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

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

#91

Post by jacquesm »

axiosgunnar wrote: post #30
jacquesm wrote: post #3

One of those cases here. Symptoms: suddenly out of energy, occasionally suddenly being unable to spell, even mild physical exercise leaves me floored (and I was pretty fit for my age prior to this). So, 17 months in: it's still not back to where it used to be but if you think of it in terms of trends instead of absolutes it is definitely still improving. The downs are less far down, the fog is lifting and the energy…

You mean your brain was starved of oxygen for some time? (while still enough to not faint) Interesting, could somebody more knowledgable say if this is possible? Wish you a swift recovery in any case!

I made one critical mistake: it hurt a lot to try to sleep so I tried to sleep on my back one night, and that cost me dearly: the active area of the lungs is not symmetrically divided between front and back, the back part has a larger active surface. Fluid then migrates from the front to the back pooling there leading to less gas exchange. I suspect that this was the lowest point and after that sleeping on my belly at least kept me safe. The really stupid thing: I knew this already (had double pneumonia when I was in my 20's).

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

#92

Post by ericd »

sebmellen wrote: post #71
lambdaba wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cou…

I'm no expert on any of this, but I think the theory is that many of these don't have a single strong directional effect like most single-compound pharmaceuticals do, but that if your body is short on something, and that's causing an issue, it can grab something from the cocktail of compounds, and that can help. If it's not, then it doesn't.

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

#93

Post by austincheney »

perlgeek wrote: post #69
jacquesm wrote: post #3

One of those cases here. Symptoms: suddenly out of energy, occasionally suddenly being unable to spell, even mild physical exercise leaves me floored (and I was pretty fit for my age prior to this). So, 17 months in: it's still not back to where it used to be but if you think of it in terms of trends instead of absolutes it is definitely still improving. The downs are less far down, the fog is lifting and the energy…

> I will always wonder if I had called them earlier if I could have avoided the worst of this Given the prevalence of Long Covid in asymptomatic cases, many people claim that the severity of the initial disease and the long-term symptoms are not really correlated. So it's likely that seeking emergency care wouldn't have changed anything. Wishing you the best of luck and a good/complete recovery!

Symptomatic or not if you carry the virus you should still pop hot on an antibody test. You would think.

I had a Covid positive coworker last year cough around me and directly work very closely with me immediately before taking sick time. I still continued to fail the antibody tests indicating either no viral contact or no immune response of any kind.

I don’t know if there is a correlation here but in a six month period last year I caught the common cold three times. The second of those times was a month before my coworker tested positive and the third time was a week after they tested positive.

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

#94

Post by shoto_io »

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…

Same here. Had a terrible, terrible flu (?) back in 2017. I was weak and couldn’t smell nor taste anything for months.

It took a long time before I was the old me.

Maybe it’s common with virus diseases and we have an attention bias now and it might be additionally more common with COVID.

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

#95

Post by ziml77 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #52
Retric wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 in 4 people are not Hypochondriacs. Medical research is used to the way people play up symptoms and this is well above the noise floor.

I don't know about 1 in 4 but it sure seems like there is a lot more of it than their used to be, just in my experience. Younger people living with constant worry about "health care" that I've only ever seen before among the elderly. When I was in my 20s the last thing I or any of my friends worried about was health care.

The worry isn't that their health is always bad. The worry is that if they do happen to have something happen, whether that be disease or injury, they won't be able to afford to go to the hospital or visit their doctor. And death isn't the only negative outcome from not getting medical attention, it could be permanent effects like constant pain or reduced physical ability.

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

#96

Post by jamroom »

iammisc wrote: post #41
manmal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try NAC? Maybe worth a shot - this paper is about „long EBV/mono“ which might have similar mechanisms: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29228057/ > These data support the idea that NAC could be considered as a treatment to alleviate chronic inflammatory pathologies, including post-viral disease

NAC is illegal in the USA now. Thank you FDA.

Are you talking about N-Acetyl Cysteine? Something like this?

https://www.swansonvitamins.com/swanson-premium-nac-n-acetyl...

When did it become illegal? I've used it before and was unaware of that.

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

#97

Post by wk_end »

mygoodaccount wrote: post #2

RESULTS: Symptoms were present in 385 (89%) participants at diagnosis and 81 (19%) were initially hospitalized. At six to eight months, 111 (26%) reported not having fully recovered. 233 (55%) participants reported symptoms of fatigue, 96 (25%) had at least grade 1 dyspnea 111 (26%) had DASS-21 scores indicating symptoms of depression. 170 (40%) participants reported at least one general practitioner visit related to…

A 20% hospitalization rate immediately throws their sample into question. Here in BC (Canada), for instance, the overall case hospitalization rate is 5% [0]. And, FWIW, in BC we performed far fewer tests per capita (around 0.6) [1] than, say, the US (~1.3) [2], suggesting that we missed cases at least as often as they did in the US (per the CDC, which estimated only ~1 in 4 COVID cases detected [3]). So a 20% hospitalization rate is beyond generous (likely by an order of magnitude), and it wouldn't be crazy to figure the same goes for the rest of their stats.

Add to that the lack of control, and the self-reported (and potentially psychosomatic) nature of symptoms...not to unreasonably diminish the severity of COVID or deny the reality of Long COVID or anything, but it's frustrating that people are going to read - or the media is going to report on - this uncritically and imagine catching COVID leaves you two coin flips away from permanent disability.

I suppose the damage has been long-since done, and with most of the west well on its way, blessedly, to being vaccinated it's moot anyway. It's just hard not to be sick of the hysteria.

[0] http://www.bccdc.ca/Health-Info-Site/Documents/COVID_sitrep/...

[1] https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-s...

[2] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_totaltests

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

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

#98

Post by lambdaba »

abz10 wrote: post #89
lambdaba wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Megadose B3 2000mg per day does seem to be commonly effective. The theory is NAD+. Gives me a headache so an aspirin is needed as well but was one of the first treatments that pulled me out of fatigue.

Thank you. Yes Niacin (vitamin B3) megadoses are seemingly very effective for a wide range of ailments.

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

#99

Post by mysterypie »

> enrolled 431 adults from the general population with SARS-CoV-2 infection

How do you control for people’s willingness to enter a study? If I had a mild case of Covid and no ongoing symptoms, I wouldn’t be too interested in participating in a study. But if I had serious ongoing symptoms, I’d be very interested. It’s a voluntary study, so how in the world do you control for that? If you can’t control for that, it skews the results to make long COVID seem much more common.

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

#100

Post by lambdaba »

ericd wrote: post #92
sebmellen wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cou…

I'm no expert on any of this, but I think the theory is that many of these don't have a single strong directional effect like most single-compound pharmaceuticals do, but that if your body is short on something, and that's causing an issue, it can grab something from the cocktail of compounds, and that can help. If it's not, then it doesn't.

Many of the recommendations are vitamins and minerals, that are common deficiencies (magnesium is a notorious one, because of soil depletion etc.). It's reasonable to suspect that recovery from an illness finds one in a nutrient-depleted state.
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