Omicron sequelae?

[Not_a_Number]

Hey all! 

As usual, I'd like anecdata about how people are doing with Omicron (as I've been posting, I'm not happy with the quality of the studies I can find.) 

Feel free to fill this out for a family member, but please don't do anyone who's not in your immediate family, as that will skew the results. 

If you had sequelae, I'd appreciate if you'd share them in the comments, as well as how long they lasted and how debilitating they were/are.  

Edited November 13, 2022 by Not_a_Number

[Bambam]

I had what I assume was Omicron.  I ended up with a messed up smell for about 3 - 4 weeks. It wasn't gone, it was just not right. Lavender did not smell like lavender but like something else. I did smell 3-4 essential oils every day to try to help train my sense of smell back to normal. 

And other weird thing, I usually am cold all the time.  During COVID and after - for 3-4 weeks - I was not. My perceived temperature was in line with others vs. being cold all the time. I really liked that part, but, alas, it did not stick around. 

[Not_a_Number]

46 minutes ago, Bambam said:

I had what I assume was Omicron.  I ended up with a messed up smell for about 3 - 4 weeks. It wasn't gone, it was just not right. Lavender did not smell like lavender but like something else. I did smell 3-4 essential oils every day to try to help train my sense of smell back to normal. 

And other weird thing, I usually am cold all the time.  During COVID and after - for 3-4 weeks - I was not. My perceived temperature was in line with others vs. being cold all the time. I really liked that part, but, alas, it did not stick around. 

Huh, that's really interesting about your temperature! I'm also cold all the time... and I'm still cold all the time, alas. That would be a good consequence!!

[Matryoshka]

Everyone in my immediate family (3 adult kids, parents, brother and his wife and 2 adult kids, and the two spouses of one dd and dnephew) have had Omicron, except dh and me (knock wood), who are also the only two who still consitently mask while indoors in public.  Db and SIL work at a school and still mask there (and had managed to avoid it all this time), but then threw caution to the wind at two weddings, and one caught it at one, and the other at the second.  Dh and I attended the second wedding, and were the only two masked.  A huge number of people got Covid there, including someone at our table.  Fortunately, I don't think there were any serious cases.

I think my parents and one of my kids also had Original Recipe Covid, literally back in early March 2020 when it was already rampant here and no one knew yet.  I think my parents got it at a funeral that was the week before the shutdown.  They were all really sick for weeks, all had pneumonia, but were never hospitalized or officially diagnosed.  My dad has not been able to smell since then, so that's a bit of a smoking gun.

As for Omicron sequalae, of those people I think two have had sequalae to the Omicron (neither was horribly sick for the acute phase).  My mom has definitely been losing her memory or has brain fog.  She literally just got confirmation that she does *not* have the Alzheimer's gene and did okay on the memory tests at a long-term brain study she's in (her mom had Alzheimer's and the gene, so she's wanted to know if it was coming for her).  She's only been this way since the last bout of Covid, and coupled with the other info, my thinking is it's likely Covid brain fog.  The whole family has noticed, and it did come on suddenly.  Hopefully then it doesn't get worse or even resolves? It's been like 10 months so far.  She's almost 85 and otherwise in good health.

One of my kids (24yo) has had montly recurring fevers that last a week since their Omicron case (obviously gone on for months, since they needed time to see the pattern).  They just got diagnosed as adult-onset periodic fever syndrome, which is an auto-inflammatory syndrome.  Fortunately a dose of prednisone knocks the fever out, now that they know what it is.  Being down with a fever one week out of four was getting a bit debilitating.  This is someone who never got fevers when young, even when sick.  

Those are all I've heard of thus far.

Everyone in my family is up-to-date with their shots, including boosters, as far as I know.  All the Omicron cases were before the bivalent boosters were available, though, except my youngest who just had it a couple of weeks ago, and must've caught it in the week after getting her bivalent booster.  Dd and DIL got it recently enough that they'll now delay their bivalent boosters a few months.

I did not answer the poll as all that was too complicated to figure out how to answer for all those people, and none of them are me.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Matryoshka

[Ausmumof3]

9 hours ago, Bambam said:

I had what I assume was Omicron.  I ended up with a messed up smell for about 3 - 4 weeks. It wasn't gone, it was just not right. Lavender did not smell like lavender but like something else. I did smell 3-4 essential oils every day to try to help train my sense of smell back to normal. 

And other weird thing, I usually am cold all the time.  During COVID and after - for 3-4 weeks - I was not. My perceived temperature was in line with others vs. being cold all the time. I really liked that part, but, alas, it did not stick around. 

Probably asking the obvious but have you had your thyroid checked?

[Bambam]

46 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Probably asking the obvious but have you had your thyroid checked?

Yes, I have it checked yearly. It has always been in the normal range, so my doctor doesn't believe it is the culprit. It is getting worse (the being cold) as I get older, but I also can't stand the heat (TX, so hot and humid). 

[TexasProud]

My husband, daughter and I have had it.  We have had no long term effects at all. 

[Not_a_Number]

Bumping up! Anyone else? 

[Clemsondana]

For the 2 of us with altered smell/taste, it  was back in 2 weeks.  We were all fatigued for a few weeks, but that's happened with other illnesses so it doesn't seem to be specific.  I do sometimes have the odd sensation of feeling like I burned my tongue when I haven't eaten anything to burn it, which is annoying but not really a problem.  

I had 2 months of joint pain that I'm attributing to Covid.  I've had less than ideal reactions to other shots, so I chose to do a 1-dose J&J.  After having the usual feverish symptoms for a few days...2 weeks later, I had joint pain that was everywhere but particularly bad in my hips.  For about 4 months, I could often barely walk and had to hold on to furniture to get around sometimes.  Any effort at exercise didn't cause 'pleasant soreness' - it was like a sprain-level of pain.  I mostly laid in the floor on a mat.  Fortunatley, I could drive just fine, so I took over all kid shuttling so that spouse could do the garden chores that I usually do.  No amount of stretching, resting, or 'pushing through' helped -  with 4 months, I had a chance to try them all.  Tylenol-type medicines helped, but I didn't want that to be a daily thing so I saved it for days when I needed to be on my feet.  Some days were Ok, and some were terrible. I was willing to believe that it wasn't the shot and that it was just some sort of inflammation, since my family does allergy, arthritis, and other inflammatory illness on a grand scale, until I had Covid and 2 weeks after the illness symptoms the joint pain came back.  Fortunately, ti was only bad for 2 months the second time.  Which is why, unless mortality goes up to smallpox levels, I won't be doing a second dose, and I"m not doing flu or any other vaccine without a convincing reason.  If you spend months laying on the floor, you tend to gain weight, and the risks from that are known.  The risk assessment may changes as I get older, but right now I'm better off trying to get weight off than getting more shots that may lay me out again.  I spent 6 out of 12 months hobbling, and I'm not interestd in repeating that.  

