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”

#231

Post by svnt » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

mft_ wrote: post #148

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…

> 1) The ages and BMI: > > The median age was 45 years (IQR 37–54) and median BMI was 29·8 kg/m2 Not sure what the problem is here? The age seems nicely representative without being too young (deal with COVID better) or too old (deal with COVID worse; and higher liklihood of comorbidities). The BMI is a little high, but then we know that larger people have a higher COVID risk, so maybe this makes sense? Either way, g…

The issue I mentioned in reply to another comment below is that metformin, the medication they were having success with, is more commonly used as a treatment for type 2 diabetes.

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

#232

Post by eggy » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

thenerdhead wrote: post #177

eggy wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not denying a phenomenon here, so the "Long Covid" moniker doesn't irk me, but I think you hear more "Long Covid" than "Long Flu" because of the lockdowns, masking, school shutdowns, and ongoing culture wars. I also believe the societal measures taken in reaction to Covid has caused a lot of mental anguish and illness that could be part of the "Long Covid" syndrome or phenomenon. Unless a very acute or severe infecti…

Here's more context as to why "long covid" became a term. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539940/

Thanks for that link. Very interesting. The role of social media in making patients an "epistemic authority" and reversing the normal arrow or flow from doctors and scientists. I like that "long haulers" came from a patient truck driver's cap!

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

#233

Post by fragmede » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

RugnirViking wrote: post #204

fragmede wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idiotic thing of it is, of course everyone lives "inside their head". It's where consciousness lies (unless you're an ancient Egyptian and believe it comes from the heart, which is "just" the muscle that pumps blood around, and isn't packed full of neurons). So it's a stupid statement to begin with. I live, as do you, and everyone else, "inside my head". I literally can't leave it. 24/7, I'm in my head even when…

> The problem then, is everybody who claims "it's all in your head", proclaims the problem solved, and walks off with their fingers in their ears, not listening to people suffering, not helping them "get out of their heads", not even trying to help get to that place of magical thinking that would fix everything. I think that a lot of this is reading into attitudes that arent really there. Doctors see a lot of people,…

There is plenty doctors can do about it. We have a vast array of medications that address "the head", from anti-psychotics to Zanax. They're the one with the MD, they're the one with the ability to prescribe medication, not to mention TMS and other therapies.

If someone had to get a limb amputated, we don't just throw them back out into the wild and say "have a good life!" We give them occupational therapists and caregivers to help them live their new life.

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

#234

Post by gerbilly » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

treprinum wrote: post #203

gerbilly wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting theory but I wouldn't be so sure. I've been through healing journeys where the websites suggested all sorts of deficiencies and supplements, but in the end I came to believe I just needed to slow down.

We know that COVID depletes NAD+ reserves and NAD+ is the main electron transport molecule in the body (second one is FAD+ in some cells in the brain). So if you suddenly run out of electron transporter, it would inhibit most of your systems, making you tired all the time, and the systems that are already operating near their maximal capacity will start failing. This might kick off a chain reaction that is later tran…

I can speak from experience having gone through a healing journey where the online sites promoted a single supplement as the cure.

I later felt that this focus on this 'replace lost nutrients' approach, while it might have had some merit in the acute phase, also kept some people in denial of the factors which led them to their health crises.

Any nutrient you take to excess will be downregulated by one of these thousands of processes shown here: https://external-preview.redd.it/Yepk20IXyppuST6erisGCPg716V...