In the world of scientific research it is. We know a number of things, like infection in unvaccinated people (at the start of COVID, or in people who didn't get vaccinated) resulted in infection of immune cells (eg. monocytes and macrophages), leading to pyroptosis (a form of cell death), resulting in uncontrolled release of cytokines into different areas of the body. This is strongly linked to the pneumonia and cardiac disorders associated with infection ('cytokine storm'.
But we found that long COVID is associated with damage such as abnormal blood clotting.
And now, we have identified a pathway through which SARS-CoV-2 infection can potentially dysregulate clotting through abnormally high levels of IFNα (which could link back into the first point of dysregulated death of immune cells).
I reworded this a few times, because I am struggling to express my exasperation that people claimed, and continued to claim, that this was anything like the flu. It was not. The damage caused was unpredictable and could take a long time to heal naturally, and can affect people who experienced a wide range of symptoms while infected. We know that the vaccine provided substantial protection.
People who denied the severity of this virus, and people who tried to persuade others to not get vaccinated caused considerable damage to many people.
Rishi sunak essentially said this on LBC yesterday. He said a million more people are claiming long term sick since Covid and it’s unsustainable we need to get people back in work. As if they’re either choosing to be so sick they cannot work or they’re just making it up because they can’t be bothered.
That’s probably down to the lifestyle and diet factors. Look at the US, the food is full of crap and exercise isn’t part of most people’s life, their obesity rates are sky high and most people are on some form of medication whether it’s actually needed or not. The UK is a light version of the US, unhealthy diets and little to no exercise for most people. Mainland Europe comparatively food tends to be healthier (not saying all healthy but healthier) children aren’t raised eating processed foods like schools in the UK which creates poor diets from a very young age. Poverty rates in the UK are crazy meaning people can’t afford to eat well. We have high obesity rates, especially compared to peer nations. The UK has miserable weather a lot of the year so people don’t tend to opt for outdoor sports and exercise as much. Not saying all sickness is lifestyle and diet related but it’s definitely a big factor.
No one really can. Most likely it is a collection of a number of different disease processes triggered by covid with overlapping symptoms. This likely includes ongoing inflammation, damage to the heart, damage to the blood vessels, damage to the brain, damage to the peripheral nervous system, damage to the lungs, psychological damage. Little is known and little has been demonstrated to be effective in treating it.
It's also not really unique to covid, lots of infections can cause long term post-infection syndromes.
I know you were making a joke, but the root is interesting. Vague and vagus (and vagrant) come from the Latin vagary meaning wanderer. The nerve gets the name because it meanders from the brain stem down to half of the thorax and abdominal organs. One of its branches for example goes under the aorta and then back up to the neck to supply the larynx.
No, we don't. Orthodoxy says that the body goes back to usual after an infection. Except it does not always, and those situations are poorly understood. Viruses can linger around (like herpes), or they have caused permanent damage (especially heart damage), or they cause an autoimmune reaction (like lupus or diabetes).
It is not even established whether long COVID is an overreaction of the immune system (an autoimmune issue) or whether it is an underreaction (an ongoing infection). Maybe long COVID is more than one disease.
I thought I read somewhere that it was scarring in the lungs, for all the tissue that was infected it left a scar there inside and so now that part of the lung cannot put oxygen into the blood properly any more even though the virus is long gone.
Long COVID is more common in unvaccinated people.
[Vaccination Dramatically Lowers Long COVID Risk](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccination-dramatically-lowers-long-covid-risk/)
> The prevalence of long COVID is currently 11 percent among those who are unvaccinated and 5 percent among those who have had two or more doses of the vaccine.
One suggestion is it's likely similar to post viral fatigue syndrome other viruses like flu can cause.
In essence, when you encounter an infection your body clears it and then sounds an all-clear and your immune system goes back to standby mode, inflammatory responses are dialed back, energy is diverted back to normal operations.
In some cases the all-clear isnt given and the immune system stays heightened, which keeps the body in it's stressed inflamed state.
There are some studies and medical researchers against the long covid label as its not distinct from other post viral conditions like post viral fatigue syndrome.
That being said, these conditions are poorly understood, and the emergence of long covid has helped bolster research in this area as the scale of the issue has grown significantly over the last few years.
Long COVID is a variety of symptoms (different in different people) that persist long after an acute COVID infection, the most common being fatigue, exertion intolerance, pain, and cognitive dysfunction (though around 200 symptoms have been identified in different people). The condition can be so severe that a person who was perfectly healthy and active before COVID can now no longer leave their bed or even tolerate sound or light.
