9 ms·

Long Covid brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain

228 points by wahnfrieden 3y ago

ETH_start 3y ago
[flagged]
- ProDemoNo 3y ago
  [dead]
jseliger 3y ago
The silver lining of long Covid research is that much of it may be applicable to other diseases or ailments: https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/the-unexpected-gift-of-covid https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/the-unexpected-gift-of-c...
- londons_explore 3y ago
  And, while it's unlikely a cure will be found for people currently affected, if we're lucky we can probably do something to help the next generation avoid the same issues.
notabee 3y ago
It's one of several mechanisms that might be causing damage. Here's a summary description with research citations: https://whn.global/scientific/spectrum-of-covid-19-from-asymptomatic-organ-damage-to-long-covid-syndrome/#brain https://whn.global/scientific/spectrum-of-covid-19-from-asym...
bugglebeetle 3y ago
Leaky blood brain barrier does not bode well for the future, especially with mass and repeated infections. This is associated with Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other neurodegenerstive disorders: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrneurol.2017.188 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrneurol.2017.188
- formvoltron 3y ago
  Wow that's terrible. Well.. science has major incentive to find cures now. How many have long covid? Or maybe even subclinical long covid that may silently boost Alzheimer's risk? On a more positive note, they recently found that there is some sort of frequency that may enhance / trigger the natural junk clearance mechanisms that go on during sleep.
  - MrDresden 3y ago
    "..recently found that there is some sort of frequency that may enhance / trigger the natural junk clearance mechanisms that go on during sleep.' I believe you are referencing [0], where scientists discovered that in mouse models the naturally occurring brainwaves generated during sleep help clean up extra cellular 'junk' in the brain via the glymphatic system. It has been known since 2012 that the glymphatic system (which was discovered around that time) was a mechanism for cleaning the brain. And even back then there was speculation around if Alzheimer patients had some kind of damage to this system which caused the build up of amyloid proteins. I have yet to see any research conducted on figuring that out (but it may exist). [0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816616 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816616
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Even with this news, several in this thread are repeating that it's nothing special compared with influenza. People have turned off their minds to listen to culture war nonsense
- LorenPechtel 3y ago
  As far as I'm concerned the data has for a long time said that Covid typically causes lasting damage, it's just that for most people it's at a subclinical level. If this were not the case why do we see rising odds for Long Covid with repeated infections? If there's no lasting damage and it's facing a more tuned-in immune system the expected result would be a lower incidence. And we see athletes with higher rates of Long Covid than the population at large. Or do we? That could also be explained by athletes being more aware of where their limits are and are used to pushing themselves to those limits--hence they are more aware of impairment.
nso 3y ago
Between MS and having had COVID 4+ times, first one giving me long for 6 months, it's a miracle my brain keeps ticking. The human body is an insane piece of machinery.
- sa-code 3y ago
  Hang in there
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
xlbuttplug2 3y ago
The last para suggests that this is not reversible. But does anyone have any treatment options or supplements/nootropics to recommend?
- firecall 3y ago
  Long Walks, Sleep, Ritalin :-)
  - sa-code 3y ago
    Long walks and Ritalin can trigger PEM so I would be careful with those, for anyone reading
    - fgkramer 3y ago
      What’s PEM?
      - npunt 3y ago
        PEM is post-exertional malaise, the hallmark symptom of mecfs and some portion of what we call long covid. It's brutal, trying to push through it can lead to permanent worsening of symptom severity.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - ljf 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
p1dda 3y ago
[flagged]
- stdclass 3y ago
  [flagged]
abrookewood 3y ago
Recently read an article suggesting that we should drop the term Long Covid, as it implies that there is something unique about it, when the research seems to show that the impairment post-Covid is very similar to that from Influenza: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/15/long-covid-symptoms-flu-cold https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/15/long-covid-s...
