID in the past three years, lol. There was a whole pandemic about it.

Re: The burden of Long Covid “so large as to be unfathomable”

#140

Post by mcastle » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:46 PM UTC

orhmeh09 wrote: post #76

ck2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has ended dozens if not hundreds of elite athlete careers but also Olympians. Newspapers and specialty websites are full of these stories over the past few years but the public is either willfully ignorant or feel like denial is some kind of superpower. Has nothing to do with lack of fitness, anyone can get it. One big risk factor though to be clear is not the ONLY risk factor is literally genetics so that much is…

This is true. Novak Djokovic just withdrew from competition in Toronto due to fatigue. Famously, he protested against vaccination. https://www.tennis.com/news/articles/novak-djokovic-withdraw...

Fatigue due to the 5 hour Wimbledon final he played about a week ago, not from long COVID.