News about Long Covid including its relationship to ME/CFS 2020 to 2021

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Fauci is a very intelligent guy. I also think he is a compassionate man with a real sense of getting things right for people. In addition he does not have to bend what he says for anyone.

The fact that he seems to be rethinking ME seems to me a rather important development. His opinion carries more weight than almost any other physician in the world - maybe more than any.
 
Article doesn't mention ME, but some recognisable descriptions from patients with Long Covid. Good to see the article recommending to listen to one's body.

India Today: The long Covid tale: If you are recovering from coronavirus, this is normal

- A long Covid-19 is a reality and we must soldier on, get adequate rest and get back to work slowly. While doctors are still assessing the long-term effects of the virus, there is consensus on one recommendation: take it easy. Don't exert yourself. Full recovery takes a long time. Listen to your body too. Push a little, but maintain a delicate balance.
 
Infectious Diseases. 2021 May 22;1-18.
doi: 10.1080/23744235.2021.1924397. Online ahead of print.
Long COVID or post-COVID-19 syndrome: putative pathophysiology, risk factors, and treatments
Shin Jie Yong 1
Affiliations
Affiliation
  • 1Department of Biological Sciences, School of Medical and Life Sciences, Sunway University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia.
Abstract


Long COVID or post-COVID-19 syndrome first gained widespread recognition among social support groups and later in scientific and medical communities. This illness is poorly understood as it affects COVID-19 survivors at all levels of disease severity, even younger adults, children, and those not hospitalized. While the precise definition of long COVID may be lacking, the most common symptoms reported in many studies are fatigue and dyspnoea that last for months after acute COVID-19. Other persistent symptoms may include cognitive and mental impairments, chest and joint pains, palpitations, myalgia, smell and taste dysfunctions, cough, headache, and gastrointestinal and cardiac issues. Presently, there is limited literature discussing the possible pathophysiology, risk factors, and treatments in long COVID, which the current review aims to address. In brief, long COVID may be driven by long-term tissue damage (e.g. lung, brain, and heart) and pathological inflammation (e.g. from viral persistence, immune dysregulation, and autoimmunity). The associated risk factors may include female sex, more than five early symptoms, early dyspnoea, prior psychiatric disorders, and specific biomarkers (e.g. D-dimer, CRP, and lymphocyte count), although more research is required to substantiate such risk factors. While preliminary evidence suggests that personalized rehabilitation training may help certain long COVID cases, therapeutic drugs repurposed from other similar conditions, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and mast cell activation syndrome, also hold potential. In sum, this review hopes to provide the current understanding of what is known about long COVID.

Keywords: Long-haul COVID-19; drug repurposing; long COVID; pathophysiology; post-COVID-19 syndrome; risk factors.
 
YOUNG MARKETHILL SINGER WHO LOST SPEECH TO COVID RELEASES NEW SONG FOR CHARITY
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https://www.newry.ie/news/young-mar...speech-to-covid-releases-new-song-for-charity
Andrew has always struggled with his health, having suffered with meningitis, a recently diagnosed heart condition and ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), but things really took a turn for the worse when he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
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Andrew’s chosen charity is Northern Ireland Chest Heart and Stroke. Post-COVID, he has been diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder which, in him, presents similarly to a stroke. This, combined with his pre-existing heart condition, secured his choice.
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Huh? He had meningitis at some point, and then Covid. Then he temporarily loses the power of speech, gets ME/CFS symptoms and is diagnosed with functional neurological disorder? There are neurological reasons why someone may not be able to speak but can sing e.g. Broca's aphasia:
about Broca's said:
It is usually caused by stroke or lesions in Broca's area, which is a language-dominant area responsible for speech production in the left hemisphere. However, lesions in Broca's area only affects patients' speech ability, while their ability to sing remains unaffected.
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And Broca's aphasia can be caused by a brain infection
about Broca's said:
Although less common than strokes and brain injuries, aphasia can also be caused by an infection in the brain. Any infection that damages or impacts the brain’s language centers can cause aphasia and language impairments. There are a wide variety of viruses and underlying causes of brain infection. A brain infection typically causes one of the following:
  • Encephalitis: inflammation of brain tissue
  • Meningitis: an inflammation of the brain’s linings
  • Brain abscess: a pocket of infection in the brain (often due to bacteria)
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I'm assuming the functional neurological disorder diagnosis is the BPS 'pull yourself together' sort - in which case I really wish the proponents of an FND diagnosis would just go away so that people who want to do proper medicine have more room.

It's a bit interesting that Andrew had a brain infection and then ME/CFS symptoms developed after Covid. (Edit: I mean, awful for Andrew and I'm glad that he is recovering, but just thinking in broader terms...)
It makes me wonder about whether a brain blood barrier that is impaired might contribute to viral impacts on the brain. I guess the symptoms of brain injuries often look like ME/CFS, so it's a bit hard to know what's what.
 
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Andy said:
Moved post

I thought we had a thread for the UK's Long Covid centres but I can't find it, so posting this here, which is evidence that they are working pretty much as we could have predicted.

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Also "Talking Therapies" is an IAPT program so basically Long Covid clinics are just a storefront for IAPT, or at least some of them. About exactly as expected.

Health care systems are massively underestimating the harm done to trust in medicine by providing sham services. Pure hubris, they don't think it even matters that people lose all trust because they don't have to care, it's a monopoly and there is no alternative. Especially with a program like IAPT where patients not coming back is literally the objective.

Exactly the kind of problem that leads people to ignore the very small things they could do to mitigate all this. When experts are all over the place and not making sense and you NEED trust in expertise you are basically shooting everyone in the foot.
 