- foreverobama 3y ago
  [dead]
- KerrAvon 3y ago
  Minimizing the impact of COVID has a long and ugly history for such a young virus. One paper contradicting every other source so far certainly shouldn’t be accepted as gospel.
  - kyrra 3y ago
    I think the point here is that we don't know either way, so maybe we shouldn't attribute it all specifically to COVID. When we were told to act like hypochondriacs for a year or 2, it shifted behavior. COVID was the devil virus and people were attributing many things to it. And since there is no diagnostic test for "long COVID", we are sorta just guessing everywhere here.
    - jonReadingNews 3y ago
      You may not know either way but the scientific community absolutely does. Over 350,000 papers published here referencing long covid specifically and growing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  Flu like or not, long convid is a collection of many different syndrome. It need to be more specific to be useful.
jari_mustonen 3y ago
[flagged]
SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
I’ll share an abridged long COVID story about myself since it dearly affected me. Just so other people can kind of know what the experience was like. I got sick in October 2020 before vaccines were available. After the initial 10 days which I would describe as moderate, borderline severe (6/10, where 7/10 is hospital and 9/10 is ICU) I had all manner of absolutely weird things happen to my body. I won’t go into the details about the actual illness since the symptoms are well documented but suffice to say I had breathing issues and there was a lot of monitoring with the pulse oximeter First, heart pain. Stabbing in the chest. I got on colchicine and saw a cardiologist. That lasted probably 2-3 months before it finally went away. I had ekg and echocardiogram, both came up clean. Second, Reynauds. I live in Texas and it gets a little cold but not Nordic cold. For the first time in my life I had Reynauds symptoms during the winter and I lost feeling in my toes entirely unless they were submerged in hot water for multiple minutes. This happened many times that winter. Next, weird food allergies. Eating anything with gluten caused me to, I kid you not, have me in bed gasping for air for hours at a time. I ate a pizza in this time period and instantly regretted it and that continued for hours. More extremely strange circulatory issues: I wore a pair of running shoes for years and years before I got sick. I wore that same pair of shoes and it created lines and pain around my feet such that I went to the ER thinking it was a blood clot. No, it’s just that my tight shoes literally just bruised my feet for no explainable reason when they had never done that before. POTS. Standing up made my heart rate spike for no reason. This is a measurable phenomena for people who have autoimmune disorders called the tilt table test. Had this for months Everything luckily for me mostly went away within around 6 months. I had a lingering chest pain in breath that is now mostly gone that I genuinely thought I would deal with for the rest of my life. I think it’s basically gone now after almost 4 years. I’m a scientific dude. My conclusion after all this is that it’s autoimmune and that no one actually understands the mechanism which is why people who complain about this get dismissed. It’s easier for a doctor to say “it’s all in your head” than to admit that the current body of knowledge of medicine simply does not understand what is happening to people’s bodies. I wish and hope that so many people suffering from this stuff like I did changes that perspective a bit.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Several of these (Reynauds, food/digestion issues) sound like things that my family member dealt with after long-something-else. He was bedridden for nearly 2 years, diagnosed with CFS, and then (many years later) Lupus.
melon_tusk 3y ago
[flagged]
jonReadingNews 3y ago
SARS-CoV-2 not only infects the brain it continues to replicate inside neurons. Evidence of this featured just days ago: https://x.com/danibeckman/status/1769569843760763120 https://x.com/danibeckman/status/1769569843760763120
ProDemoNo 3y ago
[flagged]
- drusepth 3y ago
  HSV, VZV, HIV, CMV, Zika, and Ebola are all viruses that are known to potentially damage blood vessels in the brain. I don't think it's correct to assume a virus cannot just by nature of being a virus.
  - idontknowabout 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - croes 3y ago
