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A neurologist’s quest to solve Covid-related neurological disorders
- thaumaturgy 4y agoThere are already some comments here making implicit or explicit comparisons between "long covid" and "anxiety", "stress", or "depression". There's a better article about the pathology of covid-related "brain fog" here: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/09/long-covid-brain-fog-symptom-executive-function/671393/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/09/long-covi... > Of long COVID’s many possible symptoms, brain fog “is by far one of the most disabling and destructive,” Emma Ladds, a primary-care specialist from the University of Oxford, told me. It’s also among the most misunderstood. > Long-haulers with brain fog say that it’s like none of the things that people—including many medical professionals—jeeringly compare it to. It is more profound than the clouded thinking that accompanies hangovers, stress, or fatigue. ... It is not psychosomatic, and involves real changes to the structure and chemistry of the brain. It is not a mood disorder: “If anyone is saying that this is due to depression and anxiety, they have no basis for that, and data suggest it might be the other direction,” Joanna Hellmuth, a neurologist at UC San Francisco, told me. > And despite its nebulous name, brain fog is not an umbrella term for every possible mental problem. At its core, Hellmuth said, it is almost always a disorder of “executive function”—the set of mental abilities that includes focusing attention, holding information in mind, and blocking out distractions. These skills are so foundational that when they crumble, much of a person’s cognitive edifice collapses. Anything involving concentration, multitasking, and planning—that is, almost everything important—becomes absurdly arduous. Like, say, autism, covid-related "brain fog" will probably have a lot of people dubiously diagnosing themselves, but it is still a real disorder with an observable set of symptoms that are being taken quite seriously by medical researchers. I'd also remind people that it took several years of significant research resources around the world before HIV/AIDS became well understood once it spread into the western nations. Setting aside the obvious differences in severity, we've still got a brand new virus exhibiting many different behaviors in many people, and it's likely that we still have a lot to discover about its mechanisms and long-term effects.
- kaczordon 4y agoInteresting counterpoint to consider is that there was a study that showed that 50% of people who said they had covid never actually had covid. Can’t find the specific reference but it was a study around covid symptoms. I think ultimately what’s annoying is that even though there may be some real post-viral complications there’s probably a lot of people who are saying they have long covid that don’t. Long covid also doesn’t mean anything, could mean lung damage or it could mean brain fog.
- sdenton4 4y agoCancer doesn't mean anything... It could be liver cancer or it could be brain cancer.
- kaczordon 4y agoCorrect, different types of cancer have varying levels of seriousness and probability of survival. I’d rather have skin cancer than brain cancer.
- groby_b 4y agoWith all due respect: If you claim something as outlandish as "50% of people who claim they had covid never had covid" with the words "can't find the study", it really isn't a counterpoint to consider.
- mwint 4y ago> The upshot: There may be no correlation between the severity of your COVID case and the lasting effect on your brain. The simplest explanation here is that there’s also no correlation between COVID and “Long Covid”
- bogota 4y agoI have a strong feeling a large amount of “long covid” may be the collective anxiety and stress combined with a reduction in social interaction
- TeeMassive 4y agoThere's also a strong correlation between the demographics of those who tend to have higher rates of mental illness and those who tend to suffer more from long covid.
- mikkergp 4y agoCan you point out where I can this data point in the article? I must have missed it.
- jjcon 4y agohttps://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/980527 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/980527 “ In an analysis of almost 55,000 adult participants in three ongoing studies, having depression, anxiety, worry, perceived stress, or loneliness early in the pandemic, before SARS-CoV-2 infection, was associated with a 50% increased risk for developing long COVID”
- mikkergp 4y agoAccording to this article, rates of depression during COVID outbreak, were 27.5%. So, at least a decent chance this happens by chance? Also they mention worry, perceived stress and loneliness. Did anyone not perceive stress during the pandemic? 50% seems like a pretty low correlation. I can’t read your article because it’s login walled. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/depression-rates-tripled-when-pandemic-first-hit/ https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/depression-rates-tripled-wh...