[YaelAldrich]

The 2nd DS who got COVID again just last month in London tells my husband he now feels faint upon getting up from sitting. More I don't know if that's from covid or that he is a strict vegan who doesn't always eat the most varied of diets (not unhealthy just not varied). We have asked him to see a doctor for bloodwork. We will see if he does it there or back in Boston in December. 

[Roadrunner]

My Covid infection was the best infection I have gotten this year. I have had about 4-5 respiratory infections of sorts that weren’t Covid (my kid brought everything he could home). Fighting one as we speak. They were all so bad. Triggered my asthma. I was short of breath for months. Massive sinuses. On and off. Right now I am fighting one that won’t let me breath again.
Back to Covid. So in September I got Covid. Since I have several conditions that put me at high risk, I was sure I was going to be in the hospital. Instead I got a sore throat for two days and then my nose got sick. I don’t know how to describe this. I didn’t have a runny nose or sneezing or sinuses. Nothing. All I had was what seemed like a taste of sickness that resided in my nose. I didn’t even felt sick. My nose strangely felt sick with no nose symptoms. The most bizarre experience I have had. I can honestly say it was the most mild sickness I have ever experienced. 
Not saying this to minimize others’ experiences. I know right now of a 5 year old connected to breathing machine because of Covid. Her parents ignored the cold symptoms and now she has lost a function of one lung. It is Covid. 

[Not_a_Number]

16 minutes ago, YaelAldrich said:

The 2nd DS who got COVID again just last month in London tells my husband he now feels faint upon getting up from sitting. More I don't know if that's from covid or that he is a strict vegan who doesn't always eat the most varied of diets (not unhealthy just not varied). We have asked him to see a doctor for bloodwork. We will see if he does it there or back in Boston in December. 

I hope that goes away!! That's a bit scary. That's definitely something I've heard about happening after COVID. And DD10 was feeling lightheaded for a few days, too... hopefully that's gone. 

[Not_a_Number]

41 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

For the 2 of us with altered smell/taste, it  was back in 2 weeks.  We were all fatigued for a few weeks, but that's happened with other illnesses so it doesn't seem to be specific.  I do sometimes have the odd sensation of feeling like I burned my tongue when I haven't eaten anything to burn it, which is annoying but not really a problem.  

I had 2 months of joint pain that I'm attributing to Covid.  I've had less than ideal reactions to other shots, so I chose to do a 1-dose J&J.  After having the usual feverish symptoms for a few days...2 weeks later, I had joint pain that was everywhere but particularly bad in my hips.  For about 4 months, I could often barely walk and had to hold on to furniture to get around sometimes.  Any effort at exercise didn't cause 'pleasant soreness' - it was like a sprain-level of pain.  I mostly laid in the floor on a mat.  Fortunatley, I could drive just fine, so I took over all kid shuttling so that spouse could do the garden chores that I usually do.  No amount of stretching, resting, or 'pushing through' helped -  with 4 months, I had a chance to try them all.  Tylenol-type medicines helped, but I didn't want that to be a daily thing so I saved it for days when I needed to be on my feet.  Some days were Ok, and some were terrible. I was willing to believe that it wasn't the shot and that it was just some sort of inflammation, since my family does allergy, arthritis, and other inflammatory illness on a grand scale, until I had Covid and 2 weeks after the illness symptoms the joint pain came back.  Fortunately, ti was only bad for 2 months the second time.  Which is why, unless mortality goes up to smallpox levels, I won't be doing a second dose, and I"m not doing flu or any other vaccine without a convincing reason.  If you spend months laying on the floor, you tend to gain weight, and the risks from that are known.  The risk assessment may changes as I get older, but right now I'm better off trying to get weight off than getting more shots that may lay me out again.  I spent 6 out of 12 months hobbling, and I'm not interestd in repeating that.  

Oof, yikes. Frankly, I think we haven't been paying nearly enough attention to long-term vaccine side effects. As someone who had a headache for more than 2 weeks, I'm perfectly certain that there are more of them than people tend to report. Unfortunately, there's a serious incentive to downplay them 😕 . 

I'm glad it went away eventually, anyway. What's your plan with respect to COVID? Are you planning to mask up and try not to catch it? 

I've been trying to figure out what my plan is, exactly. I'm really hoping this bout of COVID helps me boost my immunity. I'm planning to at least try to get another COVID shot... side effects for 2+ weeks isn't great, but this COVID bout has lasted longer than that (and has been scarier), and I hear that's the best way to get immunity for a good while. 

But I don't know what next 😕 . I'm not willing to mask all the time, because it measurably decreases my quality of life. But I'm also really not excited about either getting COVID again or getting vaccinated often and spending months with a chronic pounding pain at the back of my head. Plus, DH got his booster literally a few weeks before he got COVID, and it didn't protect him at all, as far as we can tell. I mean, he didn't go to the hospital or anything, but his disease progression was dispiritingly like mine, except he stayed positive longer! '

So I don't know what to do, basically 😕 . 

[Roadrunner]

I am also not sure what to do about boosters. I don’t think I am going to get one. But if they come up with a better vaccine that has a significant potential to prevent an infection, I will take it. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Roadrunner said:

I am also not sure what to do about boosters. I don’t think I am going to get one. But if they come up with a better vaccine that has a significant potential to prevent an infection, I will take it. 

I'm getting this booster for sure because I want to get a booster on top of the COVID infection. From everything I've read, that supercharges the booster. And I'm going to cross my fingers it doesn't mess up my head for good 😕 . 