      Parent answers the claim that viruses can't damage blood vessels in the brain, Ebola can and Ebola is a virus, so that claim is wrong. >your categorization tricks lumping it in with Ebola. You are the one who tries to trick by suggesting parent linked Ebola to a corona virus, which is not a influenza virus BTW.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dkarras 3y ago
  >I doubt a virus can damage blood vessels in the brain. An autoimmune response of the body is capable of damaging everything in the body. A pathogen is able to trigger any immune response in the body depending on what it is. I don't know how your reasoning works but I can't follow it.
LastCovidWave 3y ago
Perhaps then we should stop ignoring the potential effects of the ongoing airborne pandemic. But no, keep f*king around with COVID, and we keep finding out.
- algorias 3y ago
  There is no ongoing pandemic. There is now an endemic virus that's part of the regular rotation of pathogens that cause colds and flu, and covid doesn't seem particularly more dangerous than the rest (NB: influenza can be very nasty too! I'm not minimizing the harm of covid). The pandemic was a unique situation because the entire world population was immuno-naive to covid. This is no longer the case; we all get exposed dozens of times per year and keep our natural immunity up.
  - ridiskdkfjsl 3y ago
    the distinction between pandemic and endemic is political and typically related to “we don’t care to contain it”. It’s not related to immunity levels. The interesting thing is that it used to be citizens of poorer countries who would be fodder, now it’s also the richer ones which I think says something about the state of those countries and progress in general
    - LorenPechtel 3y ago
      I wouldn't say so much that we don't care to contain it, but that pandemic means it's sweeping over a population, endemic means it's simply always present in the population without major swings in prevalence. Impossible to contain because it's already everywhere.
      - ridiskdkfjsl 3y ago
        ‘impossible to’ doesn’t really fit into my idea of the HN crowd. It’s cost/benefit and leaders took the ‘keep the graph going up and to the right next quarter’ approach to the long term risks. Containment is of course possible, it would just take technology improvements for diagnostic tests and education and investment in air quality. The calculation is that saving the years of ill health aren’t worth disrupting the status quo Edit: What’s the difference between sweeping over and always present? Whether we test and report it in the news or not?
chipsdip 3y ago
[flagged]
feverzsj 3y ago
For me, it's like the volume of my inner voice is decreased, and no sign of recovery after 2 years, though no significant cognitive function decline can be observed.
- knapcio 3y ago
  Just curious: Do you spend much time reading news, watching podcasts, or YouTube videos? I've noticed a similar thing in myself and I'm not sure if it's due to COVID or if it's because of this news addition.
  - zadler 3y ago
    Depression and isolation maybe?
    - knapcio 3y ago
      No isolation, no depression, definitely :)
- fellerts 3y ago
  I'm fascinated by people's inner monologues (I don't have one), so forgive my curiosity: is what you describe a bad thing? Have you noticed changes in your patterns of reasoning?
  - feverzsj 3y ago
    No, not much. It may make you feel foggy for a while, but when you get used to or just ignore it, nothing actually changed. My understanding is inner monologue is just some side effect rather than necessary part of thought.
  - jventura 3y ago
    And I am fascinated by people _not_ having inner monologues, as I do have a very active inner voice. For me having inner voice is like one part of me does the talking, the other does the listening. If other people could listen, they would probably say that I'm a crazy dude, doing all that talk. When I see people talking loud, I call them crazy, thank god I do not project my voice outwards! But sometimes, things come to my mind without talking at all, and it is usually more profound things, or things that trigger a more profound emotion. Regarding self-knowledge or when doing introspection, I confess that having a inner monologue is not effective at all, at least to me. Can I ask how you "work" mentally? For instance, supposing you're a software developer, how do you go thorough learning a new thing about a programming language? I usually talk to myself things like "suppose I do this here, and..". It is like I am pair-programming with the other half of my brain. Hope you don't mind me asking! Is just curiosity (and the fact that the inner monologue sometimes may do more harm than good)..
stuaxo 3y ago
Had brain fog in the first year. One of the issues now
EMM_386 3y ago