Saw this article appearing on reddit r/all today with 46K upvotes.

UPI: 'Brain fog' can linger with long-haul COVID-19, study says

I'm too brain fogged to read the article, but it mentions ME/CFS

The top comment on the reddit thread, with 3,7K upvotes, says how sympotms of long-haul COVID are similair to ME/CFS symptoms and that ME is underesearched and not taken seriously by the medical community.

Link to the reddit thread on r/science

It's so surreal for me to see ME and brainfog talked about in main stream places, and ridicule and dismissal not being the first thing you see.
 
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TIME Long-COVID-19 Patients Are Getting Diagnosed With Little-Known Illnesses Like POTS

- A significant percentage are suffering from syndromes that few doctors understand or treat, primarily postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). In fact, a yearlong wait to see specialists for these syndromes was common even before the ranks of patients were swelled by pandemic newcomers. For some, the consequences are life altering.
 
Just seen this really useful workshop on Long Covid and Physio by Darren Brown.

So much of what he says seems to match what so many of you describe, and his descriptions are really really clear.



Direct link: https://longcovid.physio/our-work/physio-fribourg

The thing that struck me the most was that he talks about not recognising that he had LongCOVID until 6 months after acute COVID, when he had his first major crash.
In the same way, there must be so many of people with ME who do not recall the initial infection.
 
Kalla Fakta ("Cold Facts") is a Swedish TV programme (investigative journalism, debate, featured documentary stories etc). Their latest episode is on long covid:
Auto-translate said:
Cold facts: Infected - postcovid

Many doctors and nurses have been infected on the job and suffered from long-lasting symptoms, known as post-covid. In this programme, healthcare workers testify about how their lives have been ruined as a result of the corona infection.
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Kalla fakta: Smittad - postcovid
https://www.tv4play.se/program/kalla-fakta-smittad-postcovid
 
Hmmm....

"Psychiatric Fallout From Long-COVID: How to Prepare

As mounting evidence points to a significant psychiatric component of COVID-19, experts are concerned about an influx of survivors presenting with persistent mental health problems and how best to prepare.

Clinicians should be aware that patients who have had COVID frequently develop psychiatric symptoms, Silvia S. Martins, MD, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City, told Medscape Medical News.

"There should be more screening of all patients recovering from a COVID infection for anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression, as well as referral to services, including psychotherapy, and medication as needed," said Martins, who, along with colleagues, uncovered a high rate of these symptoms in patients who had the disease."

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/952049
 
If you take a canary into a mine then it is 'easy' to believe that mines are full of canaries, as everytime you enter the mine you can see a canary.

Of course a non stupid professional person might realise that they have not in fact entered a mine full of canaries, but that they are only seeing what they took in there.

But non stupid professionals appear to be much rarer that canaries in coal mines.
 
Opinion piece in the journal of the Swedish Medical Association, written by eight GPs.

Primärvården kan ge god vård vid långvariga symtom efter covid-19
https://lakartidningen.se/opinion/d...od-vard-vid-langvariga-symtom-efter-covid-19/

Google Translate, English
Auto-translate said:
Primary care can provide good care for long-lasting symptoms after covid-19

In the wake of the pandemic, the focus is now on another challenge for healthcare: patients with long-lasting symptoms after covid-19. A worrying and divisive discourse has emerged in which the shortcomings of primary care and the risk of feeling dismissed seem to have become reasons to advocate a strongly biomedical approach [1-7].

The experience of symptoms and the ability to manage them are influenced by the life situation, whether the symptoms are due to myocardial injury, depression or autonomic dysregulation. As with other long-term conditions, a biopsychosocial approach is required for proper management [3-9]. A narrow biomedical focus carries the risk of medicalisation, over-investigation and over-diagnosis as well as prolonged time with symptoms and reduced ability to cope with life with symptoms during rehabilitation [8, 9]. At the same time, an overly psychosocial approach can lead to psychologisation and underdiagnosis of treatable diseases [10].

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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Among the references [3-9] are Henrik Vogt and Gyll & Sjöström...

ETA: Among the authors is Minna Johansson, Cochrane Sweden (who has long covid herself, and believes it's psychosomatic).
 
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Andy said:
Hmmm....

"Psychiatric Fallout From Long-COVID: How to Prepare

As mounting evidence points to a significant psychiatric component of COVID-19, experts are concerned about an influx of survivors presenting with persistent mental health problems and how best to prepare.

Clinicians should be aware that patients who have had COVID frequently develop psychiatric symptoms, Silvia S. Martins, MD, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City, told Medscape Medical News.

"There should be more screening of all patients recovering from a COVID infection for anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression, as well as referral to services, including psychotherapy, and medication as needed," said Martins, who, along with colleagues, uncovered a high rate of these symptoms in patients who had the disease."

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/952049
Click to expand...
What this reveals is that this field is completely incapable of identifying cases related to their own specialty. Medicine is covering itself in shame here, misidentifying things then using their own failure as uncovered evidence. Which is as ridiculous as a crime scene being contaminated, then a second unit cataloguing all the contamination of the first team. Ridiculous level of failure.

The basis for why mental health cannot be covered by insurance and disability is that it's impossible to tell whether someone is faking. The other side of that coin is that they genuinely cannot ever tell whether a case is actually mental illness. Which is the same thing as no expertise. This cannot continue, ineptitude at this scale cannot have real power in the real world, not in good conscience.
 
Thread with an obvious bias towards those who remain ill but nonetheless interesting to see how identical their experience is to ours, none of it good. The continued inability to see the obvious, that likely all psychosomatic medicine is fake and simply hid the truth, is growing to ridiculous proportions.

 
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