After that, no idea. Hoping for better vaccines, I think. No idea what I'll do if they don't come out with any. 

[Clemsondana]

5 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Oof, yikes. Frankly, I think we haven't been paying nearly enough attention to long-term vaccine side effects. As someone who had a headache for more than 2 weeks, I'm perfectly certain that there are more of them than people tend to report. Unfortunately, there's a serious incentive to downplay them 😕 . 

I'm glad it went away eventually, anyway. What's your plan with respect to COVID? Are you planning to mask up and try not to catch it? 

I've been trying to figure out what my plan is, exactly. I'm really hoping this bout of COVID helps me boost my immunity. I'm planning to at least try to get another COVID shot... side effects for 2+ weeks isn't great, but this COVID bout has lasted longer than that (and has been scarier), and I hear that's the best way to get immunity for a good while. 

But I don't know what next 😕 . I'm not willing to mask all the time, because it measurably decreases my quality of life. But I'm also really not excited about either getting COVID again or getting vaccinated often and spending months with a chronic pounding pain at the back of my head. Plus, DH got his booster literally a few weeks before he got COVID, and it didn't protect him at all, as far as we can tell. I mean, he didn't go to the hospital or anything, but his disease progression was dispiritingly like mine, except he stayed positive longer! '

So I don't know what to do, basically 😕 . 

I've just accepted Covid in the long list of unpleasant realities of life, like car accidents and other infectious illnesses.  Right now I've got a teen in my orbit dealing with long term GI problems following a bout with the flu 3 years ago.  I know another teen dealing with long term covid vaccine issues.  Two older relatives had concerning thick, sludgy blood following a booster and their doctor told them that he can no longer recommend it because of the rate of heart attacks and sludge-blood he's seeing - he doesn't advise against it, but he tells patients it's up to them.  We haven't masked much of anywhere in a year or more, and that's typical for the area.  My parents had covid last month and aren't changing anything, either.  As they say, they don't know how many years they have left, but they're goiing to do all the things while they can still walk, see, and hear enough to enjoy them.  We looked at the risk assessment early on and decided to mostly carry on, which may not be the right assessment for people with other health issues but we don't have any that we know of, except the weight brought on by the joint pain (and chocolate).  It's not that we don't know that there can be problems - we know how to math - but on the scale of risks in our life, late night drives home from various all-day activities that the kids do are probably more dangerous to us than covid, and that's even more true for the kids.  I've also got 2 kids with only a few more years at home.  I'm not missing one minute of their games and performances and social time that I don't have to.  If I get sick and feel bad for a long time, I felt bad for half of a year, so if I hurt somewhere else I'll deal with it too and try to be thankful that it's not worse.  And again, I'm not minimizing in any way the fact that of course there could be bad complications, but...years ago I had a friend whose fiance spent a month in the ICU.  All that the doctors could come up with was 'unknown virus'.  He eventually recovered after spending a stint in rehab.  So, I try to put 'relatively rare' in it's box and deal with the scarier things in my life...like, at the moment, having a teen driver, and knowing that in another 3 years I'll have 2 teen drivers on the road at the same time as my aging parents.  As risk goes, that's my bigger worry.  

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Clemsondana said:

I've just accepted Covid in the long list of unpleasant realities of life, like car accidents and other infectious illnesses.  Right now I've got a teen in my orbit dealing with long term GI problems following a bout with the flu 3 years ago.  I know another teen dealing with long term covid vaccine issues.  Two older relatives had concerning thick, sludgy blood following a booster and their doctor told them that he can no longer recommend it because of the rate of heart attacks and sludge-blood he's seeing - he doesn't advise against it, but he tells patients it's up to them.  We haven't masked much of anywhere in a year or more, and that's typical for the area.  My parents had covid last month and aren't changing anything, either.  As they say, they don't know how many years they have left, but they're goiing to do all the things while they can still walk, see, and hear enough to enjoy them.  We looked at the risk assessment early on and decided to mostly carry on, which may not be the right assessment for people with other health issues but we don't have any that we know of, except the weight brought on by the joint pain (and chocolate).  It's not that we don't know that there can be problems - we know how to math - but on the scale of risks in our life, late night drives home from various all-day activities that the kids do are probably more dangerous to us than covid, and that's even more true for the kids.  I've also got 2 kids with only a few more years at home.  I'm not missing one minute of their games and performances and social time that I don't have to.  If I get sick and feel bad for a long time, I felt bad for half of a year, so if I hurt somewhere else I'll deal with it too and try to be thankful that it's not worse.  And again, I'm not minimizing in any way the fact that of course there could be bad complications, but...years ago I had a friend whose fiance spent a month in the ICU.  All that the doctors could come up with was 'unknown virus'.  He eventually recovered after spending a stint in rehab.  So, I try to put 'relatively rare' in it's box and deal with the scarier things in my life...like, at the moment, having a teen driver, and knowing that in another 3 years I'll have 2 teen drivers on the road at the same time as my aging parents.  As risk goes, that's my bigger worry.  

Yeah. I totally get it. We've been on the same track for the last half a year, but DD10 getting lightheaded after COVID freaked us out a bit. Not enough that we want to totally change our lives around, but it has started me thinking again about risk assessment. 

What were the long term COVID vaccine issues for the teen, if you don't mind me asking? 

And yes, when I check, driving is more risky than COVID given my age. Certainly for death, and probably frankly for long-term disability (which is harder to look up for both.) So I know what you mean. 

[Clemsondana]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah. I totally get it. We've been on the same track for the last half a year, but DD10 getting lightheaded after COVID freaked us out a bit. Not enough that we want to totally change our lives around, but it has started me thinking again about risk assessment. 

What were the long term COVID vaccine issues for the teen, if you don't mind me asking? 

And yes, when I check, driving is more risky than COVID given my age. Certainly for death, and probably frankly for long-term disability (which is harder to look up for both.) So I know what you mean. 

The teen has POTS so her heart rate does crazy stuff.  She also has some weird skin conditions that the dermatologists couldn't figure out, but then when they found out that the kid had gotten a covid shot they acted like that was useful info so I'm guessing it's a known thing for them.  There have also been pain issues, such that the kid ended up in an inpatient pediatric pain clinic.  They can't definitively say that it's vaccine caused, but it all showed up rather quickly shortly afterwards.  It's led to some mental health issues requring intense treatment, since an athlete having to give it all up while in high school because there is too much pain is pretty devastating.  

