12 ms·

Nearly half of Covid patients haven’t fully recovered months later, study finds

105 points by lxm 4y ago

300bps 4y ago
https://archive.ph/eLXeH https://archive.ph/eLXeH
GoodJokes 4y ago
JohnTHaller 4y ago
I'm an example here. Still have a mostly-broken sense of smell 2.5 years later. My neighbor is on beta blockers in his 30s thanks to Covid.
- cbreynoldson 4y ago
  Check out the stellate ganglion block shot - seems promising for long covid. Hypothesis is that the body is stuck in "fight or flight" mode, and this shot stuns a few of the nerves responsible "long enough" for the autonomic nervous system to "reset." Some of the reddit anecdotes are pretty amazing.
  - jdhendrickson 4y ago
    Any particular sub-reddit you read about this on?
    - selectodude 4y ago
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34922127/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34922127/
    - cbreynoldson 4y ago
      Here is one case: https://www.reddit.com/r/dysautonomia/comments/ut4c0b/recovery_after_2_years_with_stellate_ganglion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dysautonomia/comments/ut4c0b/recove...
- intelVISA 4y ago
  My sense of smell hasn't returned to normal either, quite annoying but it saves me money on food shopping now :)
uptownfunk 4y ago
This disease has completely changed the state of life for everyday America. I used to be able to run easily for miles. Since COVID I can barely get out a few miles a week.
- noncoml 4y ago
  I wonder if the extended sedentary lifestyle imposed by the lockdowns is also to blame to some degree. I used to be very active, but seem unable to get back to shape more than one year after lockdown ended and gyms reopened. I only got a very mild Covid this past January.
  - danans 4y ago
    > I wonder if the extended sedentary lifestyle imposed by the lockdowns is also to blame to some degree. During the lockdowns I was less sedentary than before, since I had more time to take long daily walks and I also did a ton of physical work building a house with the time saved from commuting. Still, after I finally got COVID a few months ago, I've felt more fatigued than normal months after testing negative. Walking up the stairs suddenly got more tiring more often.
  - MandieD 4y ago
    The very mild “lockdowns” imposed in Germany in 2020 resulted in bicycle shortages, because all there was to was to walk, run or go biking. The bike paths were absolutely packed around me when people couldn’t do discretionary shopping or go to restaurants or the movies.
jdkee 4y ago
"Only a small portion of the study participants — about 4 percent — had been vaccinated before their infections, and many of those with only a single dose." Strong argument for the protective nature of the COVID vaccines. Although the virus certainly appears less damaging now in 2022 as opposed to when it first appeared.
- Proven 4y ago
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
- bandana 4y ago
  Sure, if that's the way you want to interpret it... The way I see it it doesn't make any argument at all, the vaccine wasn't even available for the dates they consider ("starting in April 2020", hence the low vaccinated percentage), and by the time the vaccine was widely available, the virus had mutated into omicron, which is weak whether you are vaccinated or not.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    > the virus had mutated into omicron, which is weak whether you are vaccinated or not. That was not Hong Kong's experience with Omicron when it hit a population of unvaccinated older people and their per capita death rate soared up to one of the highest in the world. The "weak" omicron effect is probably due to preexisting natural immunity and vaccination. South Africa where Omicron originated had a youthful population and high levels of natural immunity. Most of the developed world had a mix of natural immunity and high levels of vaccination (particularly in the elderly). Hong Kong had neither and Omicron still tore it up.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  Thats a strange interpretation of the data at hand.
sdrothrock 4y ago
Some anecdata... (two doses of Moderna, still haven't gotten the third shot available here and that's on me for not making time) Got covid in the spring, lost my sense of taste, but it started gradually coming back after about six months. Got it again a month ago, lost my senses of smell and taste, also have a persistent cough, persistent tinnitus, tiredness, and more frequent migraines.
- phpthrowaway99 4y ago
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    Sorry not sure what you are implying here. The boss died of what at 49?
    - phpthrowaway99 4y ago
      I'm not implying anything. The people that want to use this anecdata for their purposes will say that it's really odd a healthy active guy dying suddenly in his sleep at 49 is very rare when he was operating regularly on Wednesday at work and didn't make it to Thursday. What he actually died of, heart attach or brain aneurysm, or blood clot of some kind doesn't really matter because it fits their narrative either way.
      - John23832 4y ago
        If it's not an implication, and it doesn't matter, then why was it brought up here? Nobody is denying that people die randomly, the question here is the whether there is a subset of people who have symptoms and die randomly that can be attributed to covid. It seem like the actual implication is that covid cannot be the cause of anyone's symptoms or deaths and that this is much to do about nothing... which imo to totally rule out covid for anything is absurd.
        4y ago
John23832 4y ago
I caught OG covid in June of 2020. I've had it once more (Feb of this year). Exposed a third time but tested negative (who knows about these tests). I've had fatigue, tinnitus, and a persistent neck pain since the Feb infection. What I would consider neurological symptoms as well (extremity weakness, vertigo, headaches). I'm pretty young (31). Prior to Feb, I was pretty active. Weight lifting every day, running 2 miles every other. Now, the fatigue and weakness really has gotten the best of me. The neck pain and tinnitus is something I can deal with though. I've had multiple tests (cats and mris)... nothing remarkable. Probably long covid.
- nvahalik 4y ago
  I'm sorry to hear about your issues and hope you get to feeling better. I've seen perfectly healthy people—before and after COVID—who literally had their life changed due to a completely random infection or issue. People who went deaf after having a baby or developed T1 diabetes. Some people were "perfectly healthy". But some people seemed healthy until they weren't. One day, their eating/drinking/smoking habits caught up with them due to age or complications from things they didn't even realize were health problems until it suddenly became an issue. I am not a doctor... but you mentioned weightlifting... the fatigue and neck pain could be a pinched nerve? Perhaps an injury that manifested itself after a viral infection? Have you seen a physiotherapist? I finally saw one about arm pain and it changed my life.
  - John23832 4y ago
    I'm conscious of my health. I've had CATs and MRI's to rule herniations and pinched nerves out (I said that in my post). I was also ACTUALLY healthy. Seen a PT because that's what doctors recommend before imaging.
    - nvahalik 4y ago
      Dang. Well, hoping you find some answers, then.
- NickM 4y ago
classichasclass 4y ago
My wife took three months to recover. I have a friend roughly my age who still hasn't (about four months in). My dad is dead. And people wonder why I don't blow it off. I've yet to get it, and I don't want to.