I was affected by this "brain fog" after getting Covid, but I didn't put two and two together. I called my doctor's office to schedule an appointment and when the receptionist asked what the appointment was for, I simply said "brain fog". I had no other way to describe it. It was intense and disturbing. I often couldn't put cohererent thoughts together, I was constantly forgetting what I was doing, forgetting where I had just put something. Over the coming weeks it slowly receded, but there's no doubt it is real. I've had people dismiss it as "it's all in your mind". They're right on some level ... it was in my mind. But it was very real, and I have no doubt it was SARS-CoV-2 related due to the timing and sheer intensity of it.
- swagatkonchada 3y ago
  Do you still feel like this? Is there anything that helped you?
  - sa-code 3y ago
    I wrote a longer comment in this thread about things that helped me, you can find it in my comment history.
- sa-code 3y ago
  Not that this it's a good excuse, but it stressed doctors out when they are not able to diagnose something. So when all the tests and checks look good they are quick to dismiss the problems as psychosomatic as a way to cope with the stress of being unable to diagnose you. It's a dysregulation of the ANS/sympathetic nervous system which is likely caused by auto antibodies - so it's very much physiological and outside the expertise of a psychiatrist.
  - pjerem 3y ago
    While you are right, there is a common misconception that psychosomatic means that the patient is making up its symptoms and that it’s in his mind. That’s not what a doctor means by psychosomatic, but rather than the symptoms are totally real but that they are originating from stress. So, any good doctor will try to heal your symptoms regardless of the cause. The only difference when they think it’s psychosomatic is that they’ll also try to treat your stress.
swagatkonchada 3y ago
is there a way to test for this?
doubloon 3y ago
i will never understand our civilization *** up priorities. we should have spent 100+ billion dollars solving this instead of on twitter and VR.
- consumer451 3y ago
  Instead, we had some people in positions of power pushing theories that COVID was a hoax because it was inconvenient for their businesses.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  That would have been economically damaging: where's the profit in doing that, and how would that help people get back into offices and kids into schools so the adults can stay focused at work If we wanted billions spent on public health we can't leave it to politicians and business leaders
thenerdhead 3y ago
Long COVID is horrible. I have had it for three years. I follow the research quite closely and wrote a book about what we know about it, how it affects someone and their health, and some observations on how absurd of a condition it is from the lens of someone struggling with it. Here’s a free digital copy if anyone wants to read it: https://jondouglas.dev/longhaul https://jondouglas.dev/longhaul
- fragmede 3y ago
  Thank you. I have it too and having something to reference is invaluable.
  - thenerdhead 3y ago
    Ugh, so sorry to hear that. I'm an email away if you ever want to chat about it.
binary132 3y ago
Ah yes, leaky brain syndrome.
webworker 3y ago
I had this, but not too badly. I started taking a brain-support supplement and it has made a dramatic improvement. Kind of like my senses, reflexes, energy have all been enhanced basically back to what they were before I got infected with this crap. Edit - I'll just say what I'm taking. It's called "Sharpmind - Brain Formula" by Solaray. I don't have any hard evidence, but I started feeling pretty close to the "before times" after a few days of taking it. ymmv
zingababba 3y ago
I've had good success using cerebrolysin. Involves injecting yourself with pig brains though.
galdosdi 3y ago
When I was younger I never understood the old saw about mathematicians doing their best work in their 20s, or other similar observations .... I thought it was strange, since being older means you had more time to get more experience. Now after experiencing the pandemic... I suspect a small part of the reason for things like this maybe is they younger you are, the less chance you've had the misfortune to experience some infection or another that left you with some mild mental impairment -- including perhaps impairments so small that no individual would notice it in themselves, but in the statistical aggregate, it has an impact. As far as knowledge and wisdom go, older is better. But raw intelligence or processing power, or most of all, the one that really seems to impact everything -- working set size! -- maybe every year is only ever one more chance to get worse, and never to get better?

