9 ms·

Researchers find Alzheimer's-like brain changes in long Covid patients

252 points by amichail 2y ago

_whiteCaps_ 2y ago
I had strange symptoms post-Covid infection - my ability to recognize faces was very distorted and it seemed like everyone was familiar to me. It was like everyone I saw was an old high school acquaintance or maybe a celebrity, and I would get anxious because I didn't remember their name.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Did you recover?
  - _whiteCaps_ 2y ago
    Yeah, it took a few months but it gradually faded.
- genewitch 2y ago
  there was publications about viruses "causing the host to be more outgoing/in public" in the lead-up to the part of the disease where you're laid up with fluids leaking out of every orifice. I'm fairly certain some flu and iirc sars-ncov-2 were found to display this secondary (or tertiary) effect. So you "catch" a flu. Before you know you've caught it, suddenly you want to go out to dinner, or go to a meetup of friends that you weren't planning on, or go to the movies / a concert. Your misrecognizing faces seems like it might have felt the onus was on you to go up to people you saw and say "hey how've you been!" which, if you were infectious, would be detrimental to other people but beneficial to the virus. maybe long-covid or whatever left that part of your brain miswired and it took however long for the brain to fix the feature.
  - crummy 2y ago
    "hey... Don't I know you from somewhere?" will become an even worse pickup line when it means the person probably has Covid
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I have a suspicion that, for similar reasons, STDs would also be likely to make people hornier.
    - loa_in_ 2y ago
      As teens would say, "getting laid will give you a confidence boost and make you feel manlier". This is anecdotal, but I'd say that I've seen this happen. Many common viruses like HSV are passed down to children do I'd say exposure is nearly impossible to avoid.
School-Cotton 2y ago
UK meaning the University of Kentucky, not the United Kingdom.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dullcrisp 2y ago
    Why? Would this be more interesting if they were in the UK?
    - OJFord 2y ago
      Kind of, in the sense that it sounds like a global news headline, vs. 'University of Exeter researchers find [...]' published by exeter.ac.uk, on this globally read site.
      - lemarchr 2y ago
        It's global news to me. Hello from Australia! Edit: Ah wait, I think I get what you mean. By "global news" you mean it's been deemed worthy of sharing to an international audience by media outlets, as opposed to a crowdsourcing news source like HN. Is that right?
        OJFord 2y ago
        I mean when you write 'UK researchers find', especially to a global audience (which UoKentucky PR dept may not particularly have but HN does (Hello from the (the!) UK)) that it sounds more like the country UK than the.. no offence intended but not exactly world renowned university. (I've heard of Kentucky, probably my first time hearing of its university in its own right - though I might have assumed it had one.)
        lol768 2y ago
ggm 2y ago
Well the long term good might be novel treatments for one leading to improvements in treatment for the other. But this would be an extremely distressing outcome for any long covid sufferer to read about. I am not one.
phkahler 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- refulgentis 2y ago
  The spike is a sigil that induces a cell to say "Oh cool! You have the ACE2 passcode! Let me inject you into me, virus!" A replica of a key doesn't start a car: you need an engine too.
  - e44858 2y ago
    Could the spike protein push bad things through the blood-brain barrier absent an infection? "Damage to the brain vessels mediated by the coronavirus spike protein (S-protein) and overactive immune responses have been identified as leading causes of this condition" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36810757/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36810757/
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      If you attached something to it, as we see in the titular mediated, yes. COVID being one thing that does
  - phkahler 2y ago
    No, the spike proteins have been shown to do damage. They aren't just a key. And yeah sorry I don't have a reference, I quit even thinking about Covid after my 3rd round.
    - NemoNobody 2y ago
      3 rounds?? I got the original strain that went thru the US - I've only had it once. I just blood test done not too long ago and I still have measurable antibodies 3 years later, a low count - I'm due for a booster but I've never been vaccinated.
findthewords 2y ago
Alz is brain inflammatory response to viruses (among other foreing detritus) that got past the blood-brain barrier, so I'm not surprised.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  Not fully known but increasing evidence. Pretty stunning result is the discontinuity in all causes dementia for NHS seniors in Wales with the week of birth as the discontinuity point (week of birth is cutoff qualifier for a shingles vaccine)
  - dboreham 2y ago
    The vaccine makes things better, I assume?
    - waterhouse 2y ago
      Correct. The study in question: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10246135/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10246135/
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - dendrite9 2y ago
    That was really interesting, I saw it earlier while logged out and just wanted to say thanks for pointing that out.
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    I don’t understand. What do you mean by week of birth as the discontinuity point?
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10246135/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10246135/ > To provide causal as opposed to merely correlational evidence on this question, we take advantage of the fact that in Wales eligibility for the herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax) for shingles prevention was determined based on an individual’s exact date of birth. Those born before September 2 1933 were ineligible and remained ineligible for life, while those born on or after September 2 1933 were eligible to receive the vaccine. Basically, the people born around that date are about as perfect a control-vs-experimental group split you can get in a large population.
decremental 2y ago
[dead]
xyst 2y ago
Today’s generations just do not get a break. Brain rot in the form of social media. Cognitive decline from possible long COVID. Constant exposure to microplastics from various sources (water contamination, water bottles, plastic wrapping, cars via tire breakdown). This timeline fucking sucks.
- causality0 2y ago
  It feels like a Black Mirror episode. A bunch of things shaving little slivers off our intelligence until we're too stupid to save ourselves.
  - hypertele-Xii 2y ago
    Or a passage from the holy Bible. The wisdom of the wise men will perish. Isaiah 29:14 For it is written: "I will make the wisdom of the wise men perish, and the intelligence of the intellectuals I will reject." 1. Corinthians 1:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written: "He catches the wise in their own cunning." 1. Corinthians 3:19 The wise have been put to shame. They have become terrified and will be caught. Look! They have rejected the word of Jehovah, And what wisdom do they have? Jeremiah 8:9