- timr 4y ago
  I've had it and everyone I know has had it (now in the dozens), including a number of elderly people. Everyone is fine. I recovered in a week, and out of literally dozens of people, I've not met anyone who took longer than that. I'm sorry about your dad, but let's not exaggerate based on personal anecdotes. The stories that get upvoted are the ones that scare people.
  - classichasclass 4y ago
    Don't minimize based on it either.
    - timr 4y ago
      Providing balance is not "minimizing". Sharing an emotional/fearful anecdote does not lay claim to truth.
      - jonas21 4y ago
        You're doing exactly the same thing classichasclass is, but in the opposite direction - and "minimize" seems like a fair antonym of "exaggerate".
        timr 4y ago
        Well, yes. Exactly. That's my point. I'm sharing the boring story that doesn't get headlines.
        jonas21 4y ago
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
Probably because they haven't recovered from being obese. Obesity is second only to smoking in terms of bad for your health. 73% of Americans are overweight or obese.
spike021 4y ago
I can't confirm this but I _may_ have had COVID Jan 2020, and ever since then I get waves of coughs / other symptoms every couple weeks or so that last for at least a week; it never goes away. Never had anything like this before that one time being sick other than seasonal bronchitis a few years in a row about a decade ago. Only other thing I can thing of is allergies but I've now lived in multiple places during the past 2 years, visited different areas, and it still recurs.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  > I _may_ have had COVID Jan 2020 Unless you can contract trace yourself to someone who worked in Wuhan (or you worked in China then) this is fantastically unlikely and makes you a Unicorn. It is thousands of times more likely that you got one of the numerous flu like viruses going around in Jan 2020, and post-viral sequalae from viruses is not unique to SARS-CoV-2. And you can have allergies to so many things that it is impossible to escape them. I have allergies to dust mites, grass, mold, Birch and a few East Coast trees. Without testing I wouldn't be able to deduce what I was allergic to at all.
  - spike021 4y ago
    You are probably 100% correct. However, I did work with engineers during that time who had recently traveled from Wuhan and seen family there. I also passed through both SFO and SEA airports at very busy times at the end of December/beginning of January, and had been in LA at tourist areas with tour buses full of people. So it may not be incredibly likely, but there's a chance. And again, could be allergies, but I'm not sure they'd suddenly start being this much of a problem at my age (late 20's/early 30's). But I'm no expert.
    - lamontcg 4y ago
      I flew from Cancun to SEA in the beginning of January 2020. Lots and lots of people did. Did those engineers get sick, before you were symptomatic, and had you had close contact with them (meetings, dinners, etc)? And did you have the characteristic loss of taste/smell? If you can answer 'yes' to all of those (including that they were definitely sick with the correct timeframe) then you've got at least a better case than most people who got sick in Jan 2020. But even given someone who had visited Wuhan in early Jan and had respiratory symptoms, it is more likely that it wasn't SARS-CoV-2 and it was just normal influenza/cold-like viruses. And you can definitely have allergies get worse as you age, late 20s is probably when mine got bad, and they've gotten worse over time and I get sore throats now and they feel nearly like a cold. My Birch allergy got really noticeable sometime in the last 10 years. Get an allergy test, though, and see.
lend000 4y ago
Anecdata: I had what seemed like relatively mild covid in March 2020, but never fully recovered, and I ended up unable to do strenuous or stressful activity without a super fight or flight physical response. I was in my 20's, and originally very active and fit, although I ate a very high sugar/carb diet. I took a lot of tests and tried a lot of things and made no progress with doctors for about 2 years, until I tried doing a more aggressive version of the paleo diet (even avoiding most fruits), and now I'm making significant progress, slowly ramping up my workouts and the amount of stress my body can take. I'm also taking supplements like Zinc and some Asian herbs that are intended to raise testosterone, which I understand to reduce cortisol/the stress response. I'm also meditating most days and taking a cold shower daily. I think the diet is the biggest factor though -- whenever I accidentally eat a high-GI meal, I feel the symptoms hit immediately.
- colordrops 4y ago
  I assume you are taking tongkat. Are you concerned at all about reduction in endogenous testosterone production? Did you take a testosterone test?
  - lend000 4y ago
    Tribulus Terrestris, at a low dose. It probably isn't doing much to be honest, but I'm trying not to add or remove too many things at once. That will probably be the next one to go.
- sp527 4y ago
  You might want to look into ANS Rewire. Dan Neuffer does an excellent job of covering some of the (speculative) science behind ME/CFS, which is also known as 'post-viral syndrome'. A number of researchers believe long Covid might simply be ME/CFS. Neuffer's central thesis in ANS Rewire is that CFS is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system. And that's more or less in line with the WHO, which classifies CFS as a disorder of the nervous system generally. ANS Rewire explains what you're observing with high GI foods too: insulin spikes are interpreted as a stressor by an overreactive ANS and sugar regulation in a CFS body appears to be compromised primarily because cortisol is an insulin suppressant. He recommends dietary modifications of the kind you're pursuing. Mostly it sounds like you're doing the right stuff already. If you want to recover faster, then there is one strategy that is essential: find ways to quickly and effectively relax yourself every time your nervous system produces an acute response to a stressor (usually in the form of intensified fatigue or brain fog). The most effective for me was to rotate through a large series of relaxing visualizations. So, for example, imagine yourself on a beach in the Bahamas. You do need to rotate visualizations because there's a tendency to become accustomed to any particular one. It sounds absurd, but it does work, so long as you're consistent. Takes about 1-2 months to start noticing major improvements. There's a fairly complete list of relaxation techniques you can try here: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/relaxation-technique/art-20045368 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-manageme.... Note that Dan Neuffer's 'REWIRE' technique works along these lines, but he doesn't recommend a visualization strategy, which I found to be far more effective than what he proposes. The principle is consistent though: the nervous system will stop overreacting to stressors if it is retrained out of the pattern. The most effective way to do that is to become deeply relaxed as often as possible throughout the day and especially when you sense that nervous system activation is spiking. When you emerge from the CFS state, it will happen rather suddenly. There's an excellent description of the recovery pattern here: https://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/CFS_-_Catastrophe_theory:_why_we_get_into_and_how_we_get_out_of_CFS https://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/CFS_-_Catastrophe_theory:_why_we.... (Note that the rest of this website is a mixed bag, with a lot of things I wouldn't endorse; that post was written by a guest author)
