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Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

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Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#151

Post by mardifoufs »

ridiskdkfjsl wrote: post #149
LorenPechtel wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say so much that we don't care to contain it, but that pandemic means it's sweeping over a population, endemic means it's simply always present in the population without major swings in prevalence. Impossible to contain because it's already everywhere.

‘impossible to’ doesn’t really fit into my idea of the HN crowd. It’s cost/benefit and leaders took the ‘keep the graph going up and to the right next quarter’ approach to the long term risks. Containment is of course possible, it would just take technology improvements for diagnostic tests and education and investment in air quality. The calculation is that saving the years of ill health aren’t worth disrupting the…

So it's possible, but not a single country in the world managed to do it, even with wide range of different political parties in power, alignment, economic systems, etc? Like if literally every single combination that we have of those things couldn't manage effective containment....Well I guess your claim is a bit unfalsifiable don't you think?

And the "chart goes" up is such a strawman, I'm sure there's no real life downside or long term risk to just shut down everything for (2) more weeks... but whatever. That's such a western mentality, that only comes with the privilege of not living in an economically ruined part of the world.

There's a reason why doomers and "zero COVID" proponents are usually in the vast majority white, privileged, urban residents. I'm sure some vague, very broad "long term risks" that we still haven't seen concretely outside of a tiny minority (even if hundreds of millions were infected) are more important than the actual, proven, repeated risks of "charts going down".

In a way there's an odd parallel with antivaxxers who love to claim that in just a little bit more we will see the long term risks that came with the vaccine lol

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#152

Post by abrookewood »

_ugfj wrote: post #64
abrookewood wrote: post #10

Recently read an article suggesting that we should drop the term Long Covid, as it implies that there is something unique about it, when the research seems to show that the impairment post-Covid is very similar to that from Influenza: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/15/long-covid-s...

You could read https://theconversation.com/why-scrapping-the-term-long-covi... which meets these claims head on and highlights why the research is faulty. The Guardian published https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/15/long-covid-sym... as well which is more truthful. And of course, if you had not relied on a politically motivated, faulty, non-peer reviewed study you would find the following problems caused by L…

Thanks for pointing those out. Note I don't really have an opinion either way, just reporting the study.

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#153

Post by galdosdi »

When I was younger I never understood the old saw about mathematicians doing their best work in their 20s, or other similar observations .... I thought it was strange, since being older means you had more time to get more experience.

Now after experiencing the pandemic... I suspect a small part of the reason for things like this maybe is they younger you are, the less chance you've had the misfortune to experience some infection or another that left you with some mild mental impairment -- including perhaps impairments so small that no individual would notice it in themselves, but in the statistical aggregate, it has an impact.

As far as knowledge and wisdom go, older is better. But raw intelligence or processing power, or most of all, the one that really seems to impact everything -- working set size! -- maybe every year is only ever one more chance to get worse, and never to get better?

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#154

Post by ChainOfFools »

sa-code wrote: post #85
EMM_386 wrote: post #77

I was affected by this "brain fog" after getting Covid, but I didn't put two and two together. I called my doctor's office to schedule an appointment and when the receptionist asked what the appointment was for, I simply said "brain fog". I had no other way to describe it. It was intense and disturbing. I often couldn't put cohererent thoughts together, I was constantly forgetting what I was doing, forgetting where I…

Not that this it's a good excuse, but it stressed doctors out when they are not able to diagnose something. So when all the tests and checks look good they are quick to dismiss the problems as psychosomatic as a way to cope with the stress of being unable to diagnose you. It's a dysregulation of the ANS/sympathetic nervous system which is likely caused by auto antibodies - so it's very much physiological and outside…

> physiological and outside the expertise of a psychiatrist

did you mean to say psychologist? In the US at least, psychiatry is a medical practice area. Writing Rx scrips requires pharmacological training, so you need to hold an MD amd pass medical boards etc. Not sure if DO route is even an option.

Psychology otoh can be practixed with a Psy.D (clinical focus) or Ph.D (research focus) no MD, residency involved.