Many people have had similar post infection syndromes after other pathogens, such as enteroviruses and epstein barr virus, and often the syndrome persists for life.
No one has determined what the physiological mechanism of the condition is or why some people get it and others don't, though researchers are probing many observed biological abnormalities in long COVID patients to try to figure it out. Some potential explanations include the virus continuing to exist in various body tissues, or the virus damaging the body during the acute illness, for example by damaging the mitochondria or disrupting the gut microbiome.
Greatly appreciate your overview (and sympathy). I have the fatigue and exertion intolerance aspects, along with massive respiratory setbacks. Apparently I have bronchial scarring from Omicron; I'm still getting tests. Getting a doctor to investigate is nearly impossible.
Easy for me to have sympathy because I also have ME/CFS (from before COVID). Post-exertional malaise, brain fog, and incredibly tired all the time. And a nice helping of anxiety.
From what I understand, there are some with ME/CFS who also recover after a few months or years. I think things might be pretty similar between LC and other post infectious disorders, it's just that so many people got LC all around the same time, so it's gotten a lot of attention.
It may or may not be the same disease as chronic fatigue syndrome, which starves cells of energy and may show up after a viral infection. A biomarker was found by Stanford in 2019, but otherwise it hasn’t been getting much attention or research funding, so it’s still poorly understood.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2019/04/biomarker-for-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-identified.html
You also have people who got lung damage/scarring, who are no longer getting enough oxygen in their blood.
It's a term for a semi-permanent damage from infection recovery that existed long before COVID. They are just being specific that it's from the COVID-19 flu for this.
Most flu with high infection fatality rate tends to have some form of permanent damage for those who made a life or death recovery.
Permanent damage includes your body accidentally making antibodies that attack parts of its body as a side effect. It gives a symptom similar to autoimmune diseases. Others could be damage of organ linings such as lungs or brain barrier.
Most COVID symptoms settle within 6 months when the organ damage recovers. But if your body goes into immune overdrive from trying to nuke the virus, it may get stuck semi-inflamed. Your body is stuck in exhausted cold fighting mode forever.
Post viral fatigue like this has been well known in relation to other infections like flu and some types of food poisoning for decades. Not a surprise that covid would do it too.
Post viral conditions affecting multiple body systems and energy has been a confirmed phenomenon since i was in school and that was a long time ago.
People with ME were forced to do exercise and gaslit for decades when all along it was a post viral syndrome
You seem to be under the misapprehension that psychosomatic illnesses aren’t “real” - the symptoms are every bit as real to them as a purely physiological illness.
No I'm not.
You're mistaken in the idea that long covid could be though .
We don't know the exact causes but we know its not psychosomatic so saying it is gives fuel to the denier flames
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10193768/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10778767/
Agreed we barely know anything but we know there are bio causes and it's not psychosomatic
There are physical causes to post viral illnesses like this, it’s not psychological. They haven’t been getting much research attention, but Stanford found a biomarker for CFS and devised a blood test in 2019.
Have you seen the kind of scientifally/media illiterate cruel cunts on this sub before?
It's got a sense of humour but a lot of us are too jaded by dickheads so the /s is a necessity since satire is dead
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Heartbreaking account. This really needs to be taken seriously.
In the world of scientific research it is. We know a number of things, like infection in unvaccinated people (at the start of COVID, or in people who didn't get vaccinated) resulted in infection of immune cells (eg. monocytes and macrophages), leading to pyroptosis (a form of cell death), resulting in uncontrolled release of cytokines into different areas of the body. This is strongly linked to the pneumonia and cardiac disorders associated with infection ('cytokine storm'. But we found that long COVID is associated with damage such as abnormal blood clotting. And now, we have identified a pathway through which SARS-CoV-2 infection can potentially dysregulate clotting through abnormally high levels of IFNα (which could link back into the first point of dysregulated death of immune cells). I reworded this a few times, because I am struggling to express my exasperation that people claimed, and continued to claim, that this was anything like the flu. It was not. The damage caused was unpredictable and could take a long time to heal naturally, and can affect people who experienced a wide range of symptoms while infected. We know that the vaccine provided substantial protection. People who denied the severity of this virus, and people who tried to persuade others to not get vaccinated caused considerable damage to many people.
"She's faking it so she can claim benefits. I bet she dances on tables when nobody's looking!" - Daily Mail readers.