NDizzle 4y ago
Alpha ran through my family of 5 around Christmas time, 2020. We were down 4-6 days, that was it. Everyone operating normally since then, my kids play a lot of sports at a high level. I coach, exercise, etc, while not in my best shape ever, it’s mostly cause of limited time. No vaccines, won’t ever get them.
- bluehorseray 4y ago
  you renegade!
  - NDizzle 4y ago
    I gotta protect myself from "suddenly", a crisis which is sweeping the world.
nvahalik 4y ago
Anecdata: I've had Covid once. Whole family got it. Going out for walks was not impossible but winded me badly. We all recovered in about a week. I had a single dose of Pfizer from about 3 months before. I never got a second dose. Kids all breezed through it. The first month afterward required a lot of pushing and experimenting to get my body to respond to working out. Stuff like walking for extended periods of time was easy, but anything that got my HR into Zone 3 and above was taxing. After that month, things got progressively easier. I also made a lot of other changes: diet improved tremendously, I lost 30+ pounds, and I feel like a completely different person now than before. The only other people I know personally who got long covid had gotten 2 doses but had other issues like being overweight or having a horrible diet.
dmix 4y ago
I'm curious if this study refutes or supports this often cited study on long COVID (I can't tell from the NYTimes article): > We demonstrate an absence of association between symptom burden and radiographic or biochemical abnormality. We suggest that the phenomenon of Long-COVID may not be directly attributable to the effect of SARS-CoV-2, but rather the neuropsychiatric insults may play a greater role in its aetiology. There was a similar phenomenon after 9-11 and gulf war: > Similar post-traumatic syndromes, such as Gulf War Illness and post-9/11 syndrome, describe the occurrence of both physical and psychological symptoms in a similar pattern to what is being observed in Long-COVID. https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33569660/ https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33569660/ "Breathlessness, palpitations and confusion or difficulty concentrating" seem to be the primary symptoms according to NYTimes but I'm curious if they've found any 'radiographic or biochemical abnormality' in this case... or whether that even matters. COVID was obviously a very serious and traumatic occurrence, especially for people who got a severe case.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sp527 4y ago
  > We demonstrate an absence of association between symptom burden and radiographic or biochemical abnormality. We suggest that the phenomenon of Long-COVID may not be directly attributable to the effect of SARS-CoV-2, but rather the neuropsychiatric insults may play a greater role in its aetiology. This is consistent with ME/CFS, which the WHO classifies as a disorder of the nervous system. There are no known diagnostic markers for ME/CFS.
  - tim333 4y ago
    That sounds like a rather arrogant assumption that scientists can't figure what the problem is hence the patients are nuts. It could also be the science isn't that good. I had a girlfriend who got ME/CFS. Before she could race me up a 1000 ft hill after she could hardly walk. That change happened in a few days as a result of an infection, and lasted years. Definitely wasn't psychological.
achairapart 4y ago
I wonder if this may apply to Omicron too. I just got Covid, symptoms started 2 days ago but as of today I already feel almost fully recovered.
- orwin 4y ago
  Seems way less severe with omicron.
didgetmaster 4y ago
Never got tested, but my senses of taste and smell changed dramatically about 6 months ago. No other symptoms whatsoever. Everything tastes 'funny' like there it is contaminated with a drop of motor oil or something. Lost about 15 pounds just because I don't particularly feel like eating because it just isn't enjoyable. I usually love the garden tomatoes this time of year, but not this year. I have noticed that it has improved some, but I'm not sure if I am just getting used to it.
- mannykannot 4y ago
  I am not a doctor, but you might want to investigate the possibility that this is a result of something other than Covid.
- orwin 4y ago
  Agree with sibling. You should go to a doctor. It might not be related to covid and can be a neurodegenerative disease.
ekianjo 4y ago
Anecdotal evidence but after catching covid and having residual symptoms I found that taking Zinc actually worked well to alleviate them. Ymmv but worth trying if you are struggling.
timr 4y ago
Here is the link to the actual study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5 One thing that immediately leaps out to me is that the profile of "symptoms" is broadly similar between "never infected" and "symptomatic infected" groups, but completely different (much lower across the board) for "asymptomatic infected": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5/tables/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5/tables/2 There does seem to be elevation vs. controls for certain symptoms (including a few that are mechanistically believable, such as shortness of breath), but because this is self-reported data, it's still hopelessly biased. People who self-identify as sick are going to be more likely to report symptoms than those who do not...which is probably why we see the much lower rates of "long covid" symptoms in the asymptomatic infection group. At the very least, this should make you question the idea of "long covid" after asymptomatic infection. Based on this data, "long covid" is closer to the symptom profile seen in people who were never infected at all than it is to the symptom profile of people who knew they were infected, but didn't have primary illness.
benhoyt 4y ago
Seeing people are sharing stories ... I'm a pretty healthy 41-year old, I live in New Zealand, got two Pfizer shots in late 2021, then got Covid in April 2022. It was like a bad flu, but I recovered from the main symptoms after a week or so, and felt drained for another few weeks. So far so good. But ever since recovering from Covid I've had this tightness/squirming feeling around my stomach/gut at night, and it really hinders my sleep. I've been to the doctor several times. Nothing's wrong with my heart, and nothing major with my gut either; he can't figure out what it is. At this point I'm starting to wonder whether it's psychosomatic, though I'm not an anxious person, and wasn't terribly worried about Covid. The timing definitely coincides with my recovery from Covid. I'm hoping it just goes away eventually...
- ls15 4y ago
  There have been some articles that suggest that Covid can linger in the gut. I am not advertising it, but I certainly don't regret looking into alternative self-therapies with supplements (vitamins, minerals, probiotics, antioxidants) during recovering from Covid. In my case, the moderate CFS that I had for years before Covid miraculously mostly disappeared as well.
- taolegal 4y ago
  It seems like there's an impact on the gut microbiome from infection, and I suspect that a dysbiotic gut microbiome is specifically a cause of severe covid. I think that's a relatively neat explanation for why countries that aren't pervasively obese & eating horrible food faired relatively better in terms of covid mortality.
baskethead 4y ago