- djbusby 4y agoIs it possible that folk get recognized "brain fog" from the crazy news blasting + a "severe cold" (for those that survive). Like, a mild COVID is coupled with fear and isolation and media-bombs. Could the weeks of mental stress cause a measurable affect (or effect?) for months after?
- derefr 4y agoThe news was no more crazy in 2020 than 2019; your hypothesis would suggest that "long COVID" should have already been "going around" before COVID, just without that name. Which — given the stats in the article — it wasn't.
- mwint 4y agoIn 2019, the news wasn’t telling everyone they were complicit in killing Grandma, and didn’t have a live grandma-death-counter on every screen.
- Markoff 4y agoNews prior 2020 were not covering health issues in 90% top articles. It's almost as if you report about terrorism all the time people are suddenly scared of terrorism and they don't feel safe, if you report about deadly virus they somehow feel less healthy over time.
- Izkata 4y agoDon't forget the riots and food/toilet paper shortages, that also happened in 2020.
- fsociety999 4y agoI read some of the “Long COVID” studies a while back, and they all included things like anxiety, depression, and mental state weeks or months after testing positive for COVID. Linking this to COVID is an example of bad science. Correlation does not equal causation. People could be experiencing these symptoms for a multitude of reasons including, but not limited to, government mandates, rules, policies, inflation, economic difficulties, isolation, remote work, etc. Even their comment about the impact of vaccines can be explained in this context: > The vaccines are certainly helping. Before they became available, about one-third of everyone infected with the virus came down with long COVID, Koralnik says. “There is brand-new data showing that if you’ve been double vaccinated and boosted, then the risk of developing long COVID, if you get COVID, is probably more like 16, 17 percent If your state of mind and anxiety about things are included as “long COVID” symptoms, it makes sense that the peace of mind offered to people who get vaccinated would put them in a better head space to not experience these symptoms regardless of how effective the vaccines are. None of this means that it is impossible to have lingering COVID symptoms. Of course that can happen, but that can happen with any disease.
- bbstats 4y ago>If your state of mind and anxiety about things are included as “long COVID” symptoms, it makes sense that the peace of mind offered to people who get vaccinated would put them in a better head space to not experience these symptoms regardless of how effective the vaccines are. Correlation does not equal causation.
- bheadmaster 4y agoNo, but when a certain set of symptoms are expected in a certain situation, it does not make sense to invent a new hypothetical disease without having any proof of it except for those very symptoms.
- bbstats 4y agoLong COVID is not a "new hypothetical disease" but a collection of various post COVID symptoms that have strong correlations (hi!) with pre-existing non-psychological conditions. The fact that these disparate health issues are grouped into this neat-sounding category is unfortunate I agree, but also is a consequence of you know, millions and millions of people with issues all at once.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
- floodyberry- 4y ago
- dang 4y agoWe've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop. You can't post like this here, no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- root_axis 4y ago> Just restores my faith in humanity to see people presenting alternative views rather then parroting what authorities and the media are telling us. It's irrational to judge the wisdom of what's being said based on who is saying it. This type of rhetoric is designed to poison the well rather than encourage critical thinking. "The media" is not a monolith, "the authorities" are not a monolith, and neither are the purveyors of "alternative views" who also exist within those institutions.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago> The media is not a monolith. https://youtu.be/ksb3KD6DfSI https://youtu.be/ksb3KD6DfSI
- root_axis 4y agoA fine meme, but what's your point? I never disputed that media tribes have been known to coordinate their talking points. This is true of media tribes regardless of their perspective.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y agoAll the questioning of long COVID I see in this thread is essentially flame bait. People aren’t actually refuting the studies findings or even arguing about the methods. In other words, there’s a lot of unmoderated bad faith denialism occurring in this thread. If that restores your faith in humanity I wonder what made you lose your faith in the first place.
- cube00 4y agoLong Covid is what scares me when my employer keeps pressuring us to get back into the office.
- encryptluks2 4y agoIt scares your employer too because they don't want employees using their disability policies and so they'll claim it doesn't exist and you're making it up and fight you over it.