    - itsanaccount 2y ago
      your book doesn't have a single bit of insight into cell cultures, microscopy, viral interactions, immune responses or anything else we've figured out in the last few centuries. its ridiculous to use such a thing to degrade modern intellectual persuit. please keep your 1st century book of wooly mumblings in the tax free echo chambers where it belongs, adults are talking.
      - hypertele-Xii 2y ago
        Keep feeding that Pride demon. Albert Einstein believed in God. Who are you to talk down to Einstein?
    - 2y ago
slavboj 2y ago
It's quite possible that the causality goes the other direction, and a baseline population of brain disorders is being ascribed to the last notable thing that happened to them (which has also happened to ~ the entire population at this point).
- freddie_mercury 2y ago
  Not really, since the survey paper notes that the EEG pathologies were detected in 69-96% of patients, including children. It is not plausible to propose that 69-96% of patients, including children, had undetected brain disorders and that was the direction of causality.
  - hedora 2y ago
    That’d only be true if the study population was a random sample of the general population. If they’re only testing people with symptoms, the causality could easily go either way.
    - jna_sh 2y ago
      The U.K. BioBank study should put this to rest: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5 These are participants whose health is being followed long term. They had brain scans before and after COVID, and abnormalities were detected in the scans post-COVID.
BaculumMeumEst 2y ago
Fuck, I recently had Covid and I've been having trouble recalling things. Every other day or so I'll spend 5-10 seconds remembering the name of something. It's possible this happened before I got Covid, though... I don't remember!
- thadk 2y ago
  Oof, maybe see if you can budge word, etc retrieval with ventilating/monitoring CO2, intentional breath, and by trying different hydration electrolyte balances.
- goochphd 2y ago
  This happened to me following a concussion. I worked with a therapist who suggested a "game" that could help my word recall. Every night before sleeping, pick a category and try to name an example from the category for each letter of the alphabet. Choose a different category every night so you're always challenging yourself. Of course there's no substitute for working with a PT who specializes in post TBI recovery. I've gained a lot of my recall back (though not at 100%).
  - profsummergig 2y ago
    > name an example from the category Do you mean synonyms, or something else? Can you give an example of a category and A, B, C please? Thanks.
    - goochphd 2y ago
      Yeah for sure. So say your category is "fruits and vegetables". You might say Avocado, Banana, Celery, etc. The goal is to challenge yourself, and it's more of a stretch than you'd think (but a good exercise). Or at least, it was a stretch for me especially at the beginning
      - profsummergig 2y ago
        Thanks. I seem to remember an article, about someone very accomplished, where they described their "sleep meditation"; it was something very similar.
canadiantim 2y ago
[flagged]
MrGuts 2y ago
[flagged]
- Spooky23 2y ago
  My sister in law is a ER doctor - she was assaulted by family of a COVID patient because they “didn’t believe” in it. It’s sad.
Insanity 2y ago
I had Covid once - when people considered the pandemic mostly “over” (early this year). The worst was the brain fog which took weeks to clear up.
- genewitch 2y ago
  i've never had covid, and i am unaware if this is in the literature because it may not be directly caused by the virus; but, did you have a lot of trouble sleeping/staying asleep? Anyone can reply, especially interested if you have a fitness band/watch that tracks sleep and breathing/heartrate, if you noticed that your sleep was greatly disrupted by the disease. I had some weird virus a couple weeks ago that didn't seem like it could possibly be contagious, there was no outward symptoms like coughing or whatever. But one of the symptoms was the inability to sleep. I think i got my personal best "without sleep without any chemicals" - i wasn't eating much because i wasn't hungry - like at all, so no caffeine or sugar, no medications that would cause sleeplessness. I was up very nearly 43 hours. And i had to force myself to go to sleep, because i knew the auditory hallucinations were going to start soon - i get em, they're more annoying than tinnitus, at around the 45-48 hour mark, and they get progressively worse. Prior to being awake 42 hours, i had maybe 4 hours of sleep total, and leading up to that i had been up over 20 hours - so my sleep was completely ruined. Due to the lack of sleep, i cannot remember anything that happened that week, or the week prior. Nor what i read (i read two books), who i talked to or about what. It's just blank - not fuzzy, not hard to recall, just nothing there. How do i remember any details? i was live-posting about how poorly i felt and why, went back and read them, committed my posts to memory.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    COVID, at least strains from a few years ago, were known to cause insomnia. But it seems likely it's something that could be from any virus.
    - 2y ago
profsummergig 2y ago
My Covid "Toxo" hypothesis. Hear me out. Cat poop has something in it ("Toxo") that makes mice less afraid of cats. Win for cats. I see so much scientifically-unsound* anti-vaxx hysteria from people who used to be otherwise quite intelligent and rational, that I suspect that Covid has done a number on them (like "Toxo" does a number on mice). * IMHO, there can be rational hesitation to vaxx (Precautionary Principle, etc.) but I'm seeing "science-based mumbo jumbo".
- hypertele-Xii 2y ago
  I'm not against vaccination. What is vaccination? An injection of deactivated bits of the disease into the bloodstream so the immune system can identify and begin producing antibodies against the disease prior to actual infection. I'm against COVID "vaccines". What are COVID "vaccines"? An injection of mRNA genetic material that spreads around the body and reprograms your own cells to manufacture bits of the disease, so the immune system can blah blah etc. Now please explain to me, why is the mRNA experimental gene therapy a required component of vaccination? Why couldn't they just inject bits of the virus like literally every single vaccine has worked since their invention? Why did we need to reprogram healthy people's cells to manufacture spike proteins that are like tiny little knives stabbing them from the inside, forever? Well because vaccinating the population against the disease was never the goal. The goal was to push a mandatory genetic experiment and see if people react. They didn't. So get ready for your next round of mandatory gene therapy under the guise of "vaccination"!
ETH_start 2y ago