I've had 3 shots of Moderna and got my first infection of COVID 3 weeks later. I've had COVID 2 more times after that, the most recent being about a month ago. The first two times were sore throat with congestion. The last time was sore throat with congestion and sore joints for a day with fever. All symptoms except for congestion lasted for a day, and congestion lasted for a week. Annoying but nothing more than a bad cold for me.
readthenotes1 4y ago
I know 21 people that have had covid, from 3 to 91. 1 person had long covid, still requires oxygen months later. Either my friends and family are unduly healthy, or there's maybe something questionable about the "half". If I flipped a coin 21 times and it only came up tails once, I wouldn't believe it was a fair coin...
- dathinab 4y ago
  All cases which I know personally which didn't had asymptotic COVID took multiple month to _fully_ recover. That doesn't mean they hadn't recovered enough to work or socialize a bit again after much less time. But they still had problems like for example bouts of weakness well over a month later. This kind of long term Symptoms aren't that rare for more serve virus infections in general. They are unusual common with COVID but other viruses can cause that, too. It's just that many societies force people to treat this as if they are fine and power through it, maybe by using non-prescription drugs. While I hadn't(1) had COVID yet I went through similar situations twice in my live in the past. Strong virus infection, fast "recovery" to a point I could go back to school but slightly over a month until I was actually fully recovered with funny experiences like nearly passing out when doing sport in a amount which I had been trivially able to do before the virus infection. (1): At least no positive test. Anyway the point I want to make is: - fully recovered can mean many things - it's not a fundamentally new thing - but due to high covid rates and being relatively more likely with covid, it has become a problem. - It's a problem even if the number is much less then half depending on the definitions you use for fully recovered and of what you take half.
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  How many were vaccinated?
  - readthenotes1 4y ago
    15, including the 1 with long covid
- tim333 4y ago
  I just filled in a long term covid effects questionnaire. There were a lot of vague questions in there along the do you feel tired / depressed line. I think depending on the boxes ticked they might put me down as not fully recovered even though I definitely don't have what most people would think as long covid. I basically recovered fine though sometimes are a bit tired - hard to know if the covid contributed or not. I think for useful research they should look at people say whose heart rate goes to 120 when they try standing or some such criteria that normal people don't fit. Feel a bit tired/down is something that could apply to anyone really. I think that may be what's leading to the "nearly half" in the title.
throwaway787544 4y ago
3qz 4y ago
- ls15 4y ago
  How can you know?
  - 3qz 4y ago
sumosudo 4y ago
Can anybody tell me what the official clinical diagnosis of covid-19 is?
Markoff 4y ago
Not fully recovered = people with mental issues > People with previous symptomatic Covid infections reported certain persistent symptoms, such as breathlessness, palpitations and _confusion_ or _difficulty concentrating_, at a rate roughly three times as high as uninfected people in surveys from six to 18 months later, the study found. Also: > Women, older people and those living in poorer areas also faced more serious aftereffects from an infection. TLDR people more likely to be depressed were find to be depressed and someone tries to claim it's thanks to COVID infection. /facepalm
entropicgravity 4y ago
Are we in a pandemic of chronic fatigue symptom (CFS)?
lamontcg 4y ago
> Overall, 102,473 (16%) of the 638,125 people invited consented and completed at least one questionnaire: 33,281 (20%) of the 162,957 people who had a positive test, and 69,192 (15%) of the 475,168 invited following only negative tests. That still looks like a pretty poor response rate.
woopwoop24 4y ago
male 34, had it nov 2020, symptoms started dez/jan 2021. still chest pain, nausea, unrefreshing sleep and weird heart palpations and high pulse. got better over time, i am hoping the will release bc007 soonish, so that might be a solution for all of us struggling with our lives and wanting a normal life back. extremely frustrating knowing what was possible and not able to reach that again still happy to hear that most of the people recover just fine.
mancerayder 4y ago
I had covid 6 months ago and it lasted 2.5 months. But it was partially psychological: whether that partial was 10% or 50% or 80%, you can judge. The acute phase lasted two weeks. I had a very strong mix of what was a bad cold and allergy symptoms, progressing to a dry cough from a very bad wet cough. I also had dizziness, forgetfulness, and at one point everything in the world smelled of orange for a week. I had terrible, terrible health care, I was given steroids that spiked my resting heart rate to 110-120 (normally 55-60), told nonsense advice ranging from "it's just a cold" to "here's a Z-PAC in case it gets worse" (I never took it), and of course I never qualified for the antivirals for reasons best left not mentioned here without causing a political argument, the part that makes me the angriest of all. Anyway, after that for two months I had shortness of breath, strange sleep issues, dizziness, and chest tightness. I went to see a lung specialist in a long covid specialty part of a famous hospital chain in the first two weeks of that period. I was told I was at risk for mitochondrial dysfunction, that I should never do strength training again, that some of the other patients became crippled after one year. That POTS was a risk, etc. That athletes have the highest risk for permanent disablement from long covid. I became distraught, and during this time had some of the darkest thoughts of my life. Can't exercise? Risk for POTS? Disabled? That's it for me. I had dark circles under my eyes and fell into a sort of depression. Dysautonomia is the generalized name for the disorder. Anxiety was triggered, and it played its role. I remember I'd taken an Uber at one point who told me that the vaccine gave him symptoms, and he described all the same stuff as me: shortness of breath, waking up at night sweating randomly, dizziness. He was wide-eyed as I explained long covid / dysautonomia. He had had covid prior to the vaccine, and I told him that was the cause. Then one day I went back to the specialist and I brought with me a printout of an endoscopy I'd done a few months prior that showed esophageal inflammation and a GERD diagnosis. I also had a detailed printout of exercise attempts, and notes and dates for what I experienced that night, the next day and the day after, rating the shortness of breath, sleep disturbances, etc. I did a stress test with a cardiologist that showed I was exceeding the markers at every level, was cleared. After that both cleared me for exercise. Overnight my mood change, my physical body felt more healed, and I went full speed ahead in revamping my exercise regimen. Literally everything was fine, then. Well. This weekend I was exposed to covid and today, day 4, I'm testing negative but experiencing some cold symptoms and some chest congestion. How much of the above is in my head versus actual is open to debate. I honestly don't know the answer. But sometimes I wonder, if no one ever told me anything about covid, and ignorance were bliss, how much healthier I'd probably be and how much better the last six months would have been!
WirelessGigabit 4y ago
1 year later. Still deafening tinnitus in left ear.

