5 ms·

A lot of the symptoms of “Long COVID” are exactly the same as depression and anxiety symptoms. Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depr

A lot of the symptoms of “Long COVID” are exactly the same as depression and anxiety symptoms. Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. Of course there are a small number of people who had severe illness from COVID and had to be hospitalized, and the road to recovery for them is quite long, but most people claiming that they suffer from Long COVID are not the ones who were hospitalized. The fact that there is no diagnostic test that tells you whether you have Long COVID or not leads me to believe that this is yet another hidden manifestation of mental illness. I feel sympathy for people going through this, but it’s wrong to expect the medical industry to come up with any solutions.

lamontcg 4y ago
> The fact that there is no diagnostic test that tells you whether you have Long COVID or not leads me to believe that... ...we don't know everything about the human body and immune system and medicine and still have a lot to learn.
minsight 4y ago
Long Covid has a collection of effects on the body which can be observed using commonly-ordered tests. A dramatically reduced serum cortisol is one.
- Zanneth 4y ago
  Hyperactivity of the amygdala, commonly associated with depression, also causes changes in cortisol levels. [1] [1] https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.15030053 https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.neuropsy...
- whatshisface 4y ago
  Not a lot of people know this, but depression also has a collection of effects on the body. https://lorienpsych.com/2021/06/05/depression/ https://lorienpsych.com/2021/06/05/depression/
  - BizarreByte 4y ago
    Depression and anxiety can have very significant effects too, way beyond what people would assume. I spent years thinking I had a serious health disorder, but in the end? Just anxiety causing all the symptoms.
- minsight 4y ago
  That's not all. We also have "T cell alterations, including exhausted T cells, reduced CD4+ and CD8+ effector memory cell numbers and elevated PD1 expression on central memory cells" which might help narrow it down for the non-believers. I didn't want to post a laundry list, but can post more if necessary.
snozolli 4y ago
Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. I've had depression and I've had depressed friends. None of us ever had those symptoms.
- Zanneth 4y ago
  Were you clinically diagnosed? It is quite common for people suffering from depression to not even be able to get out of bed in the morning.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- clint 4y ago
  I too have had depression and I have also had depressed friends. All of us have had those symptoms.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Including actual weakness of muscles?
    - olyjohn 4y ago
      Yes.
    - nradov 4y ago
      How do you reliably measure actual weakness of muscles? There is a huge neurological and psychological component to strength. My level of motivation and willingness to suffer has a huge impact on the amount of force that I can exert in a strength test. If I think I'm sick then that reduces my confidence and my ability to perform to my maximum potential even if there's nothing physically wrong. That said, I do think there is probably some mitochondrial dysfunction going on in a subset of Long Covid patients that reduces muscle strength. But we don't have a good way to measure it and don't even know what to look for.
Invictus0 4y ago
I swear there's a dismissive comment like this on every single long covid article on HN
fzeroracer 4y ago
Calling it 'exactly the same' is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I've struggled on and off with depression and the symptoms people report for long covid are not at all like those I or others with depression I've talked to. General fatigue/exhaustion for example doesn't mean I quickly run out of breath when doing normal activities or struggle to do tasks I normally took for granted.
- Zanneth 4y ago
  Perhaps you and I have had different experiences with depression. For me, basic physical activity is completely exhausting when I am going through a depressive episode.
  - fzeroracer 4y ago
    Then your statement is incorrect. You said 'anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like'. I am anyone and I disagree.
nradov 4y ago
There are likely multiple completely different underlying root causes which are being conflated together. Some cases may be psychosomatic. But post-viral syndrome has been recognized since at least 1987. It appears that many different viral infections can cause persistent damage to cellular metabolism in a subset of patients, and SARS-CoV-2 is nothing special in that regard. We need more basic research to understand what's really going on. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/
throwntoday 4y ago
I don't see how anyone can deny the risks inherent to getting a shot. However insignificantly low you can demonstrate the possibility of side-effects from the vaccine are, the risks associated with actually getting covid were just as low. Given the vaccine isn't even preventing covid now, you're only compounding your risk by getting it. This is undeniable no matter what you think about vaccines, mandates, etc.
- peterbell_nyc 4y ago
  Can't believe we're still having this debate. There are indeed risks to the vaccine. There are also risks to covid (both immediate and longer term). My understanding based on the research is that for the vast majority of the population the sum of the risks of vaccine plus (usually) a milder case of covid are materially lower than the risks of getting covid if you're unvaccinated. A vaccine doesn't have to stop you getting something to reduce your risk of serious illness, death and possibly long covid.
- dEnigma 4y ago
  I think the risks of lying in a hospital, strapped to a ventilator were a lot higher with Covid than with getting the shot. To be honest I would recommend the shot even if just to prevent potential month-long loss of smell, as I experienced it (I think that symptom is less prevalent with recent variants though, but I could be mistaken)
  - throwntoday 4y ago
    I think the use of ventillators was deemed overzealous and reactionary before we even had a vaccine rollout. Covid gave me a fever for two days. The vaccine gave me a fever for two days. I don't see how either was better/worse than the other in my case.
    - dEnigma 4y ago
      The people who couldn't breathe certainly appreciated the ventilators. Possible that some were hooked to them unnecessarily, but certainly not all of them.