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#155

Post by chx »

abrookewood wrote: post #152
_ugfj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could read https://theconversation.com/why-scrapping-the-term-long-covi... which meets these claims head on and highlights why the research is faulty. The Guardian published https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/15/long-covid-sym... as well which is more truthful. And of course, if you had not relied on a politically motivated, faulty, non-peer reviewed study you would find the following problems caused by L…

Thanks for pointing those out. Note I don't really have an opinion either way, just reporting the study.

The next thing you need to read is How the press manufactured consent for never-ending COVID reinfections https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...

and then stop spreading harmful propaganda. That's what you are doing, not "reporting a study", faugh!

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#156

Post by algorias »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #114
algorias wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no ongoing pandemic. There is now an en demic virus that's part of the regular rotation of pathogens that cause colds and flu, and covid doesn't seem particularly more dangerous than the rest (NB: influenza can be very nasty too! I'm not minimizing the harm of covid). The pandemic was a unique situation because the entire world population was immuno-naive to covid. This is no longer the case; we all get expo…

Are you saying influenza and common cold also break down the blood brain barrier? Because that is what the new news is that the OP is about.

No, I'm saying that they also have a comparable rate of post-viral syndrome, and a comparable rate of severe cases. It is not clear at all at this point if covid will be able to do this much damage to the next generation (whose first exposure was as babies). Maybe this blood brain barrier thing is something that all viruses do if the immune system doesn't respond appropriately. I genuinely don't know.

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#157

Post by algorias »

sa-code wrote: post #87
algorias wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calming the sympathicus is one of the very few things that somewhat works for me. It helps to relax and get good sleep. One technique I'll add to the list: skin massage (literally pinching it with your fingers) around the sympathicus area: along the lower ribs, up the sternum and into a V-shape around the neck (roughly following the collarbones). The nerve endings on the skin literally stimulate the sympathetic syste…

That's really interesting. Did you learn about this somewhere or was it more by yourself?

I learned about it from a physical therapist. This seems to be old knowledge that was somewhat widespread (in the german-speaking world at least), then discredited in modernity as medicine was looking to be more evidence-based, and is now making a slow comeback.

NB: I have nothing against evidence-based medicine. But our bodies are much weirder than the high modernists were willing to admit.

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#158

Post by thenerdhead »

fragmede wrote: post #137
thenerdhead wrote: post #94

Long COVID is horrible. I have had it for three years. I follow the research quite closely and wrote a book about what we know about it, how it affects someone and their health, and some observations on how absurd of a condition it is from the lens of someone struggling with it. Here’s a free digital copy if anyone wants to read it: https://jondouglas.dev/longhaul

Thank you. I have it too and having something to reference is invaluable.

Ugh, so sorry to hear that. I'm an email away if you ever want to chat about it.

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#159

Post by wahnfrieden »

algorias wrote: post #156
wahnfrieden wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying influenza and common cold also break down the blood brain barrier? Because that is what the new news is that the OP is about.

No, I'm saying that they also have a comparable rate of post-viral syndrome, and a comparable rate of severe cases. It is not clear at all at this point if covid will be able to do this much damage to the next generation (whose first exposure was as babies). Maybe this blood brain barrier thing is something that all viruses do if the immune system doesn't respond appropriately. I genuinely don't know.

No, this breakdown of the blood brain barrier is unique, which makes it curious to dismiss as "not more dangerous than the rest"

Re: Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

#160

Post by LorenPechtel »

ridiskdkfjsl wrote: post #149
LorenPechtel wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say so much that we don't care to contain it, but that pandemic means it's sweeping over a population, endemic means it's simply always present in the population without major swings in prevalence. Impossible to contain because it's already everywhere.

‘impossible to’ doesn’t really fit into my idea of the HN crowd. It’s cost/benefit and leaders took the ‘keep the graph going up and to the right next quarter’ approach to the long term risks. Containment is of course possible, it would just take technology improvements for diagnostic tests and education and investment in air quality. The calculation is that saving the years of ill health aren’t worth disrupting the…

Human compliance isn't perfect. Without China-level enforcement all lockdowns were leaky. There's a point of can't.

Furthermore, Covid has animal hosts. Even if the would could cooperate on completely stamping it out it would soon jump back from some animal. We simply have to live with it, take what precautions you want in your personal life but there's no point in society at large doing so.

(I do, however, think that medical facilities should be mask-required. But I think they should have been pre-pandemic, also.)

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