Long Covid data - update in first post 21/3/22

[Laura Corin]

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/long-covid

ETA: Link to 21/3/22 post:

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Laura Corin

[Laura Corin]

The only good thing to come out of awareness about Long Covid is  (reported) safer behaviour amongst some young people who are feeling less invulnerable. 

Eta link https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/worried-young-help-to-slow-spread-of-covid-19-svx50l8vd

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Laura Corin

[wintermom]

Thanks for sharing this.

I have to admit that I find the symptoms of covid far too vague, especially as someone who suffers from many environmental allergies. On any given day, I could have all the covid symptoms, including long covid (both groups). I wish that there was a quick and easy way to know if symptoms are allergy or covid. I just go with the null hypothesis thought pattern of "There is nothing new happening here. It is just your regular allergies." 

[Laura Corin]

4 minutes ago, wintermom said:

Thanks for sharing this.

I have to admit that I find the symptoms of covid far too vague, especially as someone who suffers from many environmental allergies. On any given day, I could have all the covid symptoms, including long covid (both groups). I wish that there was a quick and easy way to know if symptoms are allergy or covid. I just go with the null hypothesis thought pattern of "There is nothing new happening here. It is just your regular allergies." 

I have only just started to experience hay fever in the last year or so. I'm having a hard time disentangling symptoms too. FWIW if you report symptoms to the Covid Zoe app, it asks you to compare these to any normal allergy symptoms,  to get some kind of baseline. 

[wintermom]

3 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

I have only just started to experience hay fever in the last year or so. I'm having a hard time disentangling symptoms too. FWIW if you report symptoms to the Covid Zoe app, it asks you to compare these to any normal allergy symptoms,  to get some kind of baseline. 

My trouble is that some of my allergy symptoms are 'normal' or typical, but others are evolving and atypical for me. I'm 95% sure that they are not covid, though. There a 5% chance of anything happening. 😄 

[Not_a_Number]

4 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/long-covid

And 10% for people who are above 18, yikes. That’s a really high risk. 

[Teaching3bears]

Is long COVID autoimmune at all?  Are people who suffer from autoimmune disorders more likely to get it?

What about the children getting rashes on their feet?  Is that a form of long COVID?

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

5 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

The only good thing to come out of awareness about Long Covid is  (reported) safer behaviour amongst some young people who are feeling less invulnerable. 

Eta link https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/worried-young-help-to-slow-spread-of-covid-19-svx50l8vd

 

I'm hoping another good thing will come out of it: more awareness about post-viral/post-bacterial illness symptoms more generally (i.e. "Post Lyme Disease Syndrome"), and a greater awareness among doctors that just because you don't know what's going on, that isn't a reason to discount the patient's reported symptoms. I read this article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, and while I'm glad that suffering from this is changing some doctor's perspectives, it also made me just shake my head and think, welcome to the club.

[EmilyGF]

57 minutes ago, Teaching3bears said:

Is long COVID autoimmune at all?  Are people who suffer from autoimmune disorders more likely to get it?

What about the children getting rashes on their feet?  Is that a form of long COVID?

 

On the COVID podcast I listen to, they say, "It isn't COVID that makes you sick, it is the immune response." So it does seem auto-immune related, though I'm not sure.

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, EmilyGF said:

On the COVID podcast I listen to, they say, "It isn't COVID that makes you sick, it is the immune response." So it does seem auto-immune related, though I'm not sure.

It's definitely the immune response that's the problem, but I don't know if initial autoimmune issues are the culprit? 

[Soror]

I just saw an article about long covid being more likely in older women 50+. A fitness pro I follow developed long covid and is post-menopausal and had shared some research showing more issues with lower estrogen levels, I found that interesting.

[wintermom]

2 hours ago, Soror said:

I just saw an article about long covid being more likely in older women 50+. A fitness pro I follow developed long covid and is post-menopausal and had shared some research showing more issues with lower estrogen levels, I found that interesting.

Interesting on many levels (for me). What is a fitness pro? 

[Soror]

1 hour ago, wintermom said:

Interesting on many levels (for me). What is a fitness pro? 

Fitness professional- personal trainer etc.

[frogger]

On 10/22/2020 at 3:31 AM, Not_a_Number said:

And 10% for people who are above 18, yikes. That’s a really high risk. 

18-49 is an awful big group that includes both me and my children (well some of them). It would be interesting to see the results of that group split down the middle.

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, frogger said:

18-49 is an awful big group that includes both me and my children (well some of them). It would be interesting to see the results of that group split down the middle.

Agreed. 

[wintermom]

3 hours ago, Soror said:

Fitness professional- personal trainer etc.

Unless she's a medical doctor along-side of the fitness pro job, I would do my own research. I think the education level of 'fitness pro' (at least in Canada) is not even an undergrad degree. 

[Not_a_Number]

22 minutes ago, wintermom said:

Unless she's a medical doctor along-side of the fitness pro job, I would do my own research. I think the education level of 'fitness pro' (at least in Canada) is not even an undergrad degree. 

I don't think the point is that she's a fitness pro. Just that she got long COVID and then looked it up. Of course, it depends whether the stuff she dug up was reliable or not. 

[wintermom]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I don't think the point is that she's a fitness pro. Just that she got long COVID and then looked it up. Of course, it depends whether the stuff she dug up was reliable or not. 

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound snobby, but the research studies that is familiar to a doctor and available at their finger tips is vastly different than an amateur hacking around on google scholar. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, wintermom said:

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound snobby, but the research studies that is familiar to a doctor and available at their finger tips is vastly different than an amateur hacking around on google scholar. 

