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”

#151

Post by mikeyouse » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

noodlenotes wrote: post #29

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intervention is Metformin during Covid onset?

I had the same question. Apparently people who had already been taking Metformin for diabetes were at lower risk of severe Covid [1], which explains why Metformin is being studied. Looks like the same authors found that Metformin as a treatment after Covid diagnosis did not significantly reduce the the risk of hospitalization or death, even though it does reduce incidence of long Covid. [1] https://www.covid19treatme…

Yep - the long Covid endpoint was a secondary one that was added to the trial once people realized that might be an issue. The original trial was to see whether administering metformin / fluvoxamine / ivermectin would have any impact on disease severity.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04510194?term=NCT0451019...

Spoiler: "None of the three medications that were evaluated prevented the occurrence of hypoxemia, an emergency department visit, hospitalization, or death associated with Covid-19." [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36070710/]

But they already had this population enrolled when Long Covid started becoming an issue, so they extended the study to see what impact the same 3 drugs would have on incidence of long covid.

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

#152

Post by w______roy » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:59 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…

Definitely I think the psychological aspect plays a key role. I have not kept up with the Covid-19 literature in the last year and a half, but I recall many women reporting that it disrupted their cycle. In fact, my partner contracted Covid-19 and had an altered period for a few months and developed acne for the first time in their life. So it would seem hormones are being messed with, which can really mess with your emotions/mental state and like you say, could jumpstart a vicious cycle.

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

#153

Post by unsupp0rted » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:01 PM UTC

fknorangesite wrote: post #86

unsupp0rted wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk from being vaccinated against covid isn't "you feel like shit for a day". That's not a worry for most people. Is injecting a person with mRNA that makes them produce a particularly nasty spike protein zero risk? No. Is this spike protein one of those? Does it end up where it shouldn't? In 2023 that information is not available. Not true or false, but simply unavailable.

> zero risk? That wasn't the question. The question was whether it's more risky than COVID.

Is injecting people with mRNA via lipid nanoparticles to prompt their bodies to produce Covid spike protein less risky than Covid?

I don't think in 2023 that question is answerable. It's not a "yes" or "no" right now, although I've erred on the side of "yes" until proven otherwise.

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

#154

Post by treprinum » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:03 PM UTC

candiddevmike wrote: post #149

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…

Good luck unpacking all of that and coming off of it. A few of those things you probably shouldn't be on (daily aspirin), a lot of it you shouldn't stay on (all of the *ase, combined with aspirin is a huge bleed risk), and most of it has no evidence around it on examine. I think the exercise helped more than your cocktail of woo.

That's where I think you are wrong, read my earlier comment here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36862855#36865016

COVID seems to be an endothelial illness, i.e. preventing blood from delivering nutrients and oxygen to cells. Moreover, spike protein seems to act as iron transport inhibitor hepcidin meaning you might end up with a lot of iron outside cells with cells getting into functional anemia. -ases + 100mg aspirin were about trying to break down "microclots" for which I didn't have a direct evidence as no lab was willing to do the test but only indirect evidence from some Australian medical doctor that only started recovering when adding -ases + aspirin + endothelial stuff to his mix.

See:

https://xdrx.substack.com/p/how-i-recovered-from-long-covid-...

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

#155

Post by gadders » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #127

300bps wrote: post #19

What are the clinically significant differences between long covid and things like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome that have been around for quite a while? I don't appear to be the only one asking these questions. https://www.jwatch.org/na56219/2023/06/15/long-covid-and-chr... https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/long-covid-really... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10117846/

They're very similar and if you work in these fields you wink wink know what it means that the disease profiles are so similar.

Examining Association of Personality Characteristics and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Post-COVID Syndrome

"Conclusions: Our study shows higher levels of neuroticism in patients with post-COVID syndrome. "

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9819212/

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

#156

Post by treprinum » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

throwuwu wrote: post #142

treprinum wrote: post #57

I spent two years in bed, sometimes sleeping 16 hours a day and feeling like passing out just from walking 100m. All my tests were fine, all doctors thought it's just "anxiety" and basically ignored me until I had what looked like a stroke when they started taking it slightly more seriously. However, given all the tests were OK I went in circles from one doctor to another when I had better days, or being completely b…

> started slowly doing daily rowing machine workouts and within 1 month I was 1000x better. If your cardio capacity drops enough you get all the same symptoms as long covid. This probably happened to a lot of people from being less active over the pandemic or from getting covid or both.

I managed to bike a year earlier up to 40 miles at a time, but the effect was not lasting, i.e. I had a massive debilitating regression regardless of my will and pain bearing abilities. Only this time as I added so many supplements covering many bases I started experiencing lasting improvement with no major regressions. I also do much less cardio than a 40 mile bike ride, just 30 minutes a day on a rowing machine.

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

#157

Post by Thissitesucks9 » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

treprinum wrote: post #57

I spent two years in bed, sometimes sleeping 16 hours a day and feeling like passing out just from walking 100m. All my tests were fine, all doctors thought it's just "anxiety" and basically ignored me until I had what looked like a stroke when they started taking it slightly more seriously. However, given all the tests were OK I went in circles from one doctor to another when I had better days, or being completely b…

[flagged]

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

#158

Post by civilitty » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:09 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…

I don't think it's psychosomatic because it mirrors other physical injuries in weight training.

There is a threshold beyond which an injury becomes too severe and requires proper rest, an immobilizer, and physical therapy. It requires a little bit of experience to identify those injuries but below that threshold it's better to soldier through the pain with lighter intensity exercise that works the injured muscles.

A safe example is working through delayed onset muscle soreness.

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

#159

Post by mft_ » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #136

svnt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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

I've read (and heard first-hand) similar approaches by people with a (sometimes hidden) agenda to push. There's a lot of apparently "scientific" stuff out there, written confidently by people who ultimately aren't qualified, which is lapped up by those deep into the confirmation bias of whatever is topic is.

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

#160

Post by Izkata » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

Nanana909 wrote: post #126

rjsw wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should talk about long flu, you can have post-viral fatigue after it, the only difference with COVID is the duration.

Wasn’t COVID a virus? So it seems like we already have a word to describe this? post-viral fatigue

Exactly, it's the exact same thing under a new branding. Because of that new branding, most people seem to think it's new and unique when it really isn't.