The studies purporting to show evidence of long COVID, i.e. long term complications from COVID infections, are notoriously weak on rigor. Most make no attempt to control for the psychosocial impact of positive COVID diagnoses, like the isolation of quarantine, and the anxiety associated with being given a positive diagnosis for the infection. The best evidence available suggests most cases of "long COVID" are misattribution: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2785832 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
- speff 2y ago
  That article is from 2021 when people were just dipping into studying long COVID. If you do a search for the term, there have been multiple studies from this year on the site you're linking characterizing the observed effects of long COVID. And we haven't been in quarantine for a few years now at this point. https://jamanetwork.com/searchresults?q=long%20covid&allSites=1&SearchSourceType=1&exPrm_qqq={DEFAULT_BOOST_FUNCTION}%22long%20covid%22&exPrm_hl.q=long%20covid https://jamanetwork.com/searchresults?q=long%20covid&allSite...
  - hedora 2y ago
    Nevertheless, it’s going to be hard to tease out causality. In addition to covid, there was the lockdown, and the tripledemic. For example, I had two extremely mild cases of covid, but also long-not-covid symptoms from something worse (probably rsv, flu, or ???). Similarly, there are a ton of psychological/developmental issues among covid-generation kids. For many, the lockdown and school closures were probably the main cause, but some probably have issues from covid itself.
  - ETH_start 2y ago
    The studies since then that I've seen have been, without exception, low on rigor. I'm open to being proven wrong.
ingonealan3 2y ago
I thought I was depressed, but recently realised that I’m actually feeling off because of long COVID symptoms. The brain fog is pretty much constant, and I’m definitely more forgetful and confused than I used to be. There are some cardiac symptoms as well, but those interfere less with my day to day. I’d love to find a way out of this state, but it seems that my doctor doesn’t keep up with the latest research, and doesn’t seem to think that long COVID symptoms are a thing…
- mrtesthah 2y ago
  Your brian fog more than likely comes from excess inflammatory cytokines as a result of specific T-cell populations depleted by covid. Maybe try fixing that by regenerating part of your thymus glad with growth hormone—-either endogenous via HIIT workouts or externally administered (see the TRIIM trial).
- Etheryte 2y ago
  I have a similar experience, albeit with a different set of symptoms. I've been active and athletic all my life, never a problem with my blood pressure, after Covid I now permanently have high blood pressure and need to treat for it. All the doctors I've seen tell me that no, Covid doesn't do that, even though there's a clear cut line of before and after.
  - carlmr 2y ago
    >All the doctors I've seen tell me that no, Covid doesn't do that "Strong arguments support the thesis that, through various mechanisms, COVID-19 infection can contribute to the development of hypertension." [1] At least some of the literature points in that direction. Have your doctors read the literature and concluded it's not a thing or did they just wing it because Googling is hard? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10856065/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10856065/
H8crilA 2y ago
ME/CFS is seriously underinvested. I don't really understand why, any drug that makes a noticeable difference here will be a guaranteed money printer. There are millions of people suffering total disability, many in developed countries that have well funded medical insurance. Compare that to depression (which it only superficially resembles): many SSRIs, SNRIs, multiple "schools" of psychotherapy, neuroleptics, lithium, ketamine, ECT, ...
- andbberger 2y ago
  it's stigmatized, has an overwhelmingly complex etiology and no clear empirical signature. i think for the most part people just don't think it's real
  - H8crilA 2y ago
    That's the thing: all of the above applies also to depression. And yet we do have quite a lot of options for treating it. Granted, they are not guaranteed to work, but they are sometimes/often effective, especially if you try a few of them in a sequence.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    After acquiring a bad case of mononucleosis at 18, I acquired CFS which lasted a number of years and severely impacted my ability to focus and make meaningful progress for extended periods of time, and this worsened my depression and anxiety, which exacerbated the problem in a positive feedback loop. Everyone in my life disregarded me or didn't understand the severity of what I was dealing with. Looking back, returning to ADHD medicine back then might have been the best course of action, however a specialized treatment would be very welcome. Regardless of how others perceive the disease, people like me would greatly benefit.
    - emmelaich 2y ago
      I hesitate to ask but have you been checked for Multiple Sclerosis.
edejong 2y ago
I thought this was already well known. A study in 2021 [1] found this relationship. However, it is good to keep people informed because it seems we are letting a potentially severely disrupting disease shred our society to bits. From 2021: “Biological markers of brain injury, neuroinflammation and Alzheimer’s correlate strongly with the presence of neurological symptoms in COVID-19 patients.” [1] https://aaic.alz.org/releases_2021/covid-19-cognitive-impact.asp https://aaic.alz.org/releases_2021/covid-19-cognitive-impact...
patrickdavey 2y ago
I visited two friends recently when I was back in Ireland. They had both been fit climber/orienteering types. Both now incapacitated with long covid. Both had been vaccinated. I went for a very short very slow walk with one of them. She wears a fancy Garmin which beeps when her heart rate goes over 100bpm. We walked for 15 mins and it went off. I really hadn't realised quite how real and quite how incapacitating long covid is.
- iforgotpassword 2y ago
  ME/CFS cases about doubled after covid, and is not even known to be a thing by a lot of doctors. So the symptoms are easily brushed off as "get your shit together" or misdiagnosed as depression. Also your anecdote aligns with the fact that it's more women than men who get it.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    I don't want to be rude, but if there is no way of reliably testing for long covid, you might as well say it could be anything, including depression ? How is a doctor, who could see hundreds of patients a week supposed to know ?
    - hatenberg 2y ago
      It can be diagnosed now
      - klingoff 2y ago
        Sure, but depression and immune system seem to be linked, so how do we know we aren't just more clearly separating viral components in boughts of heightened depression? Personally I think our relationship with flu tells us a lot about the difference between our claimed ideals and our actual behavior as a society. We didn't want to know anything about it for curiosities sake and we invented all sorts of higher priorities to not study the mundane diseases between pandemics.
    - 2y ago
RagnarD 2y ago
This isn't too big of a surprise when you look at the evidence that Alzheimer's, in general, is essentially a chronic viral disease of the brain. Ruth Itzhaki in particular has spent much of her career researching the connection (https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/ruth.itzhaki https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/ruth.itzhaki).