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

The teen has POTS so her heart rate does crazy stuff.  She also has some weird skin conditions that the dermatologists couldn't figure out, but then when they found out that the kid had gotten a covid shot they acted like that was useful info so I'm guessing it's a known thing for them.  There have also been pain issues, such that the kid ended up in an inpatient pediatric pain clinic.  They can't definitively say that it's vaccine caused, but it all showed up rather quickly shortly afterwards.  It's led to some mental health issues requring intense treatment, since an athlete having to give it all up while in high school because there is too much pain is pretty devastating.  

Ugh. I'm sorry. That sucks for the teen 😕 . 

I've been really dismayed at how little good data there is out there. Most studies are based on flawed datasets and are worthless. And people don't want to touch studying long-term vaccine side effects with a 10-foot-pole, given the incentives, so then there just... aren't any studies, basically. Not ones that track people for a long time and aren't self-selected. 

So then I hear stories like yours, and I have my own experience, and there were posts about tinnitus on this board earlier, but I really have NO CLUE how frequent these side effects are at all, or whether they get worse or better with boosters/further doses... just nothing. It's freaky. 

[KSera]

51 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

And people don't want to touch studying long-term vaccine side effects with a 10-foot-pole, given the incentives, so then there just... aren't any studies, basically. Not ones that track people for a long time and aren't self-selected. 

So then I hear stories like yours, and I have my own experience, and there were posts about tinnitus on this board earlier, but I really have NO CLUE how frequent these side effects are at all, or whether they get worse or better with boosters/further doses... just nothing. It's freaky. 

All the above kinds of things would be considered vaccine side effects, which are studied. Long term effects would be things that show up later, significantly long after vaccination, which are what we haven’t seen happen with any vaccines. The side effects like tinnitus or myocarditis have shown up within a shorter time period.  I’m curious what makes you think no one is studying vaccine side effects? I’m signed up for two different ones that contact me on a regular basis post vaccine to find out any symptoms I might be having. Those will of course be self selected, because you can’t force someone to participate in a study like that.  But certainly people are studying it. 

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, Clemsondana said:

The teen has POTS so her heart rate does crazy stuff.  She also has some weird skin conditions that the dermatologists couldn't figure out, but then when they found out that the kid had gotten a covid shot they acted like that was useful info so I'm guessing it's a known thing for them.  There have also been pain issues, such that the kid ended up in an inpatient pediatric pain clinic.  They can't definitively say that it's vaccine caused, but it all showed up rather quickly shortly afterwards.  It's led to some mental health issues requring intense treatment, since an athlete having to give it all up while in high school because there is too much pain is pretty devastating.  

All three of my kids have EDS, which showed up suddenly as they reached their teen years, and includes POTS, pain issues that also necessitated a pain clinic and permanently sidelined my dancer, and MCAS. I know so many other young adults with this (including my DIL!), it's ridiculous.  This was all well before Covid.  Just saying, correlation is not always causation.  (They've all had Covid now, which knock wood doesn't seem to have made things worse, except for the one with the new monthly fevers).

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah. I totally get it. We've been on the same track for the last half a year, but DD10 getting lightheaded after COVID freaked us out a bit. Not enough that we want to totally change our lives around, but it has started me thinking again about risk assessment. 

What were the long term COVID vaccine issues for the teen, if you don't mind me asking? 

And yes, when I check, driving is more risky than COVID given my age. Certainly for death, and probably frankly for long-term disability (which is harder to look up for both.) So I know what you mean. 

I can’t for the life of me find decent road death data by age for my state. I’m married to someone who is a first responder and the fatalities he’s attended have been an underaged unlicensed teen using and ATV on road. One definite suicide (left a note for family) and one probable suicide/medical episode (based on driver behaviour - no swerving, breaking or avoidant action) and one older person who was a medical episode. One motorbike rider who was way way over the speed limit. No one in my age/demographic without an underlying cause. I wonder if we controlled road trauma for driver behaviour how many would actually be a good comparison for covid risk. (Not to minimise road trauma but it’s just what I see a lot of people do with covid stats - I’m not high risk, no underlying conditions,not obese) and then compare to raw road trauma data not controlling for driver behaviour (drink/drug driving, seat belt wearing, hours spent on the road, vehicle type, speeding etc).  I know our covid toll has massively dwarfed the road toll this year but it’s hard to compare accurately due to age etc. 

[Clemsondana]

4 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

All three of my kids have EDS, which showed up suddenly as they reached their teen years, and includes POTS, pain issues that also necessitated a pain clinic and permanently sidelined my dancer, and MCAS. I know so many other young adults with this (including my DIL!), it's ridiculous.  This was all well before Covid.  Just saying, correlation is not always causation.  (They've all had Covid now, which knock wood doesn't seem to have made things worse, except for the one with the new monthly fevers).

Of course it's possible that it's correlation.  But, between it all showing up in the weeks after this high schooler was vaccinated and the doctors not yet finding any underlying condition after more than a year of treatment...for now the doctors also seem to be working under the assumption that it's vaccine-related.  

[Clemsondana]

3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I can’t for the life of me find decent road death data by age for my state. I’m married to someone who is a first responder and the fatalities he’s attended have been an underaged unlicensed teen using and ATV on road. One definite suicide (left a note for family) and one probable suicide/medical episode (based on driver behaviour - no swerving, breaking or avoidant action) and one older person who was a medical episode. One motorbike rider who was way way over the speed limit. No one in my age/demographic without an underlying cause. I wonder if we controlled road trauma for driver behaviour how many would actually be a good comparison for covid risk. (Not to minimise road trauma but it’s just what I see a lot of people do with covid stats - I’m not high risk, no underlying conditions,not obese) and then compare to raw road trauma data not controlling for driver behaviour (drink/drug driving, seat belt wearing, hours spent on the road, vehicle type, speeding etc).  I know our covid toll has massively dwarfed the road toll this year but it’s hard to compare accurately due to age etc. 