105 points by lxm 4y ago

300bps 4y ago

https://archive.ph/eLXeH https://archive.ph/eLXeH

GoodJokes 4y ago

JohnTHaller 4y ago

I'm an example here. Still have a mostly-broken sense of smell 2.5 years later. My neighbor is on beta blockers in his 30s thanks to Covid.

cbreynoldson 4y ago
Check out the stellate ganglion block shot - seems promising for long covid. Hypothesis is that the body is stuck in "fight or flight" mode, and this shot stuns a few of the nerves responsible "long enough" for the autonomic nervous system to "reset." Some of the reddit anecdotes are pretty amazing.
- jdhendrickson 4y ago
  Any particular sub-reddit you read about this on?
  - selectodude 4y ago
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34922127/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34922127/
  - cbreynoldson 4y ago
    Here is one case: https://www.reddit.com/r/dysautonomia/comments/ut4c0b/recovery_after_2_years_with_stellate_ganglion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dysautonomia/comments/ut4c0b/recove...
intelVISA 4y ago
My sense of smell hasn't returned to normal either, quite annoying but it saves me money on food shopping now :)

uptownfunk 4y ago

This disease has completely changed the state of life for everyday America. I used to be able to run easily for miles. Since COVID I can barely get out a few miles a week.

noncoml 4y ago
I wonder if the extended sedentary lifestyle imposed by the lockdowns is also to blame to some degree. I used to be very active, but seem unable to get back to shape more than one year after lockdown ended and gyms reopened. I only got a very mild Covid this past January.
- danans 4y ago
  > I wonder if the extended sedentary lifestyle imposed by the lockdowns is also to blame to some degree. During the lockdowns I was less sedentary than before, since I had more time to take long daily walks and I also did a ton of physical work building a house with the time saved from commuting. Still, after I finally got COVID a few months ago, I've felt more fatigued than normal months after testing negative. Walking up the stairs suddenly got more tiring more often.
- MandieD 4y ago
  The very mild “lockdowns” imposed in Germany in 2020 resulted in bicycle shortages, because all there was to was to walk, run or go biking. The bike paths were absolutely packed around me when people couldn’t do discretionary shopping or go to restaurants or the movies.

jdkee 4y ago

"Only a small portion of the study participants — about 4 percent — had been vaccinated before their infections, and many of those with only a single dose." Strong argument for the protective nature of the COVID vaccines. Although the virus certainly appears less damaging now in 2022 as opposed to when it first appeared.

Proven 4y ago
thrown_22 4y ago
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
bandana 4y ago
Sure, if that's the way you want to interpret it... The way I see it it doesn't make any argument at all, the vaccine wasn't even available for the dates they consider ("starting in April 2020", hence the low vaccinated percentage), and by the time the vaccine was widely available, the virus had mutated into omicron, which is weak whether you are vaccinated or not.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  > the virus had mutated into omicron, which is weak whether you are vaccinated or not. That was not Hong Kong's experience with Omicron when it hit a population of unvaccinated older people and their per capita death rate soared up to one of the highest in the world. The "weak" omicron effect is probably due to preexisting natural immunity and vaccination. South Africa where Omicron originated had a youthful population and high levels of natural immunity. Most of the developed world had a mix of natural immunity and high levels of vaccination (particularly in the elderly). Hong Kong had neither and Omicron still tore it up.
ekianjo 4y ago
Thats a strange interpretation of the data at hand.

sdrothrock 4y ago

Some anecdata... (two doses of Moderna, still haven't gotten the third shot available here and that's on me for not making time) Got covid in the spring, lost my sense of taste, but it started gradually coming back after about six months. Got it again a month ago, lost my senses of smell and taste, also have a persistent cough, persistent tinnitus, tiredness, and more frequent migraines.

phpthrowaway99 4y ago
- ekianjo 4y ago
  Sorry not sure what you are implying here. The boss died of what at 49?
  - phpthrowaway99 4y ago
    I'm not implying anything. The people that want to use this anecdata for their purposes will say that it's really odd a healthy active guy dying suddenly in his sleep at 49 is very rare when he was operating regularly on Wednesday at work and didn't make it to Thursday. What he actually died of, heart attach or brain aneurysm, or blood clot of some kind doesn't really matter because it fits their narrative either way.
    - John23832 4y ago
      If it's not an implication, and it doesn't matter, then why was it brought up here? Nobody is denying that people die randomly, the question here is the whether there is a subset of people who have symptoms and die randomly that can be attributed to covid. It seem like the actual implication is that covid cannot be the cause of anyone's symptoms or deaths and that this is much to do about nothing... which imo to totally rule out covid for anything is absurd.
      - 4y ago

John23832 4y ago

I caught OG covid in June of 2020. I've had it once more (Feb of this year). Exposed a third time but tested negative (who knows about these tests). I've had fatigue, tinnitus, and a persistent neck pain since the Feb infection. What I would consider neurological symptoms as well (extremity weakness, vertigo, headaches). I'm pretty young (31). Prior to Feb, I was pretty active. Weight lifting every day, running 2 miles every other. Now, the fatigue and weakness really has gotten the best of me. The neck pain and tinnitus is something I can deal with though. I've had multiple tests (cats and mris)... nothing remarkable. Probably long covid.

nvahalik 4y ago
I'm sorry to hear about your issues and hope you get to feeling better. I've seen perfectly healthy people—before and after COVID—who literally had their life changed due to a completely random infection or issue. People who went deaf after having a baby or developed T1 diabetes. Some people were "perfectly healthy". But some people seemed healthy until they weren't. One day, their eating/drinking/smoking habits caught up with them due to age or complications from things they didn't even realize were health problems until it suddenly became an issue. I am not a doctor... but you mentioned weightlifting... the fatigue and neck pain could be a pinched nerve? Perhaps an injury that manifested itself after a viral infection? Have you seen a physiotherapist? I finally saw one about arm pain and it changed my life.
- John23832 4y ago
  I'm conscious of my health. I've had CATs and MRI's to rule herniations and pinched nerves out (I said that in my post). I was also ACTUALLY healthy. Seen a PT because that's what doctors recommend before imaging.
  - nvahalik 4y ago
    Dang. Well, hoping you find some answers, then.
NickM 4y ago

classichasclass 4y ago

My wife took three months to recover. I have a friend roughly my age who still hasn't (about four months in). My dad is dead. And people wonder why I don't blow it off. I've yet to get it, and I don't want to.