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
What makes this so difficult to surface is that the doctors who patients interact with are not really receptive to the idea that nuanced and difficult to diagnose symptoms may be caused by long COVID. They sort of just ignore that suggestion, don’t add anything to any database, etc. I think we are likely missing a lot of potential patterns in patient data because patients aren’t listened to and data isn’t collected.
throwaway_4179 2y ago
Yep. People think I'm exaggerating when I say I've developed dementia. It's pretty intense (and terrifying) on the inside, but I've found ways to compensate to appear vaguely normal on the outside. Look, I'm even using multisyllabic words here! I also have the profound cardiovascular deconditioning described in other comments. So many hopes dreams flushed down the toilet, but people assume that I'm just lazy and stupid. My heart goes out to the millions with this condition who aren't as privileged as I am. At least I have savings and family to fall back on (as well as a large cognitive reserve). AMA, I guess!
- itsthecourier 2y ago
  What symptoms do you feel recently? Are they improving?
  - throwaway_4179 2y ago
    The brain fog is hardest to describe. One symptom is that I confuse things much more easily now. It's like the resolution on concepts has gone way down. Instead of remembering a specific fact about a specific country (that I recently learned and resolved to commit to memory), for example, it's "some Middle Eastern country... or maybe it was African, but somewhere over there... did this thing where... something medical. Or maybe scientific." It makes socializing really hard. While using my multimeter recently, I convinced myself that voltage and resistance were the same thing, because they both fell into the "electrical" bucket in my brain. Even scarier, the double-checking mechanism failed, so that I didn't detect the absurdity for a while. It only resulted in a blown fuse, but I can imagine this kind of confusion having much more serious consequences. As for physically, I just get winded much more easily -- and it's not the kind of winded I used to get, where if I pushed through, my body might complain but gear up to meet the challenge anyway. I just hit a brick wall where my heart and lungs won't give any more, either immediately or over the long run. I've seen a mild improvement cognitively lately, though not sure why.
    - aeonik 2y ago
      I've been getting the same thing since 2019 from time to time. I had Covid several times as well. I'm getting better, but I feel like I relapse occasionally. Extra sleep seems to help me a lot.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Is this more prevalent in remote workers? I've never felt duller than after switching to WFH and I suspect it's because I don't interact with the world (including other people) as much as before.
1oooqooq 2y ago
the amount of time i waste in hn grew immensely after the pandemic. is this long COVID?
marliechiller 2y ago
Im 9 months into long covid. Just about recovered enough to start doing light cardio again. But during the first 5 months or so my brain was literally scrambled. At Christmas, simple trivia games were impossible. Recall of certain words that were usually available to me just didnt happen. It was awful, especially trying to keep my new job at the time. I also found myself doing things that I'd never done before, like leaving a tap running or heating a pan full of vegetables without any water in, as I'd forgotten I was midway though something. Gradually, I began to get better, and this was in lockstep with my garmin's reporting of my HRV which had massively declined immediately after onset. At my worst, walking up one flight of stairs or showering would have me out of breath and send my heart racing. Before all of this, I was an extremely fit young person (very high VO2 max and exercised daily). Im only just starting to get a resemblance of my former life back and I fortunately only had a mild case but it has really woken me up to the seriousness of post viral syndromes. I now actively avoid _any_ sick people, no matter how mild - my initial infection barely registered as a sore throat and sniffles. I hope we really ramp up investigations into this field as I know there are a lot of people suffering in silence being fobbed off by archaic medical thinking in this area of medicine. Who knows what long term lasting damage has been done to my body
CalRobert 2y ago
For others confused by the references, ME CFS is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myalgic_encephalomyelitis/chronic_fatigue_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myalgic_encephalomyelitis/ch...
deleted 2y ago
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mikewarot 2y ago
I've often said that I feel like I've lost at least a decade off my life. I had Covid back before tests, etc back in March 2020. Lots of testing until I lost my insurance. Recently, my GP says it's probably Long Covid, but we'll never prove it. Beta blockers seem to have helped a little bit, at least my pulse doesn't just sit at 80 all the time. I find myself angry at getting so little done... until I do something... and then WHAM... that was a mistake.
Sammi 2y ago
Anyone here have any experience using Acetylcysteine to treat long covid? Or any other safe drug?
HocusLocus 2y ago
How many people experiencing long COVID symptoms had one or more mRNA shots (lipid, adenovirus) and of those who experienced the worst of the symptoms and shots and boosters since 2021... how did the timing work out? NO this is not a survey and it is not even an invitation to a flamewar. I would urge everyone to consider correlation themselves and privately and honestly, and consider the possibility. In 2021 after years stable on his meds, my 83 year old Dad died 10 DAYS after his first Moderna, COVID negative. Pulmonary thrombosis. Ironically, an earlier vaxed friend who took on a bizarre errand to try to convince me that was likely a 'coincidence' and angered me so much I un-friended him, just died of 'heart complications'. mRNA particles and spikes are too small. Lipid mRNA always escapes the injection site, even into unborn babies. There is delay before mRNA infected cells become active factories, and then a further delay before there are tiny spikes as well. Then finally depleted factories become scar tissue and clotting in the most sensitive regions of the body including the brain. None of these things are directly harmful by themselves. There's just too many, too quickly. I believe the phenomenon would be a delayed onset, whole body anaphylaxis reaction. If the heart or lungs are affected there is danger of mortality, as there was for Dad. But there could be long term effects too. Another danger is corruption of medical science, when a particular "highly possible cause" goes without mention or further study, and existing studies make assumptions to tiptoe along a tightrope. The first question I would have for researchers on long COVID topic today is, is it controlled for vaccination/booster status? And what are the results of the specific classes of patient? Just think about it.