BryantD 4y ago
I generally think that mental illness is on par with physical illness, to the degree that you can differentiate them. If it’s worth our time to worry about one, it’s worth our time to worry about the other.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  We need to correctly diagnose the issue to "worry" constructively about it. Many in the Long COVID community start from the assumption that their symptoms are caused by a totally novel post-viral syndrome, and are very against exploring the idea that this could be a mental health issue.
  - webnrrd2k 4y ago
    I can't tell if you're claiming that people claim that 1.) post-viral covid is totally novel, of if 2.) Post-viral syndrome is totally novel. However, it reads to me like you're saying that there is no way post-viral syndrome could be a real cause. If they see a competent doctor, I'm pretty dure that they'll investigate depression as a cause, and make an attempt to verify or rule it out. Post-viral syndrome has been recognized since at least the mid-80's, roughly [1]. As far as it goes, if someone gets covid and has horrible symptoms of depression afterwards, then it's certainly plausible that it's caused by post-viral syndrome. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/
- humans2 4y ago
  [dead]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
nerdponx 4y ago
That, or, it gives credence to theories that depression can have a physiological component or origin in at least some cases. It also blurs the line between physical and mental illness. Where do neurological disorders end and mental illnesses begin?
invitrom 4y ago
It seems highly unlikely that millions of people get a depression right after an infection with covid.
- khazhoux 4y ago
  The problem is that it also seems highly unlikely that a respiratory disease that primarily attacks lungs, results in long-term depression. Whataever physiological connection exists there, is far from obvious. And I haven’t found concrete studies to explain it.
  - DennisP 4y ago
    Covid is not just a respiratory disease. It can affect "the heart, kidneys, skin and brain. Inflammation and problems with the immune system can also happen," according to Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i... They're mainly talking about severe cases, but it doesn't seem that unlikely that it could also have more mild effects to those organs.
    - khazhoux 4y ago
      This article is about Long Covid, so in a sense this is circular evidence. Nonetheless, the two qualifiers in the statement "People who had severe illness with COVID-19 might experience organ damage affecting the heart, kidneys, skin and brain" weakens the argument. If the long-covid issue was just that people who were in ICU then had long-term symptoms, that's an easy premise to understand. But IMHO, for mild symptoms, there's a non-obvious leap to say that long-term brain damage somehow occurred.
      - minsight 4y ago
        "A large study comparing brain scans from the same individuals before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection suggests that brain changes could be a lingering outcome of even mild COVID-19." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790595 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790595
runemadsen 4y ago
This is just so, so wrong in many ways. Read about post-viral diseases such as Me/CFS that closely mirrors what Long Covid sufferers are going through. Watch "Unrest" on Netflix. Stop telling people who have serious physical symptoms that it's all mental. Just stop.
- eldritch_4ier 4y ago
  Are there any physiological or biological signatures for Long Covid? Is there any objective way to diagnose? The symptoms of Long Covid are so vague and our recent work so wacky, you could use the same criteria used to diagnose Long Covid to diagnose "Long Lockdowns Syndrome" with all the same vague symptoms.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - runemadsen 4y ago
    There is lots and lots of research into the similarities of Long Covid and other post-viral illnesses despite the fact that people only recently started reporting these symptoms: "This study supports prior findings that ME/CFS occurs with high prevalence among those who have persistent COVID-19 symptoms." - https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8377/15/1/1 https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8377/15/1/1 Long Covid symptoms are not vague. If you argue this, you have not done enough research into what people are battling. A majority of Long Covid haulers suffer from PEM (Post Exertional Malaise) which is a primary symptom of ME/CFS, and even thought research on this subject has been performed for decades, We currently don't understand what causes it. There are many theories for ME/CFS which could fit well with Long Covid, including an activation of the Epstein-Barr virus which causes neuroinflammation, and if this neuroinflammation primarily centers on the brain, it explains all the symptoms that people are reporting.
  - minsight 4y ago
    There are: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2
  - 4y ago
tootie 4y ago
I think that's a very wrong way of thinking about it. Mental illness is illness and ultimately will always have a physical cause. My more optimistic take is that this will lead to us better understanding how things like pathogens and environmental factors can cause syndromes that manifest as mental illness. Which is to say this could be both depression and long covid and the two could be intertwined. And it may lead us to looking at how influenza or air pollution or cell phone radiation or whatever else is causing depression symptoms. I say this as someone who was in the same boat for a while. I was suffering persistent fatigue, malaise, anxiety, sleep disruptions. The kind of thing frequently diagnosed as depression. Only I eventually graduated to a specific enough symptom to get a diagnosis of specific physiological cause. A disease that was only positively attributed to specific neurological malfunction 20 years ago and one that is very difficult to test for directly. In reality, I _was_ depressed by the "quacks like a duck" theory of disease. That doesn't mean I didn't have a treatable illness no different than heartburn or cancer. It's only a matter of time (maybe a lot of time) before we really can "cure" most forms of depression.
factsarelolz 4y ago
"BREAKING NEWS: Being locked down for almost 2 years with limited travel and physical interaction causes depression find out about Pfizer's new cure at 11"

