6 ms·

Does "long Covid" actually exist, can one get a blood test, scan or something like that done to have it diagnosed?

Isinlor 4y ago
Yes, there are clear biological markers related to reported symptoms of Long COVID. Increases in exhausted immune T cells and lower levels of cortisol. Also, patient reported outcomes alone are sufficient to identify Long COVID patients with ~90% accuracy. https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1557394192225157122 https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/15573941922251571... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.09.22278592v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.09.22278592v...
- timr 4y ago
  Take this paper with a huge grain of salt. They went on a fishing expedition, then pointed an ML model at the data and reported some clusters. This is...questionable methodology. ML models will find a way to draw a discriminatory boundary for almost any classification problem. On the other hand, there was this paper [1][2] from the NIH, which was a well-controlled, pre-registered cohort study, did pretty much every clinical test imaginable (about 150 different measurements per person), and found no measurable differences between "long covid" people and controls. This is a much better study, and rebuts the claim. [1] https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/98885?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2022-05-23&eun=g1662251d0r https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/98885... [2] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4905 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4905
  - belltaco 4y ago
    People with Long COVID May Still Have Spike Proteins in Their Blood https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-with-long-covid-may-still-have-spike-proteins-in-their-blood1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-with-long-...
    - timr 4y ago
      Let's be 100% clear: this is all speculation. I take no side on any of it, except to say that the evidence is bad, and what little good evidence there is doesn't support the hyperbolic claims of prevalence, nor does it support the claims of any particular mechanism or theory of what "long covid" is (if anything at all).
SoftTalker 4y ago
I'm pretty convinced it's not a thing, or at least it's not COVID-specific. People are attributing every ache, pain, sniffle, fatigue, and other symptom to "long covid" when they are more likely the random things we all experience from time to time, or they are among the people who have long recoveries from severe respiratory virus infections.
- vermooten 4y ago
  Do you have any data to back this opinion up?
  - MontyCarloHall 4y ago
    Belief in having had COVID is more strongly associated with long COVID symptoms than actually having had COVID, as confirmed by antibody tests: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2787741 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/27877...
    - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
      Does the vaccine cause long COVID in some people? Does people faking having long covid mean that no one has long COVID? Can people have these symptoms from another disorder like ME/CFS for EBV infection?
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        Those are questions for you to research. The person you were replying to just asked for a piece of evidence and was offered one, they aren't the spokesperson for the anti-psychosomatic illness society. When you find the answers, you tell us.
        FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        Those are questions you should’ve considered before making your previous statement. I was just helping you think.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
The federal reserve believes it exists and is a big enough threat to the labor force (and economy) of the nation that we need take action. They released this paper a few weeks ago: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/long-covid-cognitive-impairment-and-the-stalled-decline-in-disability-rates-20220805.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/long... It seems pretty serious and real when the real money and power institutions in the country are getting concerned.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > It seems pretty serious and real when the real money and power institutions in the country are getting concerned. Beware this sort of reasoning, especially after Havana Syndrome.
- ren_engineer 4y ago
  >It seems pretty serious and real when the real money and power institutions in the country are getting concerned. or it's a convenient scapegoat to cover for their mismanagement of the economy as we deal with massive inflation and, by most common definitions, a recession
  - qbasic_forever 4y ago
    They're looking at the percent of people who have dropped out of the workforce for disability. It was steadily decreasing up until the pandemic and has now leveled out and might be increasing. That's bad at a macro level. Less people working, less output from the economy years from now. They weren't looking at the GDP right now or other recession indicators.
grapeskin 4y ago
My blood pressure increased by 50% since getting covid 6 months ago and hasn’t come down since. It’s been stable all my life and shot up in the span of a month.
incomingpain 4y ago
If someone lives an unhealthy life and is regularly sick. Then they get covid and they recover. Yet symptoms continue mainly because they got sick with something else. Then it's long covid? Long covid should be trivial to prove by analyzing the antivaxxer crowd. What percentage of the antivaxxer crowd have long covid? Is it 0%?
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  No. Anecdotally, a lot of the people I know with long COVID were robustly healthy pre-COVID. One dude swam a mile every day, no drugs, no drink, no smoking, normal blood pressure. Now has continuous brain fog and can’t walk up stairs without wheezing. Speculating about the antivax crowd is unhelpful. Many of them died. Some of them are lying and did get vaxxed.