timr 4y ago
I've had it and everyone I know has had it (now in the dozens), including a number of elderly people. Everyone is fine. I recovered in a week, and out of literally dozens of people, I've not met anyone who took longer than that. I'm sorry about your dad, but let's not exaggerate based on personal anecdotes. The stories that get upvoted are the ones that scare people.
- classichasclass 4y ago
  Don't minimize based on it either.
  - timr 4y ago
    Providing balance is not "minimizing". Sharing an emotional/fearful anecdote does not lay claim to truth.
    - jonas21 4y ago
      You're doing exactly the same thing classichasclass is, but in the opposite direction - and "minimize" seems like a fair antonym of "exaggerate".
      - timr 4y ago
        Well, yes. Exactly. That's my point. I'm sharing the boring story that doesn't get headlines.
        jonas21 4y ago

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

Probably because they haven't recovered from being obese. Obesity is second only to smoking in terms of bad for your health. 73% of Americans are overweight or obese.

spike021 4y ago

I can't confirm this but I _may_ have had COVID Jan 2020, and ever since then I get waves of coughs / other symptoms every couple weeks or so that last for at least a week; it never goes away. Never had anything like this before that one time being sick other than seasonal bronchitis a few years in a row about a decade ago. Only other thing I can thing of is allergies but I've now lived in multiple places during the past 2 years, visited different areas, and it still recurs.

lamontcg 4y ago
> I _may_ have had COVID Jan 2020 Unless you can contract trace yourself to someone who worked in Wuhan (or you worked in China then) this is fantastically unlikely and makes you a Unicorn. It is thousands of times more likely that you got one of the numerous flu like viruses going around in Jan 2020, and post-viral sequalae from viruses is not unique to SARS-CoV-2. And you can have allergies to so many things that it is impossible to escape them. I have allergies to dust mites, grass, mold, Birch and a few East Coast trees. Without testing I wouldn't be able to deduce what I was allergic to at all.
- spike021 4y ago
  You are probably 100% correct. However, I did work with engineers during that time who had recently traveled from Wuhan and seen family there. I also passed through both SFO and SEA airports at very busy times at the end of December/beginning of January, and had been in LA at tourist areas with tour buses full of people. So it may not be incredibly likely, but there's a chance. And again, could be allergies, but I'm not sure they'd suddenly start being this much of a problem at my age (late 20's/early 30's). But I'm no expert.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    I flew from Cancun to SEA in the beginning of January 2020. Lots and lots of people did. Did those engineers get sick, before you were symptomatic, and had you had close contact with them (meetings, dinners, etc)? And did you have the characteristic loss of taste/smell? If you can answer 'yes' to all of those (including that they were definitely sick with the correct timeframe) then you've got at least a better case than most people who got sick in Jan 2020. But even given someone who had visited Wuhan in early Jan and had respiratory symptoms, it is more likely that it wasn't SARS-CoV-2 and it was just normal influenza/cold-like viruses. And you can definitely have allergies get worse as you age, late 20s is probably when mine got bad, and they've gotten worse over time and I get sore throats now and they feel nearly like a cold. My Birch allergy got really noticeable sometime in the last 10 years. Get an allergy test, though, and see.

lend000 4y ago

Anecdata: I had what seemed like relatively mild covid in March 2020, but never fully recovered, and I ended up unable to do strenuous or stressful activity without a super fight or flight physical response. I was in my 20's, and originally very active and fit, although I ate a very high sugar/carb diet. I took a lot of tests and tried a lot of things and made no progress with doctors for about 2 years, until I tried doing a more aggressive version of the paleo diet (even avoiding most fruits), and now I'm making significant progress, slowly ramping up my workouts and the amount of stress my body can take. I'm also taking supplements like Zinc and some Asian herbs that are intended to raise testosterone, which I understand to reduce cortisol/the stress response. I'm also meditating most days and taking a cold shower daily. I think the diet is the biggest factor though -- whenever I accidentally eat a high-GI meal, I feel the symptoms hit immediately.

colordrops 4y ago
I assume you are taking tongkat. Are you concerned at all about reduction in endogenous testosterone production? Did you take a testosterone test?
- lend000 4y ago
  Tribulus Terrestris, at a low dose. It probably isn't doing much to be honest, but I'm trying not to add or remove too many things at once. That will probably be the next one to go.
sp527 4y ago
You might want to look into ANS Rewire. Dan Neuffer does an excellent job of covering some of the (speculative) science behind ME/CFS, which is also known as 'post-viral syndrome'. A number of researchers believe long Covid might simply be ME/CFS. Neuffer's central thesis in ANS Rewire is that CFS is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system. And that's more or less in line with the WHO, which classifies CFS as a disorder of the nervous system generally. ANS Rewire explains what you're observing with high GI foods too: insulin spikes are interpreted as a stressor by an overreactive ANS and sugar regulation in a CFS body appears to be compromised primarily because cortisol is an insulin suppressant. He recommends dietary modifications of the kind you're pursuing. Mostly it sounds like you're doing the right stuff already. If you want to recover faster, then there is one strategy that is essential: find ways to quickly and effectively relax yourself every time your nervous system produces an acute response to a stressor (usually in the form of intensified fatigue or brain fog). The most effective for me was to rotate through a large series of relaxing visualizations. So, for example, imagine yourself on a beach in the Bahamas. You do need to rotate visualizations because there's a tendency to become accustomed to any particular one. It sounds absurd, but it does work, so long as you're consistent. Takes about 1-2 months to start noticing major improvements. There's a fairly complete list of relaxation techniques you can try here: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/relaxation-technique/art-20045368 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-manageme.... Note that Dan Neuffer's 'REWIRE' technique works along these lines, but he doesn't recommend a visualization strategy, which I found to be far more effective than what he proposes. The principle is consistent though: the nervous system will stop overreacting to stressors if it is retrained out of the pattern. The most effective way to do that is to become deeply relaxed as often as possible throughout the day and especially when you sense that nervous system activation is spiking. When you emerge from the CFS state, it will happen rather suddenly. There's an excellent description of the recovery pattern here: https://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/CFS_-_Catastrophe_theory:_why_we_get_into_and_how_we_get_out_of_CFS https://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/CFS_-_Catastrophe_theory:_why_we.... (Note that the rest of this website is a mixed bag, with a lot of things I wouldn't endorse; that post was written by a guest author)