Are they? Maybe to doctors who actively work in research... Most doctors I've talked to aren't super up on studies. 

[wintermom]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Are they? Maybe to doctors who actively work in research... Most doctors I've talked to aren't super up on studies. 

Really? I find that sad. The doctors I know have very fresh and relevant knowledge of the latest research. They have access to more data bases than most of us do. 

[Soror]

32 minutes ago, wintermom said:

Unless she's a medical doctor along-side of the fitness pro job, I would do my own research. I think the education level of 'fitness pro' (at least in Canada) is not even an undergrad degree. 

It wasn't her research and I wasn't and am not relying on her for research. She had linked to different studies on it because she has been affected personally and is interested in the why. A quick Google shows lots of references to the role of estrogen in this illness. I just found it interesting. 

[Soror]

The group that Laura linked at the start of this thread also has information on COVID and estrogen-- https://covid.joinzoe.com/us-post/covid-hormones-estrogen

[Not_a_Number]

12 minutes ago, wintermom said:

Really? I find that sad. The doctors I know have very fresh and relevant knowledge of the latest research. They have access to more data bases than most of us do. 

Oh, that's lucky 🙂 . I couldn't even convince my OB to shift up my due date to what matched my early ultrasound (instead of going by the "date of last period" calculation, which made NO SENSE for me, as someone who doesn't have a 28 day cycle.) I don't tend to expect a lot of numeracy out of doctors. 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Not_a_Number

[wintermom]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Oh, that's lucky 🙂 . I couldn't even convince my OB to shift up my due date to what matched my early ultrasound (instead of going by the "date of last period" calculation, which made NO SENSE for me, as someone who doesn't have a 28 day cycle.) I don't tend to expect a lot of numeracy out of doctors. 

The reason I say it's sad that practicing drs are not up on the latest research is that if they are dealing with patients then they need to be aware of all the latest info that's coming out from research. It's essential to themselves, their staff and their patients. 

Not all doctors are the same, right? There are those in the top of their class, and there are those who aren't but are still qualified. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, wintermom said:

The reason I say it's sad that practicing drs are not up on the latest research is that if they are dealing with patients then they need to be aware of all the latest info that's coming out from research. It's essential to themselves, their staff and their patients. 

Not all doctors are the same, right? There are those in the top of their class, and there are those who aren't but are still qualified. 

Yeah, definitely 🙂 . I'm sure that doctors that are doing research are much more up on it, for example.

[wintermom]

14 minutes ago, Soror said:

It wasn't her research and I wasn't and am not relying on her for research. She had linked to different studies on it because she has been affected personally and is interested in the why. A quick Google shows lots of references to the role of estrogen in this illness. I just found it interesting. 

Anecdotal information is interesting, for sure, but it's much more powerful when you have a much larger sample size. She could be right at the mean of the population experience, and outlier or more probably somewhere in between. You won't know where, though with just one case.

[wintermom]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, definitely 🙂 . I'm sure that doctors that are doing research are much more up on it, for example.

They would be up on their areas of specialty, but why would they more more aware of covid than a GP if they were a radiologist or endocrinologist, for example? The radiologist in research doesn't even see a patients face-to-face.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, wintermom said:

They would be up on their areas of specialty, but why would they more more aware of covid than a GP if they were a radiologist or endocrinologist, for example? The radiologist in research doesn't even see a patients face-to-face.

I dunno. More general research awareness and numeracy, I guess. 

Anyway, let's come back to long COVID 🙂  .

[Soror]

9 minutes ago, wintermom said:

Anecdotal information is interesting, for sure, but it's much more powerful when you have a much larger sample size. She could be right at the mean of the population experience, and outlier or more probably somewhere in between. You won't know where, though with just one case.

She wasn't talking about her anecdotal experience but research. I mean she shared her experience but that wasn't what I was referencing. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Soror said:

She wasn't talking about her anecdotal experience but research. I mean she shared her experience but that wasn't what I was referencing. 

Wanna share the research she found? 🙂 

[Soror]

Just now, Not_a_Number said:

Wanna share the research she found? 🙂 

I'll try to look it up. It would require me searching back for weeks and that's going to take a while. I'm having exciting date night at home 🙂

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Soror said:

I'll try to look it up. It would require me searching back for weeks and that's going to take a while. I'm having exciting date night at home 🙂

Have fun! 

[Laura Corin]

Worth reading the whole article for nuance

BBC News - Long Covid less common than feared - ONS study
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58584558

[Laura Corin]

New study on Long Covid and brain fog.  It's described from minute 11 here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct1l55

The study looked at subjective experience but also memory tests (remembering word lists, etc).  In terms of what we can do to reduce the likelihood of LC if infected, the biggest risk factors were:

- being female and aged 30 to 60

- not resting enough when you start to feel better.

I can't help suspecting that risk factor one is the result of societal/familial pressure causing women to experience risk factor two. 

So the advice (this is pre-Omicron, but I'm personally prepared to extrapolate) is to really, really convalesce if you possibly can.  I'm reminded of those pre-antibiotic convalescence hospitals, where people who could afford it just sat in the sun and waited weeks to get better.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2022.804937/full

[JennyD]

2 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

the biggest risk factors were:

- being female and aged 30 to 60

- not resting enough when you start to feel better.

I can't help suspecting that risk factor one is the result of societal/familial pressure causing women to experience risk factor two. 

Yeah, those two factors seem likely to be HIGHLY correlated.