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Post-exertional malaise (PEM) is probably the most agreed upon core symptom of LongCovid and is easy to test. Do a max exertion exercise two days apart, if the
by cjbgkagh 4y ago
Post-exertional malaise (PEM) is probably the most agreed upon core symptom of LongCovid and is easy to test. Do a max exertion exercise two days apart, if the second one is nowhere near the first one then it’s likely you have PEM and LongCovid.
- nradov 4y agoA two-day cardiopulmonary exercise test can be useful to diagnose ME/CFS regardless of whether it was caused by a SARS-CoV-2 infection or something else. But it's not definitive by itself. Maximum exercise capacity varies significantly day-to-day for the same individual based on nutrition, sleep, alcohol consumption, menstrual cycle, mental state, and other factors. In most test protocols they stop when the patient gives up, but some days people are just more willing to suffer and push through the pain to get a little farther. We can get some additional clues by looking at certain objective measures like HRV but even that isn't definitive. Long COVID is really more of a syndrome, a rough grouping of symptoms rather that a specific condition. It's so vague and covers such a wide range of different symptoms as to be clinically useless.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoPeople with PEM won't get anywhere close to their original score. Those who have it bad won't even be able to get out of bed. Long Covid is ME/CFS re-branded. Some people / institutions muddy the water with other PASC organ damage but a real effort is being made to disambiguate it.