228 points by wahnfrieden 3y ago

ETH_start 3y ago

[flagged]

ProDemoNo 3y ago
[dead]

jseliger 3y ago

The silver lining of long Covid research is that much of it may be applicable to other diseases or ailments: https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/the-unexpected-gift-of-covid https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/the-unexpected-gift-of-c...

londons_explore 3y ago
And, while it's unlikely a cure will be found for people currently affected, if we're lucky we can probably do something to help the next generation avoid the same issues.

notabee 3y ago

It's one of several mechanisms that might be causing damage. Here's a summary description with research citations: https://whn.global/scientific/spectrum-of-covid-19-from-asymptomatic-organ-damage-to-long-covid-syndrome/#brain https://whn.global/scientific/spectrum-of-covid-19-from-asym...

bugglebeetle 3y ago

Leaky blood brain barrier does not bode well for the future, especially with mass and repeated infections. This is associated with Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other neurodegenerstive disorders: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrneurol.2017.188 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrneurol.2017.188

formvoltron 3y ago
Wow that's terrible. Well.. science has major incentive to find cures now. How many have long covid? Or maybe even subclinical long covid that may silently boost Alzheimer's risk? On a more positive note, they recently found that there is some sort of frequency that may enhance / trigger the natural junk clearance mechanisms that go on during sleep.
- MrDresden 3y ago
  "..recently found that there is some sort of frequency that may enhance / trigger the natural junk clearance mechanisms that go on during sleep.' I believe you are referencing [0], where scientists discovered that in mouse models the naturally occurring brainwaves generated during sleep help clean up extra cellular 'junk' in the brain via the glymphatic system. It has been known since 2012 that the glymphatic system (which was discovered around that time) was a mechanism for cleaning the brain. And even back then there was speculation around if Alzheimer patients had some kind of damage to this system which caused the build up of amyloid proteins. I have yet to see any research conducted on figuring that out (but it may exist). [0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816616 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816616
wahnfrieden 3y ago
Even with this news, several in this thread are repeating that it's nothing special compared with influenza. People have turned off their minds to listen to culture war nonsense
LorenPechtel 3y ago
As far as I'm concerned the data has for a long time said that Covid typically causes lasting damage, it's just that for most people it's at a subclinical level. If this were not the case why do we see rising odds for Long Covid with repeated infections? If there's no lasting damage and it's facing a more tuned-in immune system the expected result would be a lower incidence. And we see athletes with higher rates of Long Covid than the population at large. Or do we? That could also be explained by athletes being more aware of where their limits are and are used to pushing themselves to those limits--hence they are more aware of impairment.

nso 3y ago

Between MS and having had COVID 4+ times, first one giving me long for 6 months, it's a miracle my brain keeps ticking. The human body is an insane piece of machinery.

sa-code 3y ago
Hang in there

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

xlbuttplug2 3y ago

The last para suggests that this is not reversible. But does anyone have any treatment options or supplements/nootropics to recommend?

firecall 3y ago
Long Walks, Sleep, Ritalin :-)
- sa-code 3y ago
  Long walks and Ritalin can trigger PEM so I would be careful with those, for anyone reading
  - fgkramer 3y ago
    What’s PEM?
    - npunt 3y ago
      PEM is post-exertional malaise, the hallmark symptom of mecfs and some portion of what we call long covid. It's brutal, trying to push through it can lead to permanent worsening of symptom severity.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- ljf 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

p1dda 3y ago

[flagged]

stdclass 3y ago
[flagged]

abrookewood 3y ago

Recently read an article suggesting that we should drop the term Long Covid, as it implies that there is something unique about it, when the research seems to show that the impairment post-Covid is very similar to that from Influenza: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/15/long-covid-symptoms-flu-cold https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/15/long-covid-s...