252 points by amichail 2y ago

I had strange symptoms post-Covid infection - my ability to recognize faces was very distorted and it seemed like everyone was familiar to me. It was like everyone I saw was an old high school acquaintance or maybe a celebrity, and I would get anxious because I didn't remember their name.

School-Cotton 2y ago
Did you recover?
- _whiteCaps_ 2y ago
  Yeah, it took a few months but it gradually faded.
genewitch 2y ago
there was publications about viruses "causing the host to be more outgoing/in public" in the lead-up to the part of the disease where you're laid up with fluids leaking out of every orifice. I'm fairly certain some flu and iirc sars-ncov-2 were found to display this secondary (or tertiary) effect. So you "catch" a flu. Before you know you've caught it, suddenly you want to go out to dinner, or go to a meetup of friends that you weren't planning on, or go to the movies / a concert. Your misrecognizing faces seems like it might have felt the onus was on you to go up to people you saw and say "hey how've you been!" which, if you were infectious, would be detrimental to other people but beneficial to the virus. maybe long-covid or whatever left that part of your brain miswired and it took however long for the brain to fix the feature.
- crummy 2y ago
  "hey... Don't I know you from somewhere?" will become an even worse pickup line when it means the person probably has Covid
- ben_w 2y ago
  I have a suspicion that, for similar reasons, STDs would also be likely to make people hornier.
  - loa_in_ 2y ago
    As teens would say, "getting laid will give you a confidence boost and make you feel manlier". This is anecdotal, but I'd say that I've seen this happen. Many common viruses like HSV are passed down to children do I'd say exposure is nearly impossible to avoid.

School-Cotton 2y ago

UK meaning the University of Kentucky, not the United Kingdom.

dyauspitr 2y ago
[flagged]
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  Why? Would this be more interesting if they were in the UK?
  - OJFord 2y ago
    Kind of, in the sense that it sounds like a global news headline, vs. 'University of Exeter researchers find [...]' published by exeter.ac.uk, on this globally read site.
    - lemarchr 2y ago
      It's global news to me. Hello from Australia! Edit: Ah wait, I think I get what you mean. By "global news" you mean it's been deemed worthy of sharing to an international audience by media outlets, as opposed to a crowdsourcing news source like HN. Is that right?
      - OJFord 2y ago
        I mean when you write 'UK researchers find', especially to a global audience (which UoKentucky PR dept may not particularly have but HN does (Hello from the (the!) UK)) that it sounds more like the country UK than the.. no offence intended but not exactly world renowned university. (I've heard of Kentucky, probably my first time hearing of its university in its own right - though I might have assumed it had one.)
        lol768 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

Well the long term good might be novel treatments for one leading to improvements in treatment for the other. But this would be an extremely distressing outcome for any long covid sufferer to read about. I am not one.

phkahler 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
refulgentis 2y ago
The spike is a sigil that induces a cell to say "Oh cool! You have the ACE2 passcode! Let me inject you into me, virus!" A replica of a key doesn't start a car: you need an engine too.
- e44858 2y ago
  Could the spike protein push bad things through the blood-brain barrier absent an infection? "Damage to the brain vessels mediated by the coronavirus spike protein (S-protein) and overactive immune responses have been identified as leading causes of this condition" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36810757/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36810757/
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    If you attached something to it, as we see in the titular mediated, yes. COVID being one thing that does
- phkahler 2y ago
  No, the spike proteins have been shown to do damage. They aren't just a key. And yeah sorry I don't have a reference, I quit even thinking about Covid after my 3rd round.
  - NemoNobody 2y ago
    3 rounds?? I got the original strain that went thru the US - I've only had it once. I just blood test done not too long ago and I still have measurable antibodies 3 years later, a low count - I'm due for a booster but I've never been vaccinated.

findthewords 2y ago

Alz is brain inflammatory response to viruses (among other foreing detritus) that got past the blood-brain barrier, so I'm not surprised.

throwawaymaths 2y ago
Not fully known but increasing evidence. Pretty stunning result is the discontinuity in all causes dementia for NHS seniors in Wales with the week of birth as the discontinuity point (week of birth is cutoff qualifier for a shingles vaccine)
- dboreham 2y ago
  The vaccine makes things better, I assume?
  - waterhouse 2y ago
    Correct. The study in question: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10246135/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10246135/
  - deleted 2y ago
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- dendrite9 2y ago
  That was really interesting, I saw it earlier while logged out and just wanted to say thanks for pointing that out.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  I don’t understand. What do you mean by week of birth as the discontinuity point?
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10246135/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10246135/ > To provide causal as opposed to merely correlational evidence on this question, we take advantage of the fact that in Wales eligibility for the herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax) for shingles prevention was determined based on an individual’s exact date of birth. Those born before September 2 1933 were ineligible and remained ineligible for life, while those born on or after September 2 1933 were eligible to receive the vaccine. Basically, the people born around that date are about as perfect a control-vs-experimental group split you can get in a large population.

decremental 2y ago

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xyst 2y ago

Today’s generations just do not get a break. Brain rot in the form of social media. Cognitive decline from possible long COVID. Constant exposure to microplastics from various sources (water contamination, water bottles, plastic wrapping, cars via tire breakdown). This timeline fucking sucks.