I'd imagine that it varies by region.  We have DUI accidents, where the deceased is as often as not somebody who is hit by the drunk driver so that's not something that can be protected against very well.  We are also an area where a major east-west interstate intersects with a north-south interstate and where there is also a lot of agriculture reasonably nearby.  So, we have a lot of commercial semi traffic.  Cars involved in accidents with trucks don't seem to fare well due to the size disparity, even if the type of accident is the sort of thing that if it happened between 2 cars it wouldn't necessarily be catastrophic.  And then there's just the stupid happening around you.  My kid has a blind hill and an intersection where you have to be really careful due to the pladement of power poles blocking sight lines between our house and the high school where ball practice is.  Last week, a teammate decided to pass him on the blind hill.  Had there been an oncoming car...3 cars in that small space on a narrow would have been ugly.  I don't have a lot of faith that the teens who drive this route at the same time as my teen will suddenly develop adult brains, although my own teen seems to be pretty cautious about driving.   And, trucks often drive at night because there is less traffic and they can make better time, hence our statement about driving home - we are in Appalaichia - even our interstates are winding roads.  Beautiful scenic winding roads, but scary to share with a tractor-trailer at night.  

[Ausmumof3]

4 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

I'd imagine that it varies by region.  We have DUI accidents, where the deceased is as often as not somebody who is hit by the drunk driver so that's not something that can be protected against very well.  We are also an area where a major east-west interstate intersects with a north-south interstate and where there is also a lot of agriculture reasonably nearby.  So, we have a lot of commercial semi traffic.  Cars involved in accidents with trucks don't seem to fare well due to the size disparity, even if the type of accident is the sort of thing that if it happened between 2 cars it wouldn't necessarily be catastrophic.  And then there's just the stupid happening around you.  My kid has a blind hill and an intersection where you have to be really careful due to the pladement of power poles blocking sight lines between our house and the high school where ball practice is.  Last week, a teammate decided to pass him on the blind hill.  Had there been an oncoming car...3 cars in that small space on a narrow would have been ugly.  I don't have a lot of faith that the teens who drive this route at the same time as my teen will suddenly develop adult brains, although my own teen seems to be pretty cautious about driving.   And, trucks often drive at night because there is less traffic and they can make better time, hence our statement about driving home - we are in Appalaichia - even our interstates are winding roads.  Beautiful scenic winding roads, but scary to share with a tractor-trailer at night.  

Yes many many variables. Rural is definitely one of the biggest factors here as well, and I can imagine highways would make it worse. It’s just that in our anecdotal experience quite a small fraction of accidents don’t have some other factors involved. Definitely something to factor in when comparing risks anyway. And the comparisons with covid probably go further because the chance of ending up with long term disability etc is there as well. 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Ausmumof3

[Clemsondana]

10 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Yes many many variables. Rural is definitely one of the biggest factors here as well, and I can imagine highways would make it worse. It’s just that in our anecdotal experience quite a small fraction of accidents don’t have some other factors involved. Definitely something to factor in when comparing risks anyway. And the comparisons with covid probably go further because the chance of ending up with long term disability etc is there as well. 

Definitely.  We spent a decade in the desert southwest.  There is also a major interstate intersection there, and DUI accidents were an issue.  But, it's flat.  You can see for miles. The likelihood of a truck coming over a hill and hitting a car that had slammed on breaks to avoid a deer is zero.  Here, often one side of the road is a drop-off and the other side a cliff because they blasted paths through the mountains to put in a road.  There, if you pulled off the road to avoid an accident you'd just be on sand or rocks, even without a shoulder.  Very high speed limits possibly make crashes there more deadly but I'd expect many fewer just because of visibility.  In our area, we have a combo of rural roads - our house is on a road that is 1.5 lanes wide with no center line, so you have to be considerate for passing and slow down in the curves lest you meet somebody in a blind area - and high speed interstates.  The habits that one develops on one of them don't necessarily translate well to the other.  

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, Clemsondana said:

Of course it's possible that it's correlation.  But, between it all showing up in the weeks after this high schooler was vaccinated and the doctors not yet finding any underlying condition after more than a year of treatment...for now the doctors also seem to be working under the assumption that it's vaccine-related.  

Yeah, EDS has no underlying condition anyone can figure out either. It usually takes years to get a diagnosis. 

[Bambam]

I talked with my doctor about when to time my next booster since I had COVID the end of August-early September. 
CDC says wait at least 2 months.
Many experts recommend waiting 4-6 months.
She told me that she understands this latest booster does boost extremely well for 6-8 weeks (so well that even with close long exposure, you probably won't get sick), but after that falls back into the preventing hospitalization/death category. 
Our cases here are very low.
She suggested looking at the first of the year (so 4 months after my natural antibody increase) and seeing if cases/hospitalization was high (warning me that hospitalization is tricky right now because they are very short staffed on nurses, so they have X beds total but only X-Y are staffed beds) and then making a decision from there. Her advice was basically to get it after January 1st if cases were high, otherwise wait. 

[KSera]

8 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Two older relatives had concerning thick, sludgy blood following a booster and their doctor told them that he can no longer recommend it because of the rate of heart attacks and sludge-blood he's seeing

I would take anything a doctor who said this said about Covid with a big grain of salt, since no matter how you slice it, the heart attack and blood clot is much higher during and after Covid than from the vaccines (from which those are exceedingly rare events). If he’s seeing a lot those things happening (which a lot of doctors are), it’s far more likely that it’s because so many people have had Covid this year, since the association is strong with Covid, but not with the vaccine  

I wonder if the teen dealing with POTS had an asymptomatic/undiagnosed Covid infection beforehand. There’s an unfortunately high number of people getting those symptoms as part of their post Covid sequelae. 

[Catwoman]

On 11/12/2022 at 11:19 PM, Not_a_Number said:

Huh, that's really interesting about your temperature! I'm also cold all the time... and I'm still cold all the time, alas. That would be a good consequence!!