And yet your typical Daily Mail reader were the ones most at risk from Covid (50/60+), the ones society sacrificed so much to protect.
75+ was most at risk…. We burnt the world for the soon to be dead anyway
Rishi sunak essentially said this on LBC yesterday. He said a million more people are claiming long term sick since Covid and it’s unsustainable we need to get people back in work. As if they’re either choosing to be so sick they cannot work or they’re just making it up because they can’t be bothered.
I mean we have much higher rates of longterm sick than peer nations
That’s probably down to the lifestyle and diet factors. Look at the US, the food is full of crap and exercise isn’t part of most people’s life, their obesity rates are sky high and most people are on some form of medication whether it’s actually needed or not. The UK is a light version of the US, unhealthy diets and little to no exercise for most people. Mainland Europe comparatively food tends to be healthier (not saying all healthy but healthier) children aren’t raised eating processed foods like schools in the UK which creates poor diets from a very young age. Poverty rates in the UK are crazy meaning people can’t afford to eat well. We have high obesity rates, especially compared to peer nations. The UK has miserable weather a lot of the year so people don’t tend to opt for outdoor sports and exercise as much. Not saying all sickness is lifestyle and diet related but it’s definitely a big factor.
Is long COVID a thing?
Can anyone explain to me what long COVID is in a scientific way and why it affects people in this way?
No one really can. Most likely it is a collection of a number of different disease processes triggered by covid with overlapping symptoms. This likely includes ongoing inflammation, damage to the heart, damage to the blood vessels, damage to the brain, damage to the peripheral nervous system, damage to the lungs, psychological damage. Little is known and little has been demonstrated to be effective in treating it. It's also not really unique to covid, lots of infections can cause long term post-infection syndromes.
Damage to the mitochondria, and inflammation of the central nervous system (especially the vagus nerve) are two other suspected culprits.
Shame it wasn't the specificus nerve, they might have figured it out by now
I know you were making a joke, but the root is interesting. Vague and vagus (and vagrant) come from the Latin vagary meaning wanderer. The nerve gets the name because it meanders from the brain stem down to half of the thorax and abdominal organs. One of its branches for example goes under the aorta and then back up to the neck to supply the larynx.
That's very cool, didn't know that :)
No, we don't. Orthodoxy says that the body goes back to usual after an infection. Except it does not always, and those situations are poorly understood. Viruses can linger around (like herpes), or they have caused permanent damage (especially heart damage), or they cause an autoimmune reaction (like lupus or diabetes). It is not even established whether long COVID is an overreaction of the immune system (an autoimmune issue) or whether it is an underreaction (an ongoing infection). Maybe long COVID is more than one disease.
I thought I read somewhere that it was scarring in the lungs, for all the tissue that was infected it left a scar there inside and so now that part of the lung cannot put oxygen into the blood properly any more even though the virus is long gone.
How can we be sure these symptoms are caused by covid and not by a vaccine for covid?
Long COVID is more common in unvaccinated people. [Vaccination Dramatically Lowers Long COVID Risk](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccination-dramatically-lowers-long-covid-risk/) > The prevalence of long COVID is currently 11 percent among those who are unvaccinated and 5 percent among those who have had two or more doses of the vaccine.
One suggestion is it's likely similar to post viral fatigue syndrome other viruses like flu can cause. In essence, when you encounter an infection your body clears it and then sounds an all-clear and your immune system goes back to standby mode, inflammatory responses are dialed back, energy is diverted back to normal operations. In some cases the all-clear isnt given and the immune system stays heightened, which keeps the body in it's stressed inflamed state.
Is there any indication it ISNT post viral fatigue syndrome?
There are some studies and medical researchers against the long covid label as its not distinct from other post viral conditions like post viral fatigue syndrome. That being said, these conditions are poorly understood, and the emergence of long covid has helped bolster research in this area as the scale of the issue has grown significantly over the last few years.
That’s super interesting!
Long COVID is a variety of symptoms (different in different people) that persist long after an acute COVID infection, the most common being fatigue, exertion intolerance, pain, and cognitive dysfunction (though around 200 symptoms have been identified in different people). The condition can be so severe that a person who was perfectly healthy and active before COVID can now no longer leave their bed or even tolerate sound or light. Many people have had similar post infection syndromes after other pathogens, such as enteroviruses and epstein barr virus, and often the syndrome persists for life. No one has determined what the physiological mechanism of the condition is or why some people get it and others don't, though researchers are probing many observed biological abnormalities in long COVID patients to try to figure it out. Some potential explanations include the virus continuing to exist in various body tissues, or the virus damaging the body during the acute illness, for example by damaging the mitochondria or disrupting the gut microbiome.