NDizzle 4y ago

Alpha ran through my family of 5 around Christmas time, 2020. We were down 4-6 days, that was it. Everyone operating normally since then, my kids play a lot of sports at a high level. I coach, exercise, etc, while not in my best shape ever, it’s mostly cause of limited time. No vaccines, won’t ever get them.

bluehorseray 4y ago
you renegade!
- NDizzle 4y ago
  I gotta protect myself from "suddenly", a crisis which is sweeping the world.

nvahalik 4y ago

Anecdata: I've had Covid once. Whole family got it. Going out for walks was not impossible but winded me badly. We all recovered in about a week. I had a single dose of Pfizer from about 3 months before. I never got a second dose. Kids all breezed through it. The first month afterward required a lot of pushing and experimenting to get my body to respond to working out. Stuff like walking for extended periods of time was easy, but anything that got my HR into Zone 3 and above was taxing. After that month, things got progressively easier. I also made a lot of other changes: diet improved tremendously, I lost 30+ pounds, and I feel like a completely different person now than before. The only other people I know personally who got long covid had gotten 2 doses but had other issues like being overweight or having a horrible diet.

dmix 4y ago

I'm curious if this study refutes or supports this often cited study on long COVID (I can't tell from the NYTimes article): > We demonstrate an absence of association between symptom burden and radiographic or biochemical abnormality. We suggest that the phenomenon of Long-COVID may not be directly attributable to the effect of SARS-CoV-2, but rather the neuropsychiatric insults may play a greater role in its aetiology. There was a similar phenomenon after 9-11 and gulf war: > Similar post-traumatic syndromes, such as Gulf War Illness and post-9/11 syndrome, describe the occurrence of both physical and psychological symptoms in a similar pattern to what is being observed in Long-COVID. https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33569660/ https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33569660/ "Breathlessness, palpitations and confusion or difficulty concentrating" seem to be the primary symptoms according to NYTimes but I'm curious if they've found any 'radiographic or biochemical abnormality' in this case... or whether that even matters. COVID was obviously a very serious and traumatic occurrence, especially for people who got a severe case.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sp527 4y ago
> We demonstrate an absence of association between symptom burden and radiographic or biochemical abnormality. We suggest that the phenomenon of Long-COVID may not be directly attributable to the effect of SARS-CoV-2, but rather the neuropsychiatric insults may play a greater role in its aetiology. This is consistent with ME/CFS, which the WHO classifies as a disorder of the nervous system. There are no known diagnostic markers for ME/CFS.
- tim333 4y ago
  That sounds like a rather arrogant assumption that scientists can't figure what the problem is hence the patients are nuts. It could also be the science isn't that good. I had a girlfriend who got ME/CFS. Before she could race me up a 1000 ft hill after she could hardly walk. That change happened in a few days as a result of an infection, and lasted years. Definitely wasn't psychological.

achairapart 4y ago

I wonder if this may apply to Omicron too. I just got Covid, symptoms started 2 days ago but as of today I already feel almost fully recovered.

orwin 4y ago
Seems way less severe with omicron.

didgetmaster 4y ago

Never got tested, but my senses of taste and smell changed dramatically about 6 months ago. No other symptoms whatsoever. Everything tastes 'funny' like there it is contaminated with a drop of motor oil or something. Lost about 15 pounds just because I don't particularly feel like eating because it just isn't enjoyable. I usually love the garden tomatoes this time of year, but not this year. I have noticed that it has improved some, but I'm not sure if I am just getting used to it.

mannykannot 4y ago
I am not a doctor, but you might want to investigate the possibility that this is a result of something other than Covid.
orwin 4y ago
Agree with sibling. You should go to a doctor. It might not be related to covid and can be a neurodegenerative disease.

ekianjo 4y ago

Anecdotal evidence but after catching covid and having residual symptoms I found that taking Zinc actually worked well to alleviate them. Ymmv but worth trying if you are struggling.

timr 4y ago

Here is the link to the actual study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5 One thing that immediately leaps out to me is that the profile of "symptoms" is broadly similar between "never infected" and "symptomatic infected" groups, but completely different (much lower across the board) for "asymptomatic infected": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5/tables/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5/tables/2 There does seem to be elevation vs. controls for certain symptoms (including a few that are mechanistically believable, such as shortness of breath), but because this is self-reported data, it's still hopelessly biased. People who self-identify as sick are going to be more likely to report symptoms than those who do not...which is probably why we see the much lower rates of "long covid" symptoms in the asymptomatic infection group. At the very least, this should make you question the idea of "long covid" after asymptomatic infection. Based on this data, "long covid" is closer to the symptom profile seen in people who were never infected at all than it is to the symptom profile of people who knew they were infected, but didn't have primary illness.

benhoyt 4y ago

Seeing people are sharing stories ... I'm a pretty healthy 41-year old, I live in New Zealand, got two Pfizer shots in late 2021, then got Covid in April 2022. It was like a bad flu, but I recovered from the main symptoms after a week or so, and felt drained for another few weeks. So far so good. But ever since recovering from Covid I've had this tightness/squirming feeling around my stomach/gut at night, and it really hinders my sleep. I've been to the doctor several times. Nothing's wrong with my heart, and nothing major with my gut either; he can't figure out what it is. At this point I'm starting to wonder whether it's psychosomatic, though I'm not an anxious person, and wasn't terribly worried about Covid. The timing definitely coincides with my recovery from Covid. I'm hoping it just goes away eventually...

ls15 4y ago
There have been some articles that suggest that Covid can linger in the gut. I am not advertising it, but I certainly don't regret looking into alternative self-therapies with supplements (vitamins, minerals, probiotics, antioxidants) during recovering from Covid. In my case, the moderate CFS that I had for years before Covid miraculously mostly disappeared as well.
taolegal 4y ago
It seems like there's an impact on the gut microbiome from infection, and I suspect that a dysbiotic gut microbiome is specifically a cause of severe covid. I think that's a relatively neat explanation for why countries that aren't pervasively obese & eating horrible food faired relatively better in terms of covid mortality.