causality0 2y ago
It feels like a Black Mirror episode. A bunch of things shaving little slivers off our intelligence until we're too stupid to save ourselves.
- hypertele-Xii 2y ago
  Or a passage from the holy Bible. The wisdom of the wise men will perish. Isaiah 29:14 For it is written: "I will make the wisdom of the wise men perish, and the intelligence of the intellectuals I will reject." 1. Corinthians 1:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written: "He catches the wise in their own cunning." 1. Corinthians 3:19 The wise have been put to shame. They have become terrified and will be caught. Look! They have rejected the word of Jehovah, And what wisdom do they have? Jeremiah 8:9
  - itsanaccount 2y ago
    your book doesn't have a single bit of insight into cell cultures, microscopy, viral interactions, immune responses or anything else we've figured out in the last few centuries. its ridiculous to use such a thing to degrade modern intellectual persuit. please keep your 1st century book of wooly mumblings in the tax free echo chambers where it belongs, adults are talking.
    - hypertele-Xii 2y ago
      Keep feeding that Pride demon. Albert Einstein believed in God. Who are you to talk down to Einstein?
  - 2y ago

slavboj 2y ago

It's quite possible that the causality goes the other direction, and a baseline population of brain disorders is being ascribed to the last notable thing that happened to them (which has also happened to ~ the entire population at this point).

freddie_mercury 2y ago
Not really, since the survey paper notes that the EEG pathologies were detected in 69-96% of patients, including children. It is not plausible to propose that 69-96% of patients, including children, had undetected brain disorders and that was the direction of causality.
- hedora 2y ago
  That’d only be true if the study population was a random sample of the general population. If they’re only testing people with symptoms, the causality could easily go either way.
  - jna_sh 2y ago
    The U.K. BioBank study should put this to rest: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5 These are participants whose health is being followed long term. They had brain scans before and after COVID, and abnormalities were detected in the scans post-COVID.

BaculumMeumEst 2y ago

Fuck, I recently had Covid and I've been having trouble recalling things. Every other day or so I'll spend 5-10 seconds remembering the name of something. It's possible this happened before I got Covid, though... I don't remember!

thadk 2y ago
Oof, maybe see if you can budge word, etc retrieval with ventilating/monitoring CO2, intentional breath, and by trying different hydration electrolyte balances.
goochphd 2y ago
This happened to me following a concussion. I worked with a therapist who suggested a "game" that could help my word recall. Every night before sleeping, pick a category and try to name an example from the category for each letter of the alphabet. Choose a different category every night so you're always challenging yourself. Of course there's no substitute for working with a PT who specializes in post TBI recovery. I've gained a lot of my recall back (though not at 100%).
- profsummergig 2y ago
  > name an example from the category Do you mean synonyms, or something else? Can you give an example of a category and A, B, C please? Thanks.
  - goochphd 2y ago
    Yeah for sure. So say your category is "fruits and vegetables". You might say Avocado, Banana, Celery, etc. The goal is to challenge yourself, and it's more of a stretch than you'd think (but a good exercise). Or at least, it was a stretch for me especially at the beginning
    - profsummergig 2y ago
      Thanks. I seem to remember an article, about someone very accomplished, where they described their "sleep meditation"; it was something very similar.

canadiantim 2y ago

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MrGuts 2y ago

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Spooky23 2y ago
My sister in law is a ER doctor - she was assaulted by family of a COVID patient because they “didn’t believe” in it. It’s sad.

Insanity 2y ago

I had Covid once - when people considered the pandemic mostly “over” (early this year). The worst was the brain fog which took weeks to clear up.

genewitch 2y ago
i've never had covid, and i am unaware if this is in the literature because it may not be directly caused by the virus; but, did you have a lot of trouble sleeping/staying asleep? Anyone can reply, especially interested if you have a fitness band/watch that tracks sleep and breathing/heartrate, if you noticed that your sleep was greatly disrupted by the disease. I had some weird virus a couple weeks ago that didn't seem like it could possibly be contagious, there was no outward symptoms like coughing or whatever. But one of the symptoms was the inability to sleep. I think i got my personal best "without sleep without any chemicals" - i wasn't eating much because i wasn't hungry - like at all, so no caffeine or sugar, no medications that would cause sleeplessness. I was up very nearly 43 hours. And i had to force myself to go to sleep, because i knew the auditory hallucinations were going to start soon - i get em, they're more annoying than tinnitus, at around the 45-48 hour mark, and they get progressively worse. Prior to being awake 42 hours, i had maybe 4 hours of sleep total, and leading up to that i had been up over 20 hours - so my sleep was completely ruined. Due to the lack of sleep, i cannot remember anything that happened that week, or the week prior. Nor what i read (i read two books), who i talked to or about what. It's just blank - not fuzzy, not hard to recall, just nothing there. How do i remember any details? i was live-posting about how poorly i felt and why, went back and read them, committed my posts to memory.
- deleted 2y ago
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- Workaccount2 2y ago
  COVID, at least strains from a few years ago, were known to cause insomnia. But it seems likely it's something that could be from any virus.
  - 2y ago

profsummergig 2y ago

My Covid "Toxo" hypothesis. Hear me out. Cat poop has something in it ("Toxo") that makes mice less afraid of cats. Win for cats. I see so much scientifically-unsound* anti-vaxx hysteria from people who used to be otherwise quite intelligent and rational, that I suspect that Covid has done a number on them (like "Toxo" does a number on mice). * IMHO, there can be rational hesitation to vaxx (Precautionary Principle, etc.) but I'm seeing "science-based mumbo jumbo".

hypertele-Xii 2y ago
I'm not against vaccination. What is vaccination? An injection of deactivated bits of the disease into the bloodstream so the immune system can identify and begin producing antibodies against the disease prior to actual infection. I'm against COVID "vaccines". What are COVID "vaccines"? An injection of mRNA genetic material that spreads around the body and reprograms your own cells to manufacture bits of the disease, so the immune system can blah blah etc. Now please explain to me, why is the mRNA experimental gene therapy a required component of vaccination? Why couldn't they just inject bits of the virus like literally every single vaccine has worked since their invention? Why did we need to reprogram healthy people's cells to manufacture spike proteins that are like tiny little knives stabbing them from the inside, forever? Well because vaccinating the population against the disease was never the goal. The goal was to push a mandatory genetic experiment and see if people react. They didn't. So get ready for your next round of mandatory gene therapy under the guise of "vaccination"!