Watch what you wish for. 😉 

 

Signed,

The Queen of Hot Flashes

[Clemsondana]

2 hours ago, KSera said:

I would take anything a doctor who said this said about Covid with a big grain of salt, since no matter how you slice it, the heart attack and blood clot is much higher during and after Covid than from the vaccines (from which those are exceedingly rare events). If he’s seeing a lot those things happening (which a lot of doctors are), it’s far more likely that it’s because so many people have had Covid this year, since the association is strong with Covid, but not with the vaccine  

I wonder if the teen dealing with POTS had an asymptomatic/undiagnosed Covid infection beforehand. There’s an unfortunately high number of people getting those symptoms as part of their post Covid sequelae. 

In this person's case, they had the sludge-blood a few weeks after getting the vaccine.  8 months later they got covid.  They had a doctor's appt 2 weeks after having covid and bloodwork was normal.  We obviously can't do the experiment where the same person gets covid and then a vaccine, and then the vaccine and then covid unless you start looking at boosters, but that seems too confounded to sort out easily.  But, for the older person, the blood problem seemed to only correlate with the vaccine but not the infection.  I don't know enough about the teen's situation to know the order of things or whether there has ever been symptomatic covid.  

[sbgrace]

12 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm getting this booster for sure because I want to get a booster on top of the COVID infection. From everything I've read, that supercharges the booster. And I'm going to cross my fingers it doesn't mess up my head for good 😕 . 

After that, no idea. Hoping for better vaccines, I think. No idea what I'll do if they don't come out with any. 

Can you link or elaborate on this supercharging thing? Does timing matter? 

We had COVID in September. My kids will be going off to college next fall. I've been uncertain about the usefulness of another booster, especially for them, this spring. 

[Not_a_Number]

9 hours ago, sbgrace said:

Can you link or elaborate on this supercharging thing? Does timing matter? 

We had COVID in September. My kids will be going off to college next fall. I've been uncertain about the usefulness of another booster, especially for them, this spring. 

There are quite a few studies, all of relatively decent quality. Here's one link with just blood data (although that's not my favorite kind of study): 

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/study-finds-hybrid-or-super-immunity-against-covid-19-provides-most-protection

And here's one that's retrospective but is real-life data: 

https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2022/06/qatar-omicron-wave-study-shows-slow-decline-of-natural-immunity-rapid-decline-of

Honestly, this is pretty well-documented and uncontroversial, and I wish people would talk about it more. Natural immunity + vaccine is stronger and lasts longer than other types of immunity. 

You're also likely to have worse side effects with the vaccine, though. 

[Not_a_Number]

By the way, if you say you have ongoing sequelae, could you elaborate on how long it's been? Otherwise, it's a little hard to know what to do with that data. (I should have asked that!) 

[Not_a_Number]

Bumping this up for people who haven't voted. You can assume you had Omicron if you had COVID any time this calendar year, by the way, I think. 

[kristin0713]

Do you mean something as benign as temporary loss of smell or are you looking for more significant symptoms? 

[Terabith]

I would like to say something about losing sense of smell as a smoking gun in determining if someone had covid early on.  I am not in any way dismissing the idea that people might have had covid in March 2020.  It was clearly in the US, especially in NYC and Seattle (remember their”weird unexplained pneumonia outbreak” nobody could explain?).  But people have lost their sense of smell after viruses since well before covid.  My mother lost hers after a bout with pneumonia in 2018.  Covid is unique in that it causes it so frequently, not that it’s the only illness which can cause it. 
 

I mostly lost sense of smell (but not taste, which was kinda weird), and it came back gradually.  It was improved but not back to normal by a month after.  It’s been 2.5 months now, and it’s been fully back for awhile but not sure if it’s where it was before.  I think so though?  I felt fine and returned to a pretty active job five days after infection (in mask).  My husband took a few weeks to get his energy back and he coughed longer with initial bout.  

[Farrar]

Some of these long term effects seem semi-obvious. You get Covid, the Covid symptom persists. A to B. Easy to know.

But I'm sure I'm not the only person here who had Covid and has other health things that have cropped up in the months after. And maybe they could be related. But probably not. But who knows? No one. And I'll never know either. Like, is this aging? Perimenopause? Covid aftereffects? Genetics? No one will ever be able to say.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Farrar

[KSera]

45 minutes ago, Farrar said:

But I'm sure I'm not the only person here who had Covid and has other health things that have cropped up in the months after. And maybe they could be related. But probably not. But who knows? No one. And I'll never know either. Like, is this aging? Perimenopause? Covid aftereffects? Genetics? No one will ever be able to say.

Agree. It’s the same whether people had health things crop up after having Covid or after the vaccine—anecdotes don’t tell you anything about cause and effect. There are things that are more obvious, like you say—a symptom starting with Covid and not going away for example. But overall we have to rely on looking at whole populations or larger study groups to know what is and isn’t increasing after Covid. This doesn’t of course mean that individuals suffering long term effects after Covid shouldn’t be treated as such and assumed by providers to have long Covid unless otherwise indicated. Just that anecdotes don’t allow us to draw conclusions. 
 

I know there have been some particular markers that have been seen on tests in people with long Covid symptoms, so it’s possible that eventually you would be able to have some kind of test that would help determine if your symptoms might have stemmed from your Covid infection or if they are something else. 

[kbutton]

I didn't answer previously because we were still too close to our Covid infection to really know.

My sequelae is minor but annoying. My plantar warts that have been dormant for years are sore again. Not particularly sore, but annoying. It started a couple of weeks ago, and is still going on (infection in late October, very, very mild). I assume it's a reactivation of the underlying virus that caused the warts, which is why I am assuming that it's related to Covid. 

DS is having some lung issues, but they came on slowly a couple of weeks post-Covid and were not present during his infection. The tricky part in reporting is that he's got existing lung issues that were largely asymptomatic until he had surgery and PEs this summer, so it's not a clear picture. Some of his symptoms are being attributed to a birth defect that was asymptomatic and discovered in his pre-surgical workup. His lungs had gone back to his normal baseline for the most part after surgery and PEs until Covid, and as I said, he didn't have lung issues with Covid. It's all just weird and clear as mud. He had two boosters (one in late July or early August) due to being more vulnerable, but he hadn't had his bivalent booster yet--he was just barely into an eligible timeframe for it when he got Covid.

DH has an intermittent but easily controlled cough that was not present pre-Covid infection, usually in the evening. I think it's going away. It presents basically like mild allergies would if he stops taking his allergy meds and does something like raking the leaves before resuming his meds. 