Yes, there are clear biological markers related to reported symptoms of Long COVID. Increases in exhausted immune T cells and lower levels of cortisol. Also, patient reported outcomes alone are sufficient to identify Long COVID patients with ~90% accuracy. https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1557394192225157122 https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/15573941922251571... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.09.22278592v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.09.22278592v...

timr 4y ago
Take this paper with a huge grain of salt. They went on a fishing expedition, then pointed an ML model at the data and reported some clusters. This is...questionable methodology. ML models will find a way to draw a discriminatory boundary for almost any classification problem. On the other hand, there was this paper [1][2] from the NIH, which was a well-controlled, pre-registered cohort study, did pretty much every clinical test imaginable (about 150 different measurements per person), and found no measurable differences between "long covid" people and controls. This is a much better study, and rebuts the claim. [1] https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/98885?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2022-05-23&eun=g1662251d0r https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/98885... [2] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4905 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4905
- belltaco 4y ago
  People with Long COVID May Still Have Spike Proteins in Their Blood https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-with-long-covid-may-still-have-spike-proteins-in-their-blood1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-with-long-...
  - timr 4y ago
    Let's be 100% clear: this is all speculation. I take no side on any of it, except to say that the evidence is bad, and what little good evidence there is doesn't support the hyperbolic claims of prevalence, nor does it support the claims of any particular mechanism or theory of what "long covid" is (if anything at all).

SoftTalker 4y ago

I'm pretty convinced it's not a thing, or at least it's not COVID-specific. People are attributing every ache, pain, sniffle, fatigue, and other symptom to "long covid" when they are more likely the random things we all experience from time to time, or they are among the people who have long recoveries from severe respiratory virus infections.

vermooten 4y ago
Do you have any data to back this opinion up?
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  Belief in having had COVID is more strongly associated with long COVID symptoms than actually having had COVID, as confirmed by antibody tests: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2787741 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/27877...
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    Does the vaccine cause long COVID in some people? Does people faking having long covid mean that no one has long COVID? Can people have these symptoms from another disorder like ME/CFS for EBV infection?
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Those are questions for you to research. The person you were replying to just asked for a piece of evidence and was offered one, they aren't the spokesperson for the anti-psychosomatic illness society. When you find the answers, you tell us.
      - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        Those are questions you should’ve considered before making your previous statement. I was just helping you think.

qbasic_forever 4y ago

The federal reserve believes it exists and is a big enough threat to the labor force (and economy) of the nation that we need take action. They released this paper a few weeks ago: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/long-covid-cognitive-impairment-and-the-stalled-decline-in-disability-rates-20220805.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/long... It seems pretty serious and real when the real money and power institutions in the country are getting concerned.

pessimizer 4y ago
> It seems pretty serious and real when the real money and power institutions in the country are getting concerned. Beware this sort of reasoning, especially after Havana Syndrome.
ren_engineer 4y ago
>It seems pretty serious and real when the real money and power institutions in the country are getting concerned. or it's a convenient scapegoat to cover for their mismanagement of the economy as we deal with massive inflation and, by most common definitions, a recession
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  They're looking at the percent of people who have dropped out of the workforce for disability. It was steadily decreasing up until the pandemic and has now leveled out and might be increasing. That's bad at a macro level. Less people working, less output from the economy years from now. They weren't looking at the GDP right now or other recession indicators.

grapeskin 4y ago

My blood pressure increased by 50% since getting covid 6 months ago and hasn’t come down since. It’s been stable all my life and shot up in the span of a month.

incomingpain 4y ago

If someone lives an unhealthy life and is regularly sick. Then they get covid and they recover. Yet symptoms continue mainly because they got sick with something else. Then it's long covid? Long covid should be trivial to prove by analyzing the antivaxxer crowd. What percentage of the antivaxxer crowd have long covid? Is it 0%?

KerrAvon 4y ago
No. Anecdotally, a lot of the people I know with long COVID were robustly healthy pre-COVID. One dude swam a mile every day, no drugs, no drink, no smoking, normal blood pressure. Now has continuous brain fog and can’t walk up stairs without wheezing. Speculating about the antivax crowd is unhelpful. Many of them died. Some of them are lying and did get vaxxed.