foreverobama 3y ago
[dead]
KerrAvon 3y ago
Minimizing the impact of COVID has a long and ugly history for such a young virus. One paper contradicting every other source so far certainly shouldn’t be accepted as gospel.
- kyrra 3y ago
  I think the point here is that we don't know either way, so maybe we shouldn't attribute it all specifically to COVID. When we were told to act like hypochondriacs for a year or 2, it shifted behavior. COVID was the devil virus and people were attributing many things to it. And since there is no diagnostic test for "long COVID", we are sorta just guessing everywhere here.
  - jonReadingNews 3y ago
    You may not know either way but the scientific community absolutely does. Over 350,000 papers published here referencing long covid specifically and growing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/
j16sdiz 3y ago
Flu like or not, long convid is a collection of many different syndrome. It need to be more specific to be useful.

jari_mustonen 3y ago

[flagged]

SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago

I’ll share an abridged long COVID story about myself since it dearly affected me. Just so other people can kind of know what the experience was like. I got sick in October 2020 before vaccines were available. After the initial 10 days which I would describe as moderate, borderline severe (6/10, where 7/10 is hospital and 9/10 is ICU) I had all manner of absolutely weird things happen to my body. I won’t go into the details about the actual illness since the symptoms are well documented but suffice to say I had breathing issues and there was a lot of monitoring with the pulse oximeter First, heart pain. Stabbing in the chest. I got on colchicine and saw a cardiologist. That lasted probably 2-3 months before it finally went away. I had ekg and echocardiogram, both came up clean. Second, Reynauds. I live in Texas and it gets a little cold but not Nordic cold. For the first time in my life I had Reynauds symptoms during the winter and I lost feeling in my toes entirely unless they were submerged in hot water for multiple minutes. This happened many times that winter. Next, weird food allergies. Eating anything with gluten caused me to, I kid you not, have me in bed gasping for air for hours at a time. I ate a pizza in this time period and instantly regretted it and that continued for hours. More extremely strange circulatory issues: I wore a pair of running shoes for years and years before I got sick. I wore that same pair of shoes and it created lines and pain around my feet such that I went to the ER thinking it was a blood clot. No, it’s just that my tight shoes literally just bruised my feet for no explainable reason when they had never done that before. POTS. Standing up made my heart rate spike for no reason. This is a measurable phenomena for people who have autoimmune disorders called the tilt table test. Had this for months Everything luckily for me mostly went away within around 6 months. I had a lingering chest pain in breath that is now mostly gone that I genuinely thought I would deal with for the rest of my life. I think it’s basically gone now after almost 4 years. I’m a scientific dude. My conclusion after all this is that it’s autoimmune and that no one actually understands the mechanism which is why people who complain about this get dismissed. It’s easier for a doctor to say “it’s all in your head” than to admit that the current body of knowledge of medicine simply does not understand what is happening to people’s bodies. I wish and hope that so many people suffering from this stuff like I did changes that perspective a bit.

gnicholas 3y ago
Several of these (Reynauds, food/digestion issues) sound like things that my family member dealt with after long-something-else. He was bedridden for nearly 2 years, diagnosed with CFS, and then (many years later) Lupus.

melon_tusk 3y ago

[flagged]

jonReadingNews 3y ago

SARS-CoV-2 not only infects the brain it continues to replicate inside neurons. Evidence of this featured just days ago: https://x.com/danibeckman/status/1769569843760763120 https://x.com/danibeckman/status/1769569843760763120

ProDemoNo 3y ago

[flagged]

drusepth 3y ago
HSV, VZV, HIV, CMV, Zika, and Ebola are all viruses that are known to potentially damage blood vessels in the brain. I don't think it's correct to assume a virus cannot just by nature of being a virus.
- idontknowabout 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - croes 3y ago
    Parent answers the claim that viruses can't damage blood vessels in the brain, Ebola can and Ebola is a virus, so that claim is wrong. >your categorization tricks lumping it in with Ebola. You are the one who tries to trick by suggesting parent linked Ebola to a corona virus, which is not a influenza virus BTW.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dkarras 3y ago
>I doubt a virus can damage blood vessels in the brain. An autoimmune response of the body is capable of damaging everything in the body. A pathogen is able to trigger any immune response in the body depending on what it is. I don't know how your reasoning works but I can't follow it.