lamontcg 4y ago

> The fact that there is no diagnostic test that tells you whether you have Long COVID or not leads me to believe that... ...we don't know everything about the human body and immune system and medicine and still have a lot to learn.

minsight 4y ago

Long Covid has a collection of effects on the body which can be observed using commonly-ordered tests. A dramatically reduced serum cortisol is one.

Zanneth 4y ago
Hyperactivity of the amygdala, commonly associated with depression, also causes changes in cortisol levels. [1] [1] https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.15030053 https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.neuropsy...
whatshisface 4y ago
Not a lot of people know this, but depression also has a collection of effects on the body. https://lorienpsych.com/2021/06/05/depression/ https://lorienpsych.com/2021/06/05/depression/
- BizarreByte 4y ago
  Depression and anxiety can have very significant effects too, way beyond what people would assume. I spent years thinking I had a serious health disorder, but in the end? Just anxiety causing all the symptoms.
minsight 4y ago
That's not all. We also have "T cell alterations, including exhausted T cells, reduced CD4+ and CD8+ effector memory cell numbers and elevated PD1 expression on central memory cells" which might help narrow it down for the non-believers. I didn't want to post a laundry list, but can post more if necessary.

snozolli 4y ago

Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. I've had depression and I've had depressed friends. None of us ever had those symptoms.

