NIH Long Covid study

[Anonymous]

Curious what others think about this. The diagnostic tests revealed no meaningful difference between the control group (never had Covid) and the test subjects. However, test subject reported significantly more symptoms, including fatigue, shortness of breath, anxiety, and depression.

The study is here: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4905

And this twitter thread was a useful summary for people not used to reading study reports like this, which I think does a good job of just stating the study outcome without jumping to conclusions or trying to discredit the study itself, which appears to have been well-conducted (if fairly limited in scope):

[Anonymous]

yup its the new fibromialga

[Anonymous]

The new Havana syndrome

[Anonymous]

Sounds like chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis

[Anonymous]

Long covid is way for anxious people to keep hiding from the world

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Long covid is way for anxious people to keep hiding from the world

Guessing you are not a scientist or MD

Troll

[Anonymous]

I think it's dumb to categorize all these symptoms as "long Covid" at this point. I think in the long run this will actually make it harder for people to get the necessary medical treatment they need.

Researchers should continue to study how severe cases of Covid impact people after they recover, this seems to be a really important area of research, especially since we still see severe cases even in vaccinated patients.

But for people with mild Covid cases, why is it important to diagnose them with long Covid if they have, say, fatigue and anxiety 9 months later. Why not just diagnose them with anxiety, a common and treatable condition with a clear course of treatment, and keep an eye on the fatigue. Which might improve as the anxiety gets treated, or, if it persist, could be a symptom of something else. You know, exactly the way your supposed to treat these symptoms? Maybe it's related to their Covid, maybe not. It's possible that getting Covid during the Covid pandemic is, in itself, stressful enough to cause anxiety, depression, and fatigue. Let's just treat it.

I'm just not sure what we gain in acting like people with mild cases of Covid are all getting a mystery grab-bag illness with a wide and variable set of symptoms, many of which are incredibly common in general. How does this help people get medical treatment they need? How does it help us understand Covid? I feel like it has the opposite effect, of making people dismissive of real symptoms because they are being ascribed to this conceptual illness that may or may not even exist. Just treat the symptoms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The new Havana syndrome

Not sure this is making the point you think it is making

[Anonymous]

As another poster alluded to, the studies into long covid have really done a disservice to the small set of people that are actually suffering from serious, long-term issues.

There's been such pressure to define "long covid" broadly to be able to claim it's a huge problem. But that means these studies end up being overwhelmed with participants with mild, lingering symptoms that end up resolving on their own in weeks, just like we see with other respiratory infections.

It's been pretty clear for a while that there's a strong psychosomatic component to long covid. By having test subjects self-identify to enroll, this study leans heavily into that. It's no surprise that people with anxiety are heavily overrepresented.

Hopefully we'll see some more responsible long covid studies following up to this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yup its the new fibromialga

Ugh. My dh has new anxiety/panic after covid. He literally never had any anxiety history until he was sick with covid. I lost my taste and smell for 3 weeks. They came back, but I experience a phantom smell of sewage and burning rubber, intermittently. It has been 2 months since we were sick. I'm not thinking of it as "long covid", but, it's not nothing, ya know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new Havana syndrome

Not sure this is making the point you think it is making

DP, but it seems like an appropriate comparison. There’s a condition with vague, self-reported symptoms that a fairly large number of people are claiming to have. In both cases, after subsequent investigation, most reported cases do not appear to be caused by the initially claimed source. But the totality of evidence suggests there’s a subset of individuals that are experiencing problems that otherwise can’t be explained.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As another poster alluded to, the studies into long covid have really done a disservice to the small set of people that are actually suffering from serious, long-term issues.

There's been such pressure to define "long covid" broadly to be able to claim it's a huge problem. But that means these studies end up being overwhelmed with participants with mild, lingering symptoms that end up resolving on their own in weeks, just like we see with other respiratory infections.

It's been pretty clear for a while that there's a strong psychosomatic component to long covid. By having test subjects self-identify to enroll, this study leans heavily into that. It's no surprise that people with anxiety are heavily overrepresented.

Hopefully we'll see some more responsible long covid studies following up to this one.

I agree with this. There is a strong interest in some media to make long covid a thing that everyone should worry about. A lot of misleading reporting. Crap studies that are presented with scary headlines and lots of anecdotes.

And it sucks, because I have zero doubt it's very real for some folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As another poster alluded to, the studies into long covid have really done a disservice to the small set of people that are actually suffering from serious, long-term issues.

There's been such pressure to define "long covid" broadly to be able to claim it's a huge problem. But that means these studies end up being overwhelmed with participants with mild, lingering symptoms that end up resolving on their own in weeks, just like we see with other respiratory infections.

It's been pretty clear for a while that there's a strong psychosomatic component to long covid. By having test subjects self-identify to enroll, this study leans heavily into that. It's no surprise that people with anxiety are heavily overrepresented.

Hopefully we'll see some more responsible long covid studies following up to this one.

+1

The rhetoric around long Covid has gotten out of control, there are people who believe that people are "dying" of long Covid and that this is the most important medical issue we face as a society. It's just bonkers.

Meanwhile, many/most long Covid symptoms can be caused by extreme stress (fatigue, anxiety, depression, brain fog, headaches including migraine) and lots of people are under extreme stress whether they've had a mild case of Covid or not. Why are we fixating on Covid in those cases? Why not just address the symptoms that appear to be a broad response to increased stress loads across the board? People would rather believe they have neurological decline due to a brief bout with Covid than that they are actually experiencing a common symptom of stress due to health anxiety, quarantines, social alienation, parenting without social support, financial distress caused by inflation and economic instability, etc.

Like I guess I have long Covid, even though I've never had Covid, because I have most of the symptoms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Long covid is way for anxious people to keep hiding from the world

Tell that to my cousin who loved her life and job but who has her 80 year old parents caring for her now that she’s disabled.

Or my nephew who needs two inhalers but never had asthma before.

Just stop. Focus on learning how to write and not making fun of sick people.
I bet you laughed and applauded when Twitler mocked a journalist with disabilities too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yup its the new fibromialga

Ugh. My dh has new anxiety/panic after covid. He literally never had any anxiety history until he was sick with covid. I lost my taste and smell for 3 weeks. They came back, but I experience a phantom smell of sewage and burning rubber, intermittently. It has been 2 months since we were sick. I'm not thinking of it as "long covid", but, it's not nothing, ya know?

Well, yeah, it's not nothing. I get crippling migraines and in the last year they've gone from happening 4-5x a year to happening twice a month. My medication doesn't work well anymore and we're struggling to figure out what to do. It might be due to pandemic-related stress, or hormone changes, or something else. Or some combination thereof.

Why am I telling you this? Because while I'm sorry your DH has to deal with anxiety (I've had anxiety before too, it's hard) and the taste/smell thing sounds like a bummer, you are not describing a health crisis here. Lots of people deal with health issues, and honestly anxiety and panic attacks, and relatively brief olfactory malfunction (sorry but a few weeks is just... so minor) are not serious. How old are you? By your 50s you will long for the days when your biggest issue was that you lost your sense of smell for a little while.