On 11/15/2022 at 12:32 AM, Clemsondana said:

The teen has POTS so her heart rate does crazy stuff.  She also has some weird skin conditions that the dermatologists couldn't figure out, but then when they found out that the kid had gotten a covid shot they acted like that was useful info so I'm guessing it's a known thing for them.  There have also been pain issues, such that the kid ended up in an inpatient pediatric pain clinic.  They can't definitively say that it's vaccine caused, but it all showed up rather quickly shortly afterwards.  It's led to some mental health issues requring intense treatment, since an athlete having to give it all up while in high school because there is too much pain is pretty devastating.  

Have they ruled out dermatomyositis? It's ridiculously hard to diagnose, and there is more than one type. It often includes skin issues. Pain can be a big deal. A lot of autoimmune flairs (including onset) can be very, very abrupt. 

On 11/15/2022 at 2:39 AM, Matryoshka said:

All three of my kids have EDS, which showed up suddenly as they reached their teen years, and includes POTS, pain issues that also necessitated a pain clinic and permanently sidelined my dancer, and MCAS. I know so many other young adults with this (including my DIL!), it's ridiculous.  This was all well before Covid.  Just saying, correlation is not always causation.  (They've all had Covid now, which knock wood doesn't seem to have made things worse, except for the one with the new monthly fevers).

Agreed. 

On 11/15/2022 at 12:20 PM, Clemsondana said:

In this person's case, they had the sludge-blood a few weeks after getting the vaccine.  8 months later they got covid.  They had a doctor's appt 2 weeks after having covid and bloodwork was normal.  We obviously can't do the experiment where the same person gets covid and then a vaccine, and then the vaccine and then covid unless you start looking at boosters, but that seems too confounded to sort out easily.  But, for the older person, the blood problem seemed to only correlate with the vaccine but not the infection.  I don't know enough about the teen's situation to know the order of things or whether there has ever been symptomatic covid.  

Part of my skepticism is the term sludge-blood, TBH. Is that your term or something a doctor said? If a doctor said that to me in the context of Covid, I would feel like they had a bias about the vaccine. It's just not very medical, and practitioners can be biased too--my kids' first pediatrician told me that she didn't believe in infant reflux. It was really not helpful, to say the least, and we changed doctors partly as a result of that major, short-sighted bias. I have seen some medical literature (usually geared toward patients) use the term "sticky blood," and it's clearly a nickname; it's used to describe antiphospholipid antibody syndrome sometimes, and the literature is really just acknowledging that it's a term that gets thrown around colloquially rather than encouraging use of the term. That syndrome can cause clots. If someone had sluggish blood due to something like a different clotting time, their blood might be thinner after taking ibuprofen or other NSAIDS for aches and pains during Covid.

Some people have thicker blood or clot more readily--neither DH nor I can donate blood because we clot off before the bag is full. ***ETA: If I take a baby aspiring daily, it makes a difference in how thin my blood is (I started taking one daily because of familial clotting risk that no one can pinpoint causation for across the board).

Anyway, whether that applies to your DD or not, it's a potential explanation for why someone might have thicker blood at one point and thinner at another, though since I don't know what criteria the doctor was using to diagnose sludge-blood, it may be moot. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by kbutton

[Clemsondana]

9 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I didn't answer previously because we were still too close to our Covid infection to really know.

My sequelae is minor but annoying. My plantar warts that have been dormant for years are sore again. Not particularly sore, but annoying. It started a couple of weeks ago, and is still going on (infection in late October, very, very mild). I assume it's a reactivation of the underlying virus that caused the warts, which is why I am assuming that it's related to Covid. 

DS is having some lung issues, but they came on slowly a couple of weeks post-Covid and were not present during his infection. The tricky part in reporting is that he's got existing lung issues that were largely asymptomatic until he had surgery and PEs this summer, so it's not a clear picture. Some of his symptoms are being attributed to a birth defect that was asymptomatic and discovered in his pre-surgical workup. His lungs had gone back to his normal baseline for the most part after surgery and PEs until Covid, and as I said, he didn't have lung issues with Covid. It's all just weird and clear as mud. He had two boosters (one in late July or early August) due to being more vulnerable, but he hadn't had his bivalent booster yet--he was just barely into an eligible timeframe for it when he got Covid.

DH has an intermittent but easily controlled cough that was not present pre-Covid infection, usually in the evening. I think it's going away. It presents basically like mild allergies would if he stops taking his allergy meds and does something like raking the leaves before resuming his meds. 

Have they ruled out dermatomyositis? It's ridiculously hard to diagnose, and there is more than one type. It often includes skin issues. Pain can be a big deal. A lot of autoimmune flairs (including onset) can be very, very abrupt. 

Agreed. 

Part of my skepticism is the term sludge-blood, TBH. Is that your term or something a doctor said? If a doctor said that to me in the context of Covid, I would feel like they had a bias about the vaccine. It's just not very medical, and practitioners can be biased too--my kids' first pediatrician told me that she didn't believe in infant reflux. It was really not helpful, to say the least, and we changed doctors partly as a result of that major, short-sighted bias. I have seen some medical literature (usually geared toward patients) use the term "sticky blood," and it's clearly a nickname; it's used to describe antiphospholipid antibody syndrome sometimes, and the literature is really just acknowledging that it's a term that gets thrown around colloquially rather than encouraging use of the term. That syndrome can cause clots. If someone had sluggish blood due to something like a different clotting time, their blood might be thinner after taking ibuprofen or other NSAIDS for aches and pains during Covid.

Some people have thicker blood or clot more readily--neither DH nor I can donate blood because we clot off before the bag is full. ***ETA: If I take a baby aspiring daily, it makes a difference in how thin my blood is (I started taking one daily because of familial clotting risk that no one can pinpoint causation for across the board).

Anyway, whether that applies to your DD or not, it's a potential explanation for why someone might have thicker blood at one point and thinner at another, though since I don't know what criteria the doctor was using to diagnose sludge-blood, it may be moot. 