baskethead 4y ago

I've had 3 shots of Moderna and got my first infection of COVID 3 weeks later. I've had COVID 2 more times after that, the most recent being about a month ago. The first two times were sore throat with congestion. The last time was sore throat with congestion and sore joints for a day with fever. All symptoms except for congestion lasted for a day, and congestion lasted for a week. Annoying but nothing more than a bad cold for me.

readthenotes1 4y ago

I know 21 people that have had covid, from 3 to 91. 1 person had long covid, still requires oxygen months later. Either my friends and family are unduly healthy, or there's maybe something questionable about the "half". If I flipped a coin 21 times and it only came up tails once, I wouldn't believe it was a fair coin...

dathinab 4y ago
All cases which I know personally which didn't had asymptotic COVID took multiple month to _fully_ recover. That doesn't mean they hadn't recovered enough to work or socialize a bit again after much less time. But they still had problems like for example bouts of weakness well over a month later. This kind of long term Symptoms aren't that rare for more serve virus infections in general. They are unusual common with COVID but other viruses can cause that, too. It's just that many societies force people to treat this as if they are fine and power through it, maybe by using non-prescription drugs. While I hadn't(1) had COVID yet I went through similar situations twice in my live in the past. Strong virus infection, fast "recovery" to a point I could go back to school but slightly over a month until I was actually fully recovered with funny experiences like nearly passing out when doing sport in a amount which I had been trivially able to do before the virus infection. (1): At least no positive test. Anyway the point I want to make is: - fully recovered can mean many things - it's not a fundamentally new thing - but due to high covid rates and being relatively more likely with covid, it has become a problem. - It's a problem even if the number is much less then half depending on the definitions you use for fully recovered and of what you take half.
puffoflogic 4y ago
How many were vaccinated?
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  15, including the 1 with long covid
tim333 4y ago
I just filled in a long term covid effects questionnaire. There were a lot of vague questions in there along the do you feel tired / depressed line. I think depending on the boxes ticked they might put me down as not fully recovered even though I definitely don't have what most people would think as long covid. I basically recovered fine though sometimes are a bit tired - hard to know if the covid contributed or not. I think for useful research they should look at people say whose heart rate goes to 120 when they try standing or some such criteria that normal people don't fit. Feel a bit tired/down is something that could apply to anyone really. I think that may be what's leading to the "nearly half" in the title.

throwaway787544 4y ago

3qz 4y ago

ls15 4y ago
How can you know?
- 3qz 4y ago

sumosudo 4y ago

Can anybody tell me what the official clinical diagnosis of covid-19 is?

Markoff 4y ago

Not fully recovered = people with mental issues > People with previous symptomatic Covid infections reported certain persistent symptoms, such as breathlessness, palpitations and _confusion_ or _difficulty concentrating_, at a rate roughly three times as high as uninfected people in surveys from six to 18 months later, the study found. Also: > Women, older people and those living in poorer areas also faced more serious aftereffects from an infection. TLDR people more likely to be depressed were find to be depressed and someone tries to claim it's thanks to COVID infection. /facepalm

entropicgravity 4y ago

Are we in a pandemic of chronic fatigue symptom (CFS)?

lamontcg 4y ago

> Overall, 102,473 (16%) of the 638,125 people invited consented and completed at least one questionnaire: 33,281 (20%) of the 162,957 people who had a positive test, and 69,192 (15%) of the 475,168 invited following only negative tests. That still looks like a pretty poor response rate.

woopwoop24 4y ago

male 34, had it nov 2020, symptoms started dez/jan 2021. still chest pain, nausea, unrefreshing sleep and weird heart palpations and high pulse. got better over time, i am hoping the will release bc007 soonish, so that might be a solution for all of us struggling with our lives and wanting a normal life back. extremely frustrating knowing what was possible and not able to reach that again still happy to hear that most of the people recover just fine.

mancerayder 4y ago

I had covid 6 months ago and it lasted 2.5 months. But it was partially psychological: whether that partial was 10% or 50% or 80%, you can judge. The acute phase lasted two weeks. I had a very strong mix of what was a bad cold and allergy symptoms, progressing to a dry cough from a very bad wet cough. I also had dizziness, forgetfulness, and at one point everything in the world smelled of orange for a week. I had terrible, terrible health care, I was given steroids that spiked my resting heart rate to 110-120 (normally 55-60), told nonsense advice ranging from "it's just a cold" to "here's a Z-PAC in case it gets worse" (I never took it), and of course I never qualified for the antivirals for reasons best left not mentioned here without causing a political argument, the part that makes me the angriest of all. Anyway, after that for two months I had shortness of breath, strange sleep issues, dizziness, and chest tightness. I went to see a lung specialist in a long covid specialty part of a famous hospital chain in the first two weeks of that period. I was told I was at risk for mitochondrial dysfunction, that I should never do strength training again, that some of the other patients became crippled after one year. That POTS was a risk, etc. That athletes have the highest risk for permanent disablement from long covid. I became distraught, and during this time had some of the darkest thoughts of my life. Can't exercise? Risk for POTS? Disabled? That's it for me. I had dark circles under my eyes and fell into a sort of depression. Dysautonomia is the generalized name for the disorder. Anxiety was triggered, and it played its role. I remember I'd taken an Uber at one point who told me that the vaccine gave him symptoms, and he described all the same stuff as me: shortness of breath, waking up at night sweating randomly, dizziness. He was wide-eyed as I explained long covid / dysautonomia. He had had covid prior to the vaccine, and I told him that was the cause. Then one day I went back to the specialist and I brought with me a printout of an endoscopy I'd done a few months prior that showed esophageal inflammation and a GERD diagnosis. I also had a detailed printout of exercise attempts, and notes and dates for what I experienced that night, the next day and the day after, rating the shortness of breath, sleep disturbances, etc. I did a stress test with a cardiologist that showed I was exceeding the markers at every level, was cleared. After that both cleared me for exercise. Overnight my mood change, my physical body felt more healed, and I went full speed ahead in revamping my exercise regimen. Literally everything was fine, then. Well. This weekend I was exposed to covid and today, day 4, I'm testing negative but experiencing some cold symptoms and some chest congestion. How much of the above is in my head versus actual is open to debate. I honestly don't know the answer. But sometimes I wonder, if no one ever told me anything about covid, and ignorance were bliss, how much healthier I'd probably be and how much better the last six months would have been!

WirelessGigabit 4y ago

1 year later. Still deafening tinnitus in left ear.