4 ms·

> what do you have to lose ... Honestly? A lot. Your symptoms could get worse. You could turn a condition that's got treatable (if not currently curable) sympt

> what do you have to lose ... Honestly? A lot. Your symptoms could get worse. You could turn a condition that's got treatable (if not currently curable) symptoms, into one with ones that aren't, or ones that are more severe, with worse treatment options. And then the burden isn't just on you, it's on your family and friends who have to either take care of you, or watch you suffer more. Long covid isn't nothing, clearly — but this kind of mindset is irresponsible. The "what have you got to lose" track is typically reserved only for people who have a terminal diagnosis, and even then, it's always a good idea to talk with your doctor about the pros and cons of the different experimental options you have access to.

lambdaba 2y ago
That's quite an exaggeration. Why do you think the therapies should incur such a risk? Of course, it's on you to make sensible choices, but there are very large communities around long COVID out there, and the crowd makes a good enough job of sorting out what's legitimate and safe and what's not. Again, I'm assuming we are talking about people in a state of abandonment by the medical establishment, some unable to function at all. I can't understand the risk calculation here.
- verandaguy 2y ago
  > it's on you to make sensible choices Statistically speaking, you aren't well-equipped to make sensible medical choices. That's why we have medical professions — pharmacology, virology, internal medicine, and hundreds of others — each with people working in them with years of training and understanding. The question is less, "will X formulation work as a remedy for long covid," and more, "what effects will X formulation have on someone with Y and Z conditions, in their late 60s, having undergone this, that, and the other medical procedures on so-and-so timelines, and still on a course of this other formulation to abate chronic symptoms as a result of complications during one of the medical procedures they underwent?" This isn't really even a contrived example. Many people undergo medical procedures. Complications aren't common, but they're not rare, either, and they vary greatly in magnitude and long-term effects. A staggering proportion of people are on a course of some kind of medication (antivirals, pain relievers, more specialized stuff) at any given time. Figuring out how medications interact is aggressively nontrivial, and while there exist databases that can correlate medications and tell you if any are known to conflict with eachother (either always or under certain circumstances — information which, in most cases, was documented through case studies), this information still has to be reviewed by a trained medical professional — an MD familiar with the patient's medical history, ideally — who can say with a good degree of confidence whether a treatment is likely or not to cause the patient harm.

lambdaba 2y ago

That's quite an exaggeration. Why do you think the therapies should incur such a risk? Of course, it's on you to make sensible choices, but there are very large communities around long COVID out there, and the crowd makes a good enough job of sorting out what's legitimate and safe and what's not. Again, I'm assuming we are talking about people in a state of abandonment by the medical establishment, some unable to function at all. I can't understand the risk calculation here.

verandaguy 2y ago
> it's on you to make sensible choices Statistically speaking, you aren't well-equipped to make sensible medical choices. That's why we have medical professions — pharmacology, virology, internal medicine, and hundreds of others — each with people working in them with years of training and understanding. The question is less, "will X formulation work as a remedy for long covid," and more, "what effects will X formulation have on someone with Y and Z conditions, in their late 60s, having undergone this, that, and the other medical procedures on so-and-so timelines, and still on a course of this other formulation to abate chronic symptoms as a result of complications during one of the medical procedures they underwent?" This isn't really even a contrived example. Many people undergo medical procedures. Complications aren't common, but they're not rare, either, and they vary greatly in magnitude and long-term effects. A staggering proportion of people are on a course of some kind of medication (antivirals, pain relievers, more specialized stuff) at any given time. Figuring out how medications interact is aggressively nontrivial, and while there exist databases that can correlate medications and tell you if any are known to conflict with eachother (either always or under certain circumstances — information which, in most cases, was documented through case studies), this information still has to be reviewed by a trained medical professional — an MD familiar with the patient's medical history, ideally — who can say with a good degree of confidence whether a treatment is likely or not to cause the patient harm.