Not to get too personal, but how's your blood pressure? If you have a cuff, may I suggest taking a reading when it's really bothersome. FWIW, I think COVID-HBP-Tinnitus is linked somehow.
Nothing personal about it. I wish more people shared their COVID journey.
My blood pressure is fine. When this all started I was a super healthy guy. That said, I am on ADHD medication, but regardless of whether I take them or not, the beep is there. Even if I don't take them for multiple days.
(I had hip surgery recently, so I put on some pounds).
If you want to look to more objective measures, since late 2021 there has been a ICD code assigned to long Covid (so it is diagnosed by a medical professional, not self report).
Now, you could continue to be really skeptical (are these really Covid related, or would these have happened absent Covid?). To say zero scientific evidence though seems to me to be sticking your head in the sand.
I’m sure some post-viral syndrome characteristic of Covid exists, but a diagnostic code does not a diseass make.
A brief look through the history of those ICD and DSM codes emphasize how their are sorts of factors that go into establishing, revising, and retracting codes — political, administrative, clinical, epidemiological, etc etc
In fact, it’s normal for a code to show up as a bucket to help broadly track purported cases well before any etiological basis or scientific consensus is established. The codes are more of an input to science than an output.
Is there zero evidence? No, of course not. However, the amount of evidence is so ridiculously skimpy, even after multiple years of study, that at this point I have no interest in entertaining the idea.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has a similar link to other viruses and fibromyalgia quite possibly does as well. They haven't really made a whole lot of progress on those for decades despite them each affecting a percent or two of the population..
My interest is less in long covid than in whether the medical community is finally going to get itself together on viral induced damage instead of making up funny names for different combinations of damage.
Some people were debilitated for years after Spanish Flu, more recently people had very similar issues after getting SARs. The SARs long term impacts cross over really strongly with Long Covid.
It would be great it is was hysteria, but sadly it isn't - I've had to watch my wife go through this (who wants nothing more than to live the life she once did). 3 years in she's vastly improved, but still has range of issues.
It is so odd how people are so desperate to call bullshit on long covid, when they know so little about it.
> It is so odd how people are so desperate to call bullshit on long covid
It's the other way around. This is something that didn't exist just a few years ago, that has no verifiable way to test it other than self-reports. Most of us have moved on, or weren't that scared of the virus itself.
I think some people are desperate for long covid to be a thing.
It absolutely existed, ME/CFS has been known for a long time, and persistent post-viral symptoms after other infections are a thing.
Even if you find the evidence for long covid weak, there's much stronger evidence on the cardiovascular and neurological damage COVID causes, both of which can in turn explain long COVID.
Maybe you and the other user (ljf) are both right, but we'll probably never know. All of the people I know who had covid, including my 84 and 87 year old grandmas had no lasting effects. It run through them like a flu.
I don't even know if I had it or not because I never got tested nor vaccinated for it. Same as my gf, her sister and her sister's boyfriend.
The only person who mentioned lasting effects was my uncle, who is a known hypochondriac, and it was all over the place: lack of strength and brain fog, and other weird symptoms. After a while he just stopped talking about it. I've seen lots of people claiming all sorts of symptoms for covid and long covid: impotence, menstruation issues, constipation, ear pain, tinnitus, etc. So many that it's impossible to really determine if that's what's causing it or if other million of things that could be going wrong in the human body (including suggestion/nocebo).
An anecdote is an anecdote, means nothing. You're right that the studies estimating long COVID prevalence have shaky foundations, but we've also had ones from the original strains, when the rate of really debilitating post-covid symptoms was way, way higher, and while that's clearly not the case, the mechanism of the virus transmission is still the same, the physiological damage is still evident, and people going from well to disabled is still happening.
I think they need a better definition of what 'long covid' is .. and even in the article they even also refer to 'severe long covid'
.. and that these could get better after 7 months?
I know it took me about a year and a half to recover.. I guess that puts me in the 'long covid' group although I have never really been diagnosed as such.. probably just due to my age and ability to 'deal' with it. (compared to older people)
I imagine the numbers are probably higher than they suggest because I imagine most people who are sufferers are also just 'dealing' with it on their own.