ETH_start 2y ago

The studies purporting to show evidence of long COVID, i.e. long term complications from COVID infections, are notoriously weak on rigor. Most make no attempt to control for the psychosocial impact of positive COVID diagnoses, like the isolation of quarantine, and the anxiety associated with being given a positive diagnosis for the infection. The best evidence available suggests most cases of "long COVID" are misattribution: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2785832 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

speff 2y ago
That article is from 2021 when people were just dipping into studying long COVID. If you do a search for the term, there have been multiple studies from this year on the site you're linking characterizing the observed effects of long COVID. And we haven't been in quarantine for a few years now at this point. https://jamanetwork.com/searchresults?q=long%20covid&allSites=1&SearchSourceType=1&exPrm_qqq={DEFAULT_BOOST_FUNCTION}%22long%20covid%22&exPrm_hl.q=long%20covid https://jamanetwork.com/searchresults?q=long%20covid&allSite...
- hedora 2y ago
  Nevertheless, it’s going to be hard to tease out causality. In addition to covid, there was the lockdown, and the tripledemic. For example, I had two extremely mild cases of covid, but also long-not-covid symptoms from something worse (probably rsv, flu, or ???). Similarly, there are a ton of psychological/developmental issues among covid-generation kids. For many, the lockdown and school closures were probably the main cause, but some probably have issues from covid itself.
- ETH_start 2y ago
  The studies since then that I've seen have been, without exception, low on rigor. I'm open to being proven wrong.

ingonealan3 2y ago

I thought I was depressed, but recently realised that I’m actually feeling off because of long COVID symptoms. The brain fog is pretty much constant, and I’m definitely more forgetful and confused than I used to be. There are some cardiac symptoms as well, but those interfere less with my day to day. I’d love to find a way out of this state, but it seems that my doctor doesn’t keep up with the latest research, and doesn’t seem to think that long COVID symptoms are a thing…

mrtesthah 2y ago
Your brian fog more than likely comes from excess inflammatory cytokines as a result of specific T-cell populations depleted by covid. Maybe try fixing that by regenerating part of your thymus glad with growth hormone—-either endogenous via HIIT workouts or externally administered (see the TRIIM trial).
Etheryte 2y ago
I have a similar experience, albeit with a different set of symptoms. I've been active and athletic all my life, never a problem with my blood pressure, after Covid I now permanently have high blood pressure and need to treat for it. All the doctors I've seen tell me that no, Covid doesn't do that, even though there's a clear cut line of before and after.
- carlmr 2y ago
  >All the doctors I've seen tell me that no, Covid doesn't do that "Strong arguments support the thesis that, through various mechanisms, COVID-19 infection can contribute to the development of hypertension." [1] At least some of the literature points in that direction. Have your doctors read the literature and concluded it's not a thing or did they just wing it because Googling is hard? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10856065/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10856065/

H8crilA 2y ago

ME/CFS is seriously underinvested. I don't really understand why, any drug that makes a noticeable difference here will be a guaranteed money printer. There are millions of people suffering total disability, many in developed countries that have well funded medical insurance. Compare that to depression (which it only superficially resembles): many SSRIs, SNRIs, multiple "schools" of psychotherapy, neuroleptics, lithium, ketamine, ECT, ...

andbberger 2y ago
it's stigmatized, has an overwhelmingly complex etiology and no clear empirical signature. i think for the most part people just don't think it's real
- H8crilA 2y ago
  That's the thing: all of the above applies also to depression. And yet we do have quite a lot of options for treating it. Granted, they are not guaranteed to work, but they are sometimes/often effective, especially if you try a few of them in a sequence.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  After acquiring a bad case of mononucleosis at 18, I acquired CFS which lasted a number of years and severely impacted my ability to focus and make meaningful progress for extended periods of time, and this worsened my depression and anxiety, which exacerbated the problem in a positive feedback loop. Everyone in my life disregarded me or didn't understand the severity of what I was dealing with. Looking back, returning to ADHD medicine back then might have been the best course of action, however a specialized treatment would be very welcome. Regardless of how others perceive the disease, people like me would greatly benefit.
  - emmelaich 2y ago
    I hesitate to ask but have you been checked for Multiple Sclerosis.

edejong 2y ago

I thought this was already well known. A study in 2021 [1] found this relationship. However, it is good to keep people informed because it seems we are letting a potentially severely disrupting disease shred our society to bits. From 2021: “Biological markers of brain injury, neuroinflammation and Alzheimer’s correlate strongly with the presence of neurological symptoms in COVID-19 patients.” [1] https://aaic.alz.org/releases_2021/covid-19-cognitive-impact.asp https://aaic.alz.org/releases_2021/covid-19-cognitive-impact...

patrickdavey 2y ago

I visited two friends recently when I was back in Ireland. They had both been fit climber/orienteering types. Both now incapacitated with long covid. Both had been vaccinated. I went for a very short very slow walk with one of them. She wears a fancy Garmin which beeps when her heart rate goes over 100bpm. We walked for 15 mins and it went off. I really hadn't realised quite how real and quite how incapacitating long covid is.

iforgotpassword 2y ago
ME/CFS cases about doubled after covid, and is not even known to be a thing by a lot of doctors. So the symptoms are easily brushed off as "get your shit together" or misdiagnosed as depression. Also your anecdote aligns with the fact that it's more women than men who get it.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  I don't want to be rude, but if there is no way of reliably testing for long covid, you might as well say it could be anything, including depression ? How is a doctor, who could see hundreds of patients a week supposed to know ?
  - hatenberg 2y ago
    It can be diagnosed now
    - klingoff 2y ago
      Sure, but depression and immune system seem to be linked, so how do we know we aren't just more clearly separating viral components in boughts of heightened depression? Personally I think our relationship with flu tells us a lot about the difference between our claimed ideals and our actual behavior as a society. We didn't want to know anything about it for curiosities sake and we invented all sorts of higher priorities to not study the mundane diseases between pandemics.
  - 2y ago

RagnarD 2y ago

This isn't too big of a surprise when you look at the evidence that Alzheimer's, in general, is essentially a chronic viral disease of the brain. Ruth Itzhaki in particular has spent much of her career researching the connection (https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/ruth.itzhaki https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/ruth.itzhaki).