The term was mine.  The doctor had started off recommending the vaccine and boosters to at least his older patients (I don't know any younger patients so I don't know what was recommended to them).  But, this patient also has a stent and blood pressure issues putting them at risk for stroke.  The cardiologist had upped them to 2 aspirin after seeing it due to likelihood of complications with the stent.  But, like I said, this person has donated blood for 40 years and never had thick blood - if anything, their blood pressure is high enough that they are a 'speed donor'.  They really had to work to get blood out of him that time.  But, they just had Covid so at this point it doesn't matter.  

[Not_a_Number]

10 hours ago, KSera said:

Agree. It’s the same whether people had health things crop up after having Covid or after the vaccine—anecdotes don’t tell you anything about cause and effect. There are things that are more obvious, like you say—a symptom starting with Covid and not going away for example. But overall we have to rely on looking at whole populations or larger study groups to know what is and isn’t increasing after Covid. This doesn’t of course mean that individuals suffering long term effects after Covid shouldn’t be treated as such and assumed by providers to have long Covid unless otherwise indicated. Just that anecdotes don’t allow us to draw conclusions. 
 

I know there have been some particular markers that have been seen on tests in people with long Covid symptoms, so it’s possible that eventually you would be able to have some kind of test that would help determine if your symptoms might have stemmed from your Covid infection or if they are something else. 

Yeah, it's a really hard problem!!! As you say, you either have to look at population-wide stuff or find some reliable marker for COVID damage... 

[Not_a_Number]

14 hours ago, kristin0713 said:

Do you mean something as benign as temporary loss of smell or are you looking for more significant symptoms? 

I think probably more significant than that, unless loss of smell lasted a while?? 

[Not_a_Number]

As for me, I don't even know how to answer my own poll, lol. I seem to be mostly back to normal after a month. But my first attempt to go back to physical activity was definitely a bad idea and resulted in labored breathing and chest pain. I've been taking it fairly easy for a week now. 

Then again, I'm known for having all colds linger for 2+ weeks and I'm ridiculously prone to bronchitis. So, if I keep recovering normally, it won't be that different from my usual experience with respiratory illnesses. But we'll see. 

[BeachGal]

I don’t know where to post information about Long Covid so I’ll post it here unless you’d like to keep it just for stats, NAN, in which case I’ll move it elsewhere or start a new thread.

Many of the LC symptoms align with particular amino acid deficiencies and other nutrient deficiencies. This study might be something to watch if LC is affecting you or someone you know. Remnants of spike protein or other things could still be causing problems as well but the amino acid treatment could help someone improve.

 

https://www.barrons.com/articles/long-covid-axcella-stock-51635275843

A long list of patients want to be seen at the Oxford University clinic where Betty Raman studies people suffering from “Long Covid”—the breathlessness, fatigue, and depression that afflicts some who have recovered from Covid-19’s acute symptoms. It is as if their batteries no longer hold a charge.

That is why Raman agreed to collaborate with Axcella Health (ticker: AXLA) to treat Long Covid patients with Axcella’s proprietary mix of amino acids, in a clinical trial announced Tuesday. Axcella has already shown promising evidence that its amino acid composition can improve metabolism in people with certain liver diseases. The new study will see if Axcella’s stuff can jump-start the cellular energy centers known as mitochondria, which malfunction in certain patients after infection by SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses.

Because Axcella’s amino acids have shown potential to improve mitochondrial function in other diseases, Raman told Barron’s, she is hopeful it might have some benefit for her Long Covid patients.

At Oxford, Raman uses an imaging tool called magnetic resonance spectroscopy to sensitively measure the energy metabolism in people’s muscles as they exercise. The new Phase 2 study will take those measurements for 40 Long Covid patients, before randomly deciding which get Axcella’s treatment and which receive a placebo. After four weeks. the study subjects will be tested again.

“We hope to be able to repair the battery and recharge it,” said Axcella Chief Executive Bill Hinshaw, Jr.

The Long Covid project was the headline news at a research update that Axcella hosted on Tuesday morning. The little Cambridge, Mass., company was founded more than a decade ago to find treatments for metabolic malfunctions and inflammatory diseases, using novel combinations of natural amino acids normally found in the body.

Axcella has two Phase 2 studies of its amino acid combos under way in patients with damaged livers, after initial trials showed improvement in blood glucose and inflammation levels. Its amino acids come in easy-to-drink powder mixes.

Axcella is one of the many public companies spun out by biotech venture creator Noubar Afeyan, whose Flagship Pioneering is known for birthing the Covid vaccine developer Moderna (MRNA). As the world’s most valuable biotech company, with a market capitalization of about $140 billion, Moderna is Flagship’s biggest success.

Axcella isn’t. Not yet, anyway. After an initial public offering at $20 in May 2019, Axcella stock has sunk below $3, for a market cap barely above $100 million. That’s not much above the value of the cash on Axcella’s balance sheet, which is also enough to see the firm through its clinical trials.

With so few expectations implied in its stock price, Axcella is a cheap way to bet on Afeyan and his Flagship colleagues.

And it shouldn’t take long to know if Axcella’s treatment can help with Long Covid. “This is a problem with huge significance for economies, as well as the healthcare systems,” says Oxford’s Raman. “The need to find treatments is pressing and urgent.”

[BeachGal]

Axcella study results. Partial success: alleviated symptoms such as fatigue, etc in a few but did not improve mitochondrial function. Some tweaking might help.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/axcella-long-covid-treatment-helps-some-patients-small-trial-2022-08-02/

[TCB]

@BeachGal I think it might be good to have a thread with long Covid data. I find it difficult to evaluate the huge amount of information available, pertaining to long Covid, and would really like a place where I could hear from those of you who are able to evaluate the information better than I can.

[BeachGal]

1 hour ago, TCB said:

@BeachGal I think it might be good to have a thread with long Covid data. I find it difficult to evaluate the huge amount of information available, pertaining to long Covid, and would really like a place where I could hear from those of you who are able to evaluate the information better than I can.

I think a new thread would be good, too. I’m off to see my kids today but if anyone wants to start the thread, feel free!

[TCB]

5 hours ago, BeachGal said:

I think a new thread would be good, too. I’m off to see my kids today but if anyone wants to start the thread, feel free!

I started a Long Covid thread. I don’t know how to link it here.

[BeachGal]

https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/722769-long-covid-information-and-therapies/

Maybe the link above will work…