Zanneth 4y ago
Were you clinically diagnosed? It is quite common for people suffering from depression to not even be able to get out of bed in the morning.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
clint 4y ago
I too have had depression and I have also had depressed friends. All of us have had those symptoms.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Including actual weakness of muscles?
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    Yes.
  - nradov 4y ago
    How do you reliably measure actual weakness of muscles? There is a huge neurological and psychological component to strength. My level of motivation and willingness to suffer has a huge impact on the amount of force that I can exert in a strength test. If I think I'm sick then that reduces my confidence and my ability to perform to my maximum potential even if there's nothing physically wrong. That said, I do think there is probably some mitochondrial dysfunction going on in a subset of Long Covid patients that reduces muscle strength. But we don't have a good way to measure it and don't even know what to look for.

Invictus0 4y ago

I swear there's a dismissive comment like this on every single long covid article on HN

fzeroracer 4y ago

Calling it 'exactly the same' is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I've struggled on and off with depression and the symptoms people report for long covid are not at all like those I or others with depression I've talked to. General fatigue/exhaustion for example doesn't mean I quickly run out of breath when doing normal activities or struggle to do tasks I normally took for granted.

Zanneth 4y ago
Perhaps you and I have had different experiences with depression. For me, basic physical activity is completely exhausting when I am going through a depressive episode.
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  Then your statement is incorrect. You said 'anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like'. I am anyone and I disagree.

nradov 4y ago

There are likely multiple completely different underlying root causes which are being conflated together. Some cases may be psychosomatic. But post-viral syndrome has been recognized since at least 1987. It appears that many different viral infections can cause persistent damage to cellular metabolism in a subset of patients, and SARS-CoV-2 is nothing special in that regard. We need more basic research to understand what's really going on. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/

throwntoday 4y ago

I don't see how anyone can deny the risks inherent to getting a shot. However insignificantly low you can demonstrate the possibility of side-effects from the vaccine are, the risks associated with actually getting covid were just as low. Given the vaccine isn't even preventing covid now, you're only compounding your risk by getting it. This is undeniable no matter what you think about vaccines, mandates, etc.

peterbell_nyc 4y ago
Can't believe we're still having this debate. There are indeed risks to the vaccine. There are also risks to covid (both immediate and longer term). My understanding based on the research is that for the vast majority of the population the sum of the risks of vaccine plus (usually) a milder case of covid are materially lower than the risks of getting covid if you're unvaccinated. A vaccine doesn't have to stop you getting something to reduce your risk of serious illness, death and possibly long covid.
dEnigma 4y ago
I think the risks of lying in a hospital, strapped to a ventilator were a lot higher with Covid than with getting the shot. To be honest I would recommend the shot even if just to prevent potential month-long loss of smell, as I experienced it (I think that symptom is less prevalent with recent variants though, but I could be mistaken)
- throwntoday 4y ago
  I think the use of ventillators was deemed overzealous and reactionary before we even had a vaccine rollout. Covid gave me a fever for two days. The vaccine gave me a fever for two days. I don't see how either was better/worse than the other in my case.
  - dEnigma 4y ago
    The people who couldn't breathe certainly appreciated the ventilators. Possible that some were hooked to them unnecessarily, but certainly not all of them.

BryantD 4y ago

I generally think that mental illness is on par with physical illness, to the degree that you can differentiate them. If it’s worth our time to worry about one, it’s worth our time to worry about the other.

chitowneats 4y ago
We need to correctly diagnose the issue to "worry" constructively about it. Many in the Long COVID community start from the assumption that their symptoms are caused by a totally novel post-viral syndrome, and are very against exploring the idea that this could be a mental health issue.
- webnrrd2k 4y ago
  I can't tell if you're claiming that people claim that 1.) post-viral covid is totally novel, of if 2.) Post-viral syndrome is totally novel. However, it reads to me like you're saying that there is no way post-viral syndrome could be a real cause. If they see a competent doctor, I'm pretty dure that they'll investigate depression as a cause, and make an attempt to verify or rule it out. Post-viral syndrome has been recognized since at least the mid-80's, roughly [1]. As far as it goes, if someone gets covid and has horrible symptoms of depression afterwards, then it's certainly plausible that it's caused by post-viral syndrome. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/
humans2 4y ago
[dead]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

nerdponx 4y ago

That, or, it gives credence to theories that depression can have a physiological component or origin in at least some cases. It also blurs the line between physical and mental illness. Where do neurological disorders end and mental illnesses begin?