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

What makes this so difficult to surface is that the doctors who patients interact with are not really receptive to the idea that nuanced and difficult to diagnose symptoms may be caused by long COVID. They sort of just ignore that suggestion, don’t add anything to any database, etc. I think we are likely missing a lot of potential patterns in patient data because patients aren’t listened to and data isn’t collected.

throwaway_4179 2y ago

Yep. People think I'm exaggerating when I say I've developed dementia. It's pretty intense (and terrifying) on the inside, but I've found ways to compensate to appear vaguely normal on the outside. Look, I'm even using multisyllabic words here! I also have the profound cardiovascular deconditioning described in other comments. So many hopes dreams flushed down the toilet, but people assume that I'm just lazy and stupid. My heart goes out to the millions with this condition who aren't as privileged as I am. At least I have savings and family to fall back on (as well as a large cognitive reserve). AMA, I guess!

itsthecourier 2y ago
What symptoms do you feel recently? Are they improving?
- throwaway_4179 2y ago
  The brain fog is hardest to describe. One symptom is that I confuse things much more easily now. It's like the resolution on concepts has gone way down. Instead of remembering a specific fact about a specific country (that I recently learned and resolved to commit to memory), for example, it's "some Middle Eastern country... or maybe it was African, but somewhere over there... did this thing where... something medical. Or maybe scientific." It makes socializing really hard. While using my multimeter recently, I convinced myself that voltage and resistance were the same thing, because they both fell into the "electrical" bucket in my brain. Even scarier, the double-checking mechanism failed, so that I didn't detect the absurdity for a while. It only resulted in a blown fuse, but I can imagine this kind of confusion having much more serious consequences. As for physically, I just get winded much more easily -- and it's not the kind of winded I used to get, where if I pushed through, my body might complain but gear up to meet the challenge anyway. I just hit a brick wall where my heart and lungs won't give any more, either immediately or over the long run. I've seen a mild improvement cognitively lately, though not sure why.
  - aeonik 2y ago
    I've been getting the same thing since 2019 from time to time. I had Covid several times as well. I'm getting better, but I feel like I relapse occasionally. Extra sleep seems to help me a lot.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

Is this more prevalent in remote workers? I've never felt duller than after switching to WFH and I suspect it's because I don't interact with the world (including other people) as much as before.

1oooqooq 2y ago

the amount of time i waste in hn grew immensely after the pandemic. is this long COVID?

marliechiller 2y ago

Im 9 months into long covid. Just about recovered enough to start doing light cardio again. But during the first 5 months or so my brain was literally scrambled. At Christmas, simple trivia games were impossible. Recall of certain words that were usually available to me just didnt happen. It was awful, especially trying to keep my new job at the time. I also found myself doing things that I'd never done before, like leaving a tap running or heating a pan full of vegetables without any water in, as I'd forgotten I was midway though something. Gradually, I began to get better, and this was in lockstep with my garmin's reporting of my HRV which had massively declined immediately after onset. At my worst, walking up one flight of stairs or showering would have me out of breath and send my heart racing. Before all of this, I was an extremely fit young person (very high VO2 max and exercised daily). Im only just starting to get a resemblance of my former life back and I fortunately only had a mild case but it has really woken me up to the seriousness of post viral syndromes. I now actively avoid _any_ sick people, no matter how mild - my initial infection barely registered as a sore throat and sniffles. I hope we really ramp up investigations into this field as I know there are a lot of people suffering in silence being fobbed off by archaic medical thinking in this area of medicine. Who knows what long term lasting damage has been done to my body

CalRobert 2y ago

For others confused by the references, ME CFS is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myalgic_encephalomyelitis/chronic_fatigue_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myalgic_encephalomyelitis/ch...

deleted 2y ago

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mikewarot 2y ago

I've often said that I feel like I've lost at least a decade off my life. I had Covid back before tests, etc back in March 2020. Lots of testing until I lost my insurance. Recently, my GP says it's probably Long Covid, but we'll never prove it. Beta blockers seem to have helped a little bit, at least my pulse doesn't just sit at 80 all the time. I find myself angry at getting so little done... until I do something... and then WHAM... that was a mistake.

Sammi 2y ago

Anyone here have any experience using Acetylcysteine to treat long covid? Or any other safe drug?

HocusLocus 2y ago

How many people experiencing long COVID symptoms had one or more mRNA shots (lipid, adenovirus) and of those who experienced the worst of the symptoms and shots and boosters since 2021... how did the timing work out? NO this is not a survey and it is not even an invitation to a flamewar. I would urge everyone to consider correlation themselves and privately and honestly, and consider the possibility. In 2021 after years stable on his meds, my 83 year old Dad died 10 DAYS after his first Moderna, COVID negative. Pulmonary thrombosis. Ironically, an earlier vaxed friend who took on a bizarre errand to try to convince me that was likely a 'coincidence' and angered me so much I un-friended him, just died of 'heart complications'. mRNA particles and spikes are too small. Lipid mRNA always escapes the injection site, even into unborn babies. There is delay before mRNA infected cells become active factories, and then a further delay before there are tiny spikes as well. Then finally depleted factories become scar tissue and clotting in the most sensitive regions of the body including the brain. None of these things are directly harmful by themselves. There's just too many, too quickly. I believe the phenomenon would be a delayed onset, whole body anaphylaxis reaction. If the heart or lungs are affected there is danger of mortality, as there was for Dad. But there could be long term effects too. Another danger is corruption of medical science, when a particular "highly possible cause" goes without mention or further study, and existing studies make assumptions to tiptoe along a tightrope. The first question I would have for researchers on long COVID topic today is, is it controlled for vaccination/booster status? And what are the results of the specific classes of patient? Just think about it.