Many symptoms in long COVID and other post infection conditions, like fatigue, pain, and brain fog, are hard to test for and it's easy for someone on the outside to say those are caused by maladaptive thought processes even if someone is experiencing them. What are some other well documented or researched complications that frequently arise in long COVID and related conditions, but which can be objectively tested with blood or tissue? Note that I don't mean a symptom present in every person with LC. But something seen in many people long after infection, maybe like damaged lung tissue.
Yeah, long COVID has some measurable issues too, not just "in your head." Some examples: Microclots – Tiny blood clots messing with circulation. POTS/dysautonomia – Abnormal heart rate when standing (tilt table test can show it). Lung damage – CT scans and lung function tests can pick this up. Immune dysfunction – Persistent inflammation, abnormal T-cells. Mitochondrial issues – Energy production problems at a cellular level. Lots still to learn, but it’s real.
I'm not quite sure what objectively tested is supposed to mean in this context. The people that believe that these things are caused by maladaptive thoughts don't believe that the results aren't objectively testable, in fact they would argue that a reduced step count (an objective measurement) is an indication of precisely maladaptive thoughts. If a "pain test" was run on such a person, the simple response would be that they are being hypersensitive to pain, rather than anything else. I guess what you're looking far are not necessarily tests, rather than signs that indicate a specific biological pathology, for example damaged lung tissue. The whole point, as I see it, is that in LC (in the broader spectrum) and ME/CFS such indications don't exist currently. For some more specific issues in LC there are pathologies and tests that indicate these. For example anosmia and ageusia after Covid can be "objectively tested" via smell and taste tests, but I don't think BPSer are too keen on claiming this field their own. There have also been some preliminary results from MRI studies indicating that there may be lung damage in some LC patients that cannot be established via standard techniques, which certainly would be an area that BPSers have claimed as their own. And then there are of course tremendously many things that fall under the LC category that are well recognised as biological and for which certain tests exist (MIS-C following Covid, tissue damage following Covid, a stroke following Covid, etc).
I wondered if the hand grip strength results seen in ME/CFS had been repeated for LC, a quick search turned up this https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52401-z
If I take common LC symptoms like “diahhrea”, “insomnia”, “acid reflux”. All those are objectively measurable, ie. counting bathroom visits, sleep test, and the stomach acid measuring test thingy (although not all cases of reflux have high stomach acid). But, similarly to what EndME says. Even though these symptoms are “testable”, the dominant paradigm for them has been psychosomatic, especially blaming on anxiety and stress. So I don’t think it really matters that they can be objectively meausred. Although perhaps for something like clinical trials it does?