invitrom 4y ago

It seems highly unlikely that millions of people get a depression right after an infection with covid.

khazhoux 4y ago
The problem is that it also seems highly unlikely that a respiratory disease that primarily attacks lungs, results in long-term depression. Whataever physiological connection exists there, is far from obvious. And I haven’t found concrete studies to explain it.
- DennisP 4y ago
  Covid is not just a respiratory disease. It can affect "the heart, kidneys, skin and brain. Inflammation and problems with the immune system can also happen," according to Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i... They're mainly talking about severe cases, but it doesn't seem that unlikely that it could also have more mild effects to those organs.
  - khazhoux 4y ago
    This article is about Long Covid, so in a sense this is circular evidence. Nonetheless, the two qualifiers in the statement "People who had severe illness with COVID-19 might experience organ damage affecting the heart, kidneys, skin and brain" weakens the argument. If the long-covid issue was just that people who were in ICU then had long-term symptoms, that's an easy premise to understand. But IMHO, for mild symptoms, there's a non-obvious leap to say that long-term brain damage somehow occurred.
    - minsight 4y ago
      "A large study comparing brain scans from the same individuals before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection suggests that brain changes could be a lingering outcome of even mild COVID-19." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790595 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790595

runemadsen 4y ago

This is just so, so wrong in many ways. Read about post-viral diseases such as Me/CFS that closely mirrors what Long Covid sufferers are going through. Watch "Unrest" on Netflix. Stop telling people who have serious physical symptoms that it's all mental. Just stop.

eldritch_4ier 4y ago
Are there any physiological or biological signatures for Long Covid? Is there any objective way to diagnose? The symptoms of Long Covid are so vague and our recent work so wacky, you could use the same criteria used to diagnose Long Covid to diagnose "Long Lockdowns Syndrome" with all the same vague symptoms.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- runemadsen 4y ago
  There is lots and lots of research into the similarities of Long Covid and other post-viral illnesses despite the fact that people only recently started reporting these symptoms: "This study supports prior findings that ME/CFS occurs with high prevalence among those who have persistent COVID-19 symptoms." - https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8377/15/1/1 https://www.mdpi.com/2035-8377/15/1/1 Long Covid symptoms are not vague. If you argue this, you have not done enough research into what people are battling. A majority of Long Covid haulers suffer from PEM (Post Exertional Malaise) which is a primary symptom of ME/CFS, and even thought research on this subject has been performed for decades, We currently don't understand what causes it. There are many theories for ME/CFS which could fit well with Long Covid, including an activation of the Epstein-Barr virus which causes neuroinflammation, and if this neuroinflammation primarily centers on the brain, it explains all the symptoms that people are reporting.
- minsight 4y ago
  There are: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2
- 4y ago

tootie 4y ago

I think that's a very wrong way of thinking about it. Mental illness is illness and ultimately will always have a physical cause. My more optimistic take is that this will lead to us better understanding how things like pathogens and environmental factors can cause syndromes that manifest as mental illness. Which is to say this could be both depression and long covid and the two could be intertwined. And it may lead us to looking at how influenza or air pollution or cell phone radiation or whatever else is causing depression symptoms. I say this as someone who was in the same boat for a while. I was suffering persistent fatigue, malaise, anxiety, sleep disruptions. The kind of thing frequently diagnosed as depression. Only I eventually graduated to a specific enough symptom to get a diagnosis of specific physiological cause. A disease that was only positively attributed to specific neurological malfunction 20 years ago and one that is very difficult to test for directly. In reality, I _was_ depressed by the "quacks like a duck" theory of disease. That doesn't mean I didn't have a treatable illness no different than heartburn or cancer. It's only a matter of time (maybe a lot of time) before we really can "cure" most forms of depression.

factsarelolz 4y ago

"BREAKING NEWS: Being locked down for almost 2 years with limited travel and physical interaction causes depression find out about Pfizer's new cure at 11"