- nradov 4y agoMost Americans have been infected already, and the virus will never go away. All of us will be exposed, so it hardly matters whether that exposure happens in an office or somewhere else. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646
- ZoomerCretin 4y agoThen it's fair to reduce the total risk by needless return-to-office policies. With every new infection, more damage accumulates. Huge increases in heart disease, strokes, and risk of Long Covid. The answer is not to give up and just catch every variant, but to delay it as long as possible with reasonable measures like never eating indoor at a restaurant and wearing a NIOSH approved mask when you go out.
- nradov 4y agoIt's sad to see people consumed by irrational germophobia to the point that they won't even eat in restaurants. Meanwhile the rest of us are enjoying ourselves, living normal lives.
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- ZoomerCretin 4y ago
- torial 4y agoFor anyone with Long Covid, there is an online support group with a lot of resources available (it does use Slack). The group can be found at: https://www.wearebodypolitic.com/covid-19 https://www.wearebodypolitic.com/covid-19
- Eleison23 4y agoAnyone with brain fog and other mental symptoms should seriously consider questioning their diet, and whether it has changed in the past 3 years or so. I have a long history of psychiatric troubles such as C-PTSD, anxiety, etc. I have steadfastly resisted medication for it, but when I did accept medication I was afflicted with brain fog and other terrible side-effects. However, I recently committed to an organic diet of fresh fruits, vegetables and meals prepared from scratch. Contrast this with my previous diet of fast food, casual restaurants and plenty of delivery, and it was like night and day. One of the chief benefits of switching to a healthy diet was the end of brain fog and an absolute renaissance of good sleep hygiene. I woke up with the dawn and I had plenty of energy throughout the day. I ate several small meals on a regular basis and I slept soundly and restfully. My blood pressure dropped to normal levels and I experienced much less stress, and I benefited from increased exercise through housework and meal prep. As soon as I "fall off the wagon" and begin to eat restaurant food again, I return to horrible insomnia, brain fog, and reduced executive function. I have trouble working through the day. So I can't blame the psychoparmaceuticals for this stuff anymore, it was 95% my diet. I'm super glad that I found a way out, and I'm grateful for the clarity and health promised by better lifestyle choices.
- sanroot99 4y agoThere is serious lake of food research ,i bet most of fast food we eat can't be considered human food ,also i have conspiracy ,big food companies try to impede these research
- ryanobjc 4y agoI'm glad that you're figuring something out, but alas the prescription may not be so easy for many. So, can you come over and cook for me? Because reduced executive function sure makes it hard to cook! Or even meal plan! Also you'll have to figure something out for my incredibly picky 4 year old... good luck!
- BlueScreenDeath 4y ago
- BatteryMountain 4y ago
- wikitopian 4y agoLong Covid is merely a small part of a broader story of chronic inflammation and how millions and millions of people are suffering from invisible autoimmune consequences of lyme disease, STDs, and long forgotten colds and flus that triggered lifelong inflammatory reactions. It's the hidden cause of most cancer, a major driver of the obesity epidemic, and is surely subtracting more years of life from more people than the covid pandemic ever did. I'm optimistic that we'll have the diagnostic criteria and awareness in the medical field in the future where we will be able to diagnose, measure, and treat chronic autoimmune inflammation rather than debating whether or not everybody's faking it. Disclaimer: Some people are definitely faking it. I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it. I'm not disputing that. If we can start understanding it as chronic autoimmune inflammation, for which there can be solid diagnostic criteria, rather than as "long covid" or "chronic lyme disease" or whatever, we can separate the legitimately ill from the disability scammers.
- majormajor 4y agoWhen you talk about hopefully being able to diagnose in the future, is your view that there are large groups of people with chronic inflammation that isn't showing up in any existing inflammatory diagnostic methods like blood tests or various types of imaging?
- wikitopian 4y agoI believe that the diagnostic methods for testing chronic inflammation can and must be improved, and that chronic inflammation deserves far more R&D investment than it currently receives.
- ryanobjc 4y agoNot talking to you specifically, but sure glad that because a few people are faking it we can ignore a huge human health issue instead! Wow that sure takes a load off, time to relax and drink some inflammation increasing alcohol!