LastCovidWave 3y ago

Perhaps then we should stop ignoring the potential effects of the ongoing airborne pandemic. But no, keep f*king around with COVID, and we keep finding out.

algorias 3y ago
There is no ongoing pandemic. There is now an endemic virus that's part of the regular rotation of pathogens that cause colds and flu, and covid doesn't seem particularly more dangerous than the rest (NB: influenza can be very nasty too! I'm not minimizing the harm of covid). The pandemic was a unique situation because the entire world population was immuno-naive to covid. This is no longer the case; we all get exposed dozens of times per year and keep our natural immunity up.
- ridiskdkfjsl 3y ago
  the distinction between pandemic and endemic is political and typically related to “we don’t care to contain it”. It’s not related to immunity levels. The interesting thing is that it used to be citizens of poorer countries who would be fodder, now it’s also the richer ones which I think says something about the state of those countries and progress in general
  - LorenPechtel 3y ago
    I wouldn't say so much that we don't care to contain it, but that pandemic means it's sweeping over a population, endemic means it's simply always present in the population without major swings in prevalence. Impossible to contain because it's already everywhere.
    - ridiskdkfjsl 3y ago
      ‘impossible to’ doesn’t really fit into my idea of the HN crowd. It’s cost/benefit and leaders took the ‘keep the graph going up and to the right next quarter’ approach to the long term risks. Containment is of course possible, it would just take technology improvements for diagnostic tests and education and investment in air quality. The calculation is that saving the years of ill health aren’t worth disrupting the status quo Edit: What’s the difference between sweeping over and always present? Whether we test and report it in the news or not?

chipsdip 3y ago

[flagged]

feverzsj 3y ago

For me, it's like the volume of my inner voice is decreased, and no sign of recovery after 2 years, though no significant cognitive function decline can be observed.

knapcio 3y ago
Just curious: Do you spend much time reading news, watching podcasts, or YouTube videos? I've noticed a similar thing in myself and I'm not sure if it's due to COVID or if it's because of this news addition.
- zadler 3y ago
  Depression and isolation maybe?
  - knapcio 3y ago
    No isolation, no depression, definitely :)
fellerts 3y ago
I'm fascinated by people's inner monologues (I don't have one), so forgive my curiosity: is what you describe a bad thing? Have you noticed changes in your patterns of reasoning?
- feverzsj 3y ago
  No, not much. It may make you feel foggy for a while, but when you get used to or just ignore it, nothing actually changed. My understanding is inner monologue is just some side effect rather than necessary part of thought.
- jventura 3y ago
  And I am fascinated by people _not_ having inner monologues, as I do have a very active inner voice. For me having inner voice is like one part of me does the talking, the other does the listening. If other people could listen, they would probably say that I'm a crazy dude, doing all that talk. When I see people talking loud, I call them crazy, thank god I do not project my voice outwards! But sometimes, things come to my mind without talking at all, and it is usually more profound things, or things that trigger a more profound emotion. Regarding self-knowledge or when doing introspection, I confess that having a inner monologue is not effective at all, at least to me. Can I ask how you "work" mentally? For instance, supposing you're a software developer, how do you go thorough learning a new thing about a programming language? I usually talk to myself things like "suppose I do this here, and..". It is like I am pair-programming with the other half of my brain. Hope you don't mind me asking! Is just curiosity (and the fact that the inner monologue sometimes may do more harm than good)..