To support this anecdatally, I had severe pneumonia Senior Year in High School. Absolutely wrecked my health and athletic ability for years — and I was an active runner and participant in various combat sports.
Severe infections and diseases wreck your body in the same way a car crash or a serious athletic injury does. It leaves a mark on the body.
Long Covid seems real enough and we should do more to find ways to combat it from onset — I am afraid the current sufferers might only find mitigations and not total solutions.
23 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 59.5 ms ] threadAnd COVID pushed me over the edge. 24/7 screaming tinnitus.
My blood pressure is fine. When this all started I was a super healthy guy. That said, I am on ADHD medication, but regardless of whether I take them or not, the beep is there. Even if I don't take them for multiple days.
(I had hip surgery recently, so I put on some pounds).
And I'll get a cuff. Thanks for suggesting.
I hope you find some relief.
The article links to a study as proof of this. The study is based on "self-reported long COVID" data.
So, once again, zero scientific evidence for long covid, only that people reported that they thought they had long covid.
For example, https://www.dovepress.com/positive-predictive-value-of-the-i..., A Danish cohort of over 20k people that had a positive Covid test, 1.4% have subsequently been diagnosed with long Covid.
Now, you could continue to be really skeptical (are these really Covid related, or would these have happened absent Covid?). To say zero scientific evidence though seems to me to be sticking your head in the sand.
A brief look through the history of those ICD and DSM codes emphasize how their are sorts of factors that go into establishing, revising, and retracting codes — political, administrative, clinical, epidemiological, etc etc
In fact, it’s normal for a code to show up as a bucket to help broadly track purported cases well before any etiological basis or scientific consensus is established. The codes are more of an input to science than an output.
My interest is less in long covid than in whether the medical community is finally going to get itself together on viral induced damage instead of making up funny names for different combinations of damage.
Now friends or family raising money locally on behalf of an ill loved one... that is more common
It would be great it is was hysteria, but sadly it isn't - I've had to watch my wife go through this (who wants nothing more than to live the life she once did). 3 years in she's vastly improved, but still has range of issues.
It is so odd how people are so desperate to call bullshit on long covid, when they know so little about it.
> It is so odd how people are so desperate to call bullshit on long covid
It's the other way around. This is something that didn't exist just a few years ago, that has no verifiable way to test it other than self-reports. Most of us have moved on, or weren't that scared of the virus itself.
I think some people are desperate for long covid to be a thing.
Check out https://www.science.org/content/article/blood-abnormalities-...
You started this by saying you had done zero research, if you want to chat more I'm happy to, there is plenty of study in this area.
Even if you find the evidence for long covid weak, there's much stronger evidence on the cardiovascular and neurological damage COVID causes, both of which can in turn explain long COVID.
I don't even know if I had it or not because I never got tested nor vaccinated for it. Same as my gf, her sister and her sister's boyfriend.
The only person who mentioned lasting effects was my uncle, who is a known hypochondriac, and it was all over the place: lack of strength and brain fog, and other weird symptoms. After a while he just stopped talking about it. I've seen lots of people claiming all sorts of symptoms for covid and long covid: impotence, menstruation issues, constipation, ear pain, tinnitus, etc. So many that it's impossible to really determine if that's what's causing it or if other million of things that could be going wrong in the human body (including suggestion/nocebo).
.. and that these could get better after 7 months?
I know it took me about a year and a half to recover.. I guess that puts me in the 'long covid' group although I have never really been diagnosed as such.. probably just due to my age and ability to 'deal' with it. (compared to older people)
I imagine the numbers are probably higher than they suggest because I imagine most people who are sufferers are also just 'dealing' with it on their own.
Severe infections and diseases wreck your body in the same way a car crash or a serious athletic injury does. It leaves a mark on the body.
Long Covid seems real enough and we should do more to find ways to combat it from onset — I am afraid the current sufferers might only find mitigations and not total solutions.