- wikitopian 4y ago
- kgarten 4y agoI have friends who have long COVID (brain fog) since they got the disease ... yes it's probably overhyped and there might be a lot of misdiagnosis out there, but it is a real sickness. it makes me sad to read on hackernews how it's probably just depression, anxiety and we should not believe what "the media is telling us."
- jjcon 4y agoIt is certainly highly correlated with pre-existing psychological distress. That doesn't mean people aren't suffering, but the 'HN response' isn't coming from nowhere either. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/980527 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/980527 “ In an analysis of almost 55,000 adult participants in three ongoing studies, having depression, anxiety, worry, perceived stress, or loneliness early in the pandemic, before SARS-CoV-2 infection, was associated with a 50% increased risk for developing long COVID”
- cjbgkagh 4y agoPeople with a cortisol hypersensitivity are more likely to develop dysautonomia which is one of the underpinnings of LongCovid. So people with existing psychological conditions being ‘over represented’ in getting LongCovid is of absolutely no surprise.
- jjcon 4y ago> People with a cortisol hypersensitivity are more likely to develop dysautonomia So are people with HIV, Parkinson’s etc… I’m not sure how that is at all relevant here
- cjbgkagh 4y agoYour statement confuses me. The relevance is stated in my second sentence. In case it’s not obvious, cortisol hypersensitivity will present as psychological problems.
- slaw 4y agoThere is a long covid, long lockdown and long vaccination. These maybe difficult to distinguish when you had all three. Me and my spouse got long vaccination, we went to Costco to get vaccinated with Pfizer and side effects started just after that. More than a year passed and we are still not back to normal.
- cutierust 4y agoPosting at 11am ist. Let's see how long until this is flagged
- Aachen 4y agoSince when is it weird to have side effects from the vaccination? Not sure why you're acting as the misunderstood wannabe conspiracy theorist here.
- Aachen 4y agoDid you test in that time? Could be that you caught the virus before the vaccination did its thing which takes at least a few days (they say two weeks but it's probably a gradient and different for different people).
- slaw 4y agoNo, I felt healthy at that time. I had covid 6 months earlier and it was quite awful.
- KerryJones 4y agoI only glanced through the article but did some searches, it didn't seem to mention anything about which variants or omicron. I have heard that the latest variant (the most infectious but the least severe didn't have a risk or as big of a risk of long covid?) Anyone have data on that?
- swayvil 4y agoHow do we distinguish between effects of "long covid", "side effects from vaccine" or some other cause? Also, do we trust these people to tell us the truth?
- Andys 4y agoWell, I was member of the long covid slack group for almost a year before the vaccines were even available. It appears to be caused by the spike protein in some way, most people get it from infection, and some from the vaccine.
- zibby8 4y agoI had a very mild case of Covid. 101 fever for < 24 hours. No coughing or congestion. However, I've been without my sense of smell for weeks now. It's so weird to literally smell nothing. I can't smell freshly ground coffee. I can't smell the food I eat. I can't tell if milk is spoiled. I can't even tell if I need to apply deodorant or not. To those claiming "long covid" is really just anxiety, can you explain this manifestation?
- cjbgkagh 4y agoThat’s not long covid, that’s post-acute sequelae SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) which is a different category. If you also have crushing fatigue you might also have long covid. The basic test for this is the test for PEM, exercise as hard as you can and repeat in two days. If you too fatigued to do anywhere close to the same workout then you likely have PEM and LongCovid/ME/CFS.
- zibby8 4y agoPASC is considered long covid. Literally the name "post-acute sequelae" means a condition after the acute phase.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI’m aware of what PASC means, it’s a superset of LongCovid that includes other organ damage that is unique to covid. It’s possible to have PASC without having LongCovid but impossible to have LongCovid without PASC.
- zibby8 4y agoAgain, I think you just have your own definition for long Covid. The CDC does not share your definition: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/...
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- lettergram 4y agoGiven how common this appears. I’d really like to see a breakdown by - age, gender, weight, race - country, state, city - medical interventions attempted, vaccine status, etc - prior medical history - drugs taken on a daily basis I have a sneaking suspicion there’s some key factors here. This isn’t unheard of for viruses, even the flu can cause “brain fog”. There’s also a chance the spike protein can cause this. There’s a few discussions on it, but it’s one of the reasons people were concerned about potential side effects from the vaccines (which utilize the spike protein). Funny enough, the later point was mentioned in the global planning scenario of a coronavirus outbreak in oct 2019. Page 59 discusses vaccine side effects causing neurological issues https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/spars-pandemic-scenario.pdf https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/spars-... > While the federal government appeared to have appropriately addressed concerns around the acute side effects of Corovax, the long-term, chronic effects of the vaccine were still largely unknown. Nearing the end of 2027, reports of new neurological symptoms began to emerge. After showing no adverse side effects for nearly a year, several vaccine recipients slowly began to experience symptoms such as blurry vision, headaches, and numbness in their extremities. Due to the small number of these cases, the significance of their association with Corovax was never determined. I’m sure it’s unrelated, but interesting none-the-less.
- ryanobjc 4y agoI dunno man, to take your comment at face value requires me to presuppose that medical researchers are just really bad at their job. I have a sneaking feeling that if it was as easy as you say it may be, it would have been discovered already. That's the basic kind of regression analysis that if it showed something significant, someone would have a slam dunk paper, and probably even a nobel prize or whatever lined up...
- lettergram 4y agoCausation is very hard to “prove” and requires a massive dataset. Particularly at all the skews I mentioned. Each skew requires a multiple more data. I’m not saying they’re bad at their job, might just not be organized properly to gather said data.
- Animats 4y agoThis is just the neurological side of COVID damage. There's also the cardiac side.[1] "78% of patients who previously had the virus showed structural changes or damage to their hearts, including inflammation and scarring."[1] This can be seen in MRI scans. It's not subjective. "What we found is that even in people who did not have any heart problems start with, were athletic, did not have a high BMI, were not obese, did not smoke, did not have kidney disease or diabetes—even in people who were previously healthy and had no risk factors or problems with the heart—COVID-19 affected them in such a way that manifested the higher risk of heart problems than people who did not get COVID-19."[2] It's an inflammation-causing disease, and it doesn't seem to stop at the respiratory system. Heart damage may not be permanent. Too early to tell. [1] https://health.clevelandclinic.org/covid-19-can-also-damage-your-heart-not-just-your-lungs/ https://health.clevelandclinic.org/covid-19-can-also-damage-... [2] https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/covid-and-the-heart-it-spares-no-one https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/covid-and-the-heart-it-spa...
- stouset 4y agoI had a stroke just shy of a month ago. 38yo male, no risk factors, healthy BMI, 12+ hours of intense exercise per week. In the neurology ward of the hospital I was told they'd seen a massive uptick in otherwise-healthy adults experiencing strokes over the past few years. My last COVID infection was about 11 months ago, that I know of. All this is to say that I'm not surprised by your comment at all. We'll never really know if my stroke specifically was caused by COVID, but I think it's becoming more and more that there are a whole host of ongoing health concerns directly related to it.
- jdauriemma 4y agoBehold the Long Covid Experts of the Hacker News Comment Section! Check your expertise and empiricism at the door; we have enough contrarianism, anecdotes, and spurious correlation to explain everything!
- Gravyness 4y agoRight, I'll open my digital newsletter then where the information is crystal clear and made by experts who clearly proved they know their shit a few years ago when things went bad. If you think you know where the experts are at then please tell us so we can test your hypothesis.
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- spaceman_2020 4y agoI had Covid more than a month ago. While the illness itself was pretty short-lived - a maximum of 102F fever for a couple of days at most - the post-Covid fatigue has been very debilitating. Even a month later, I just don't feel like there's any real power in my body. Like if I'm walking and want to launch into a sprint, my legs simply don't feel like they have the power to do so. I've also had brain fog where I forget things and mispronounce words and names. Weird disease.
- t0bia_s 4y agoAre you vaccinated?
- spaceman_2020 4y agoYes, two doses of the Oxford Covishield vaccine
- t0bia_s 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]