stuaxo 3y ago

Had brain fog in the first year. One of the issues now

EMM_386 3y ago

I was affected by this "brain fog" after getting Covid, but I didn't put two and two together. I called my doctor's office to schedule an appointment and when the receptionist asked what the appointment was for, I simply said "brain fog". I had no other way to describe it. It was intense and disturbing. I often couldn't put cohererent thoughts together, I was constantly forgetting what I was doing, forgetting where I had just put something. Over the coming weeks it slowly receded, but there's no doubt it is real. I've had people dismiss it as "it's all in your mind". They're right on some level ... it was in my mind. But it was very real, and I have no doubt it was SARS-CoV-2 related due to the timing and sheer intensity of it.

swagatkonchada 3y ago
Do you still feel like this? Is there anything that helped you?
- sa-code 3y ago
  I wrote a longer comment in this thread about things that helped me, you can find it in my comment history.
sa-code 3y ago
Not that this it's a good excuse, but it stressed doctors out when they are not able to diagnose something. So when all the tests and checks look good they are quick to dismiss the problems as psychosomatic as a way to cope with the stress of being unable to diagnose you. It's a dysregulation of the ANS/sympathetic nervous system which is likely caused by auto antibodies - so it's very much physiological and outside the expertise of a psychiatrist.
- pjerem 3y ago
  While you are right, there is a common misconception that psychosomatic means that the patient is making up its symptoms and that it’s in his mind. That’s not what a doctor means by psychosomatic, but rather than the symptoms are totally real but that they are originating from stress. So, any good doctor will try to heal your symptoms regardless of the cause. The only difference when they think it’s psychosomatic is that they’ll also try to treat your stress.

swagatkonchada 3y ago

is there a way to test for this?

doubloon 3y ago

i will never understand our civilization *** up priorities. we should have spent 100+ billion dollars solving this instead of on twitter and VR.

consumer451 3y ago
Instead, we had some people in positions of power pushing theories that COVID was a hoax because it was inconvenient for their businesses.
wahnfrieden 3y ago
That would have been economically damaging: where's the profit in doing that, and how would that help people get back into offices and kids into schools so the adults can stay focused at work If we wanted billions spent on public health we can't leave it to politicians and business leaders

thenerdhead 3y ago

Long COVID is horrible. I have had it for three years. I follow the research quite closely and wrote a book about what we know about it, how it affects someone and their health, and some observations on how absurd of a condition it is from the lens of someone struggling with it. Here’s a free digital copy if anyone wants to read it: https://jondouglas.dev/longhaul https://jondouglas.dev/longhaul

fragmede 3y ago
Thank you. I have it too and having something to reference is invaluable.
- thenerdhead 3y ago
  Ugh, so sorry to hear that. I'm an email away if you ever want to chat about it.

binary132 3y ago

Ah yes, leaky brain syndrome.

webworker 3y ago

I had this, but not too badly. I started taking a brain-support supplement and it has made a dramatic improvement. Kind of like my senses, reflexes, energy have all been enhanced basically back to what they were before I got infected with this crap. Edit - I'll just say what I'm taking. It's called "Sharpmind - Brain Formula" by Solaray. I don't have any hard evidence, but I started feeling pretty close to the "before times" after a few days of taking it. ymmv

zingababba 3y ago

I've had good success using cerebrolysin. Involves injecting yourself with pig brains though.

galdosdi 3y ago

When I was younger I never understood the old saw about mathematicians doing their best work in their 20s, or other similar observations .... I thought it was strange, since being older means you had more time to get more experience. Now after experiencing the pandemic... I suspect a small part of the reason for things like this maybe is they younger you are, the less chance you've had the misfortune to experience some infection or another that left you with some mild mental impairment -- including perhaps impairments so small that no individual would notice it in themselves, but in the statistical aggregate, it has an impact. As far as knowledge and wisdom go, older is better. But raw intelligence or processing power, or most of all, the one that really seems to impact everything -- working set size! -- maybe every year is only ever one more chance to get worse, and never to get better?