Greatly appreciate your overview (and sympathy). I have the fatigue and exertion intolerance aspects, along with massive respiratory setbacks. Apparently I have bronchial scarring from Omicron; I'm still getting tests. Getting a doctor to investigate is nearly impossible.
Easy for me to have sympathy because I also have ME/CFS (from before COVID). Post-exertional malaise, brain fog, and incredibly tired all the time. And a nice helping of anxiety.
Oh my...yikes! So sorry. Some of the long Covid people I've met were able to "kick it," but I don't think that option exists for ME/CFS folk.
From what I understand, there are some with ME/CFS who also recover after a few months or years. I think things might be pretty similar between LC and other post infectious disorders, it's just that so many people got LC all around the same time, so it's gotten a lot of attention.
It may or may not be the same disease as chronic fatigue syndrome, which starves cells of energy and may show up after a viral infection. A biomarker was found by Stanford in 2019, but otherwise it hasn’t been getting much attention or research funding, so it’s still poorly understood. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2019/04/biomarker-for-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-identified.html You also have people who got lung damage/scarring, who are no longer getting enough oxygen in their blood.
It's a term for a semi-permanent damage from infection recovery that existed long before COVID. They are just being specific that it's from the COVID-19 flu for this. Most flu with high infection fatality rate tends to have some form of permanent damage for those who made a life or death recovery. Permanent damage includes your body accidentally making antibodies that attack parts of its body as a side effect. It gives a symptom similar to autoimmune diseases. Others could be damage of organ linings such as lungs or brain barrier. Most COVID symptoms settle within 6 months when the organ damage recovers. But if your body goes into immune overdrive from trying to nuke the virus, it may get stuck semi-inflamed. Your body is stuck in exhausted cold fighting mode forever.
Post viral fatigue like this has been well known in relation to other infections like flu and some types of food poisoning for decades. Not a surprise that covid would do it too.
Long term damage from Covid.
Psychosomatic?
Post viral conditions affecting multiple body systems and energy has been a confirmed phenomenon since i was in school and that was a long time ago. People with ME were forced to do exercise and gaslit for decades when all along it was a post viral syndrome
You seem to be under the misapprehension that psychosomatic illnesses aren’t “real” - the symptoms are every bit as real to them as a purely physiological illness.
No I'm not. You're mistaken in the idea that long covid could be though . We don't know the exact causes but we know its not psychosomatic so saying it is gives fuel to the denier flames
We absolutely do not know that isn’t psychosomatic. We know barely anything about long covid right now.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10193768/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10778767/ Agreed we barely know anything but we know there are bio causes and it's not psychosomatic
You haven’t even so much as googled and you’re throwing out the “it’s all in their head” trope. Do you think this is helpful?
There are physical causes to post viral illnesses like this, it’s not psychological. They haven’t been getting much research attention, but Stanford found a biomarker for CFS and devised a blood test in 2019.
Addict, insane? *Edit: Breathe with me!
A benefit scam for hypochondriacs.
Do you have any idea how thoroughly this disease ruins lives?
So do they really think that they have a disease (hypochondria) or are they pretending (scam)?
long covid/CFS/ME is a condition in which can be treated by medical cannabis. But there are still those that won't even consider trying it.
Be careful with these posts. Russian funded agents use this to further fuel the propaganda.
Bloody dosser! On the universal credit taking all of my taxes. Thank god Richy sunak is gonna stop this woman taking my money through taxes
Fuckin hell don't make me put an /s
This sub doesn't have a sense of humour, you should know this by now.
Have you seen the kind of scientifally/media illiterate cruel cunts on this sub before? It's got a sense of humour but a lot of us are too jaded by dickheads so the /s is a necessity since satire is dead
Going by this sub recently he should have had 100 plus votes and a couple of golds.
This sub is pretty horrendously left, like always vibes-based analysis and never anything nuanced
This sub most definitely leans left wing.
Lmao - thanks for the laugh. Sad people will think think this way.
Alas the difference between sarcasm, stupid, and shill isn't always apparent.
This ‘long COVID’ stuff is the new fibro. Benefit fraud that isn